1 Million Dollars in 365 days…

“… although it may not always come in the package you were expecting”

Well folks, I believe this will be my last post before my time frame of 365 days is up. I started writing this particular blog post in Perth, Australia. I am now in my original home town of Somerset West, South Africa.

When I took up this challenge, 364 days ago, I could not have dreamt that I would have experienced all the joys, challenges & range of emotions that I have encountered thus far.  The people I have connected with, because of my journey have been amazing! So I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your inspiration, feedback, help & love over the past year.

To recap, for those of you who don’t know, just over a year ago I had an experience that changed my life. I was struggling to make it as a real estate agent. I had a lovely fiance and a little 6 month old boy and not money. My fiance was forced to go back to work, while I juggling my straining career and looking after my son. When I thought it couldn’t get any worse it did - we were broke and the strain was tremendous.

I spent my nights in tears on the phone to my mum, begging her for money to pay that weeks rent. We were piled high in debt, credit cards, store cards & personal loans. I had to borrow money from my younger brother to pay for groceries so that my family could eat. I even asked my 90 year-old grandmother for a thousand dollars at one stage.

As you can imagine, this put stress on my relationship with my fiance, family & friends. It was my 26th birthday (6th October 2008), when I decided that enough was enough. I knew that I had to do something different if I wanted to change my love and the lives of those I cared about.

I made a goal, to make $1 Million dollars in 365 days. From that moment on, my life has changed. I no longer was a spectator in my life, going with the flow and making excuses for why I couldn’t do certain things and placing blame on external factors.

I was now in control of my life. I realised that I needed to do some different things in order to achieve some different results. My plan was to start this blog and update my journey as I went, culminating at my final goal - 365 days on.

One of the challenges at the end of this time frame for me, was to quantify all of the success I have had & been privileged to enjoy. I didn’t want to seem egotistical and at the same time I wanted to keep the relationships I had built with my readers, a truthful one. So I’ve decided to talk about the areas of success that I have focused on, for the past year. Not to show off, but to show you that you can achieve everything you want in life, just by simply changing the way you think.

There are many areas that I invested in, on my journey:

• Family- my number one priority. Because it’s when I’m with my family that I am happiest. My family bring me more joy than anything else in the world. I’ve managed to spend quality time with my family on this journey. The following year is going to hold even more time for my family.

• Friends - value them and keep them close. Don’t be afraid to have too many friends or to give out more love, it’s amazing how much love one person can have. I don’t have time for hate, it will not get me where I want to go.

• Holidays - I like to celebrate my successes, and part of this for me is to spend time away from attaining my other goals and just focus on enjoying myself with my loved ones. Have little break aways, they don’t have to be expensive and you’ll be amazed at how you can recharge your batteries with just a few days away.

• International Travel - one of my favourite things to do. I love experiencing new cultures & getting to know people in other countries. I love that I can provide this experience my my family and children. I believe that it gives them a better grounding and respect for others.

• Property - We managed to purchase our first home in March this year which was an amazing experience. We love our home and I feel very blessed to call it my home. It’s great to entertain family & friends. It’s a base for me to reflect on life and a sanctuary for our family.

• Business (for myself) - I’ve always been interested in business. At first it was about making money, but I soon realised that I’m not going to be successful by focusing on money. I’m in business to help people, to help myself, my family & the world. I love being able to take an idea and make it a reality. We often don’t give ourselves enough credit as to what we’re actually capable of. I’ve been involved in a number of start-ups and believe there’s no better way than by actually “doing” it.

• Work(for someone else) - An instrumental part of my success has been my full time job. I have been privileged enough to work for a company that has a great team of people. I’ve been able to apply what I have learnt on my journey so far, to achieve some great successes. My job gives me flexible time & security. It has also been a great place to learn from others and through my job I have met many interesting and inspirational people.

• Giving - before I started this, I didn’t really believe in giving and always felt that “charity starts at home”. There’s no better feeling than being able to help someone else. Whether you are volunteering with time or money, you can have a massive impact. It’s been challenging at times (see my marathon) but there’s nothing like other people relying on you to push yourself and see what you are capable of!

• Mental - this is a big thing for me. I’ve realised that your mind is very important in everything we do. You need to be careful what you let in your mind, because it all influences who you are. I’ve spent the last year
  re-training” my mind and making certain things habits. You can train yourself to do anything. I mean how many of us have bad habits? Why not focus on good habits instead?

• Health - With my holistic view on success, I’ve been able to focus on my health. I want to be able to enjoy my kids and my family. I don’t want to be stressed out and die at a young age. I’ve realised the importance of regular exercise. We all know what we should be doing, I’ve just been able to put it into action. It’s about empowering your body and mind, so you need to look after yourself too.

• Relationships - I feel that I’m a better father & husband than I was 12 months ago. I feel more connected with my wider family and my circle of friends has expanded rapidly. It’s like moths being drawn to light - if you’re positive and empowering then people are drawn to you - they want to be around you. So all you have to do is make the decision to be positive and empowering. And don’t get hung up if you don’t succeed all the time - just keep trying

• Personal Development - I’ve attended a personal development seminar, attend courses & read books that empower me and help me achieve my goals. This helps me reprogram my brain so that I am more successful in what I do. I like to learn from others, so often seek advice from people that have “been there, done that”. I’ve met some amazing people and learnt from every one of them and will continue to do so.

So the big question is “How did I do all of this”? Well, I took advice from lots of people. I studied other successful people and I believed in myself. I’ve lost count of the number of people that have laughed at me and what I’m doing. It was a challenge for me to get past what people think. Now I feel so liberated because I know that I can actually achieve anything I want in life. I now gladly tell people what I’m doing. If they laugh, they stop pretty quickly once they see the conviction in my face.

Sometimes you have to hear things a number of times before you take any notice. All I did was take ACTION on things that lots of people have told me since I was born.

“I hope that this is yourmoment. Maybe you’ve had goals in the past, done things, heard successful people speak, done personal development - whatever. Well this is your time, this is your chance to prove yourself, to make a difference, to live the life that your dreams are made of! How? Just choose to take action right now. That is what has started me on this wonderful journey.”

I’m not asking for money, you don’t have to buy anything. All I’m saying is give it a go - what do you have to lose other than everything you’ve ever wanted? It’s better to give it a go now, than to wish you’d given it a go when you’re lying on your death bed.

THE WEEK BEFORE I ACHIEVED MY GRAND DREAM GOAL:

I’m in a strange place right now. I’m in this beautiful country where I grew up. I’m staying at a luxurious apartment with amazing views, a pro golf course & beautiful sunny weather, yet I feel as though I’m missing something.

On my journey I’ve learnt a lot things to help me through difficult times, and I’ve never come up against a challenge quite like this. It was a long flight with our two beautiful children. We even brought my mother-in-law with us to help with the kids. We have been looking forward to this trip for months! The main reason was to attend my best friend’s wedding in South Africa and then show my family where I grew up and introduce them to a large contingent of family and friends in South Africa.

After spending our first night in South Africa, we awoke excited and eager to explore. While we were getting ready that morning, we received a phone call - my father in law had suddenly passed away. To say that this news was shocking was an understatement. All of a sudden everything changed.

After a very busy 24 hours, we managed to get my wife, mother-in-law and 2 kids back on flights to New Zealand. I am now still in South Africa for my best friend’s wedding on Saturday. We are often faced with difficult decisions. I am so grateful that  have such a strong wife. She has truly been amazing.

The last year has been incredible for me. I’ve learnt so much, achieved so much, met so many amazing people and totally transformed my life and that of my family. My father in law’s sudden death has reminded me, once again, how precious life is and that we really do need to treasure every second of every day.

This isn’t the ending I had envisaged for my last week, however it has certainly put things into perspective again for me. After much soul searching, I have decided what I will be doing with my life and how I will continue on and help others to achieve their goals. To get through the last few days, I’ve had to really use my “gratitude” tool. This basically involves me asking myself “what am I grateful for” and “what’s great about this”. While often, especially in times of despair, these are the most difficult questions to answer, if you keep asking them, eventually you will get the answers you have been searching for.

If you are reading this right now - then you are unbelievably blessed to still be here on this earth. Don’t waste any more precious time. Enjoy yourself & love everybody. God Bless.

Ryan Kilfoil - aka The Kiwi Millionaire

I would like to dedicate my final blog post to an amazing, talented, clever & passionate man, loving father, husband & son. To John Stone, may you rest in peace and may your memory continue to inspire us all.

Ok, so I’m not sure if “sidewards” is actually a word, but I was trying to keep the theme flowing throughout the heading! How are we all doing today folks? Are we excited? Or are we reading this with our eyes half closed, trying to pass the time before we get to go home…where we will spend the next few hours watching mind-numbing tv?

“HELL NO” I year you say! Most excellent! Because, as a long time reader of this blog you know how lucky we are to be here today, to have another bash at life and another 24 hours in which we can do ANYTHING WE WANT! Now is that exciting or what?

So, no matter what time of the day or night you are reading this, be grateful. Be grateful that you have the ability to see this blog, that you have access to the amazing world of the internet.

You now have some decisions to make:

• What I am going to do with the next 24 hours?
• Who am I going to spend my time with?
• What am I going to contribute to?
• How I am going to feel for these next 24 hours?

Take a moment and find a pen and piece of paper and you write these 4 questions down, then spend the next 5 minutes, answering them.Be honest with yourself. How did you answer these questions? Did you answer with the normal everyday stuff, like “go to work”, feel “depressed” or “angry”. My guess is that you didn’t. I think you wrote about the things and people you feel passionate about. The things that make you feel good and empowered. Happy and successful.

As strange as it may seem, you actually ask yourself these questions everyday.

And you answer them…

• You choose what you are going to do with your time.

• You choose who you spend your time with.

• You choose what’s important to you and what you want to contribute to.

• You choose exactly how you are going to feel, every moment of every day.

It may be a bit hard to swallow, but it’s the truth. We are all responsible for what happens in our lives. I’m not saying everything is your faults, but at the end of the day - you have the choice as to how you want to handle a situation, challenge or success.

So if your written answers to those 4 questions, aren’t what you normally do every day - then maybe it’s time to take some serious action and change the things you do everyday, so you start living the life you want. It’s your choice and I know there’s lots of support for you out there.

So give it a go…

I think this is what gets us through life. Sometimes when all the cards are stacked against you…and you still believe that it’s all going to work out. Some people may think you’re being stupid. Remember, if you think you’re being stupid then you are being stupid!

“unwavering - marked by firm determination or resolution; not shakable;  “

The free dictionary

With 40 days left until I reach my goal of making a million dollars in 365 days, I barely have time to reflect on my journey so far. It’s been one heck of a journey. I’m not there yet, but I’m still confident that the right things are happening. I’m certainly not sitting on my butt waiting for a Million dollars to show up out of nowhere! I’ve spent the past10 months on a journey, a quest.

It has been one of the most challenging times of my life. I’ve managed to increase my income, and I now have multiple streams of income, yet I’m not ready to sit back and relax yet. If anything, this journey has encouraged me to shoot even higher for the stars, to accomplish even more in my life and to realise my grand dream goals along with my beautiful family.

In a little under a month, my wife, children & mother-in-law are all flying to South Africa to attend one of my best friend’s weddings. I am really excited as I get to show my kids where I grew up and the place I used to call home just 10 years ago.

It’s a LONG flight from New Zealand to South Africa, so that in itself is going to present some challenges. We’ve also had some challenges recently when it came to cash flow. With all my different “ventures” on the go at once, there’s a fair amount of investment going on. Obviously there’s bills to pay, food to put on the table etc, just like any other family.

One of my goals is to never have to send my wife back to work (unless she chooses to). She really wants to be with the kids and she’s doing such an amazing job so far, there’s no ways I’d want her doing anything else.  This has added some pressure to our financial situation - especially with some of the financial goals I’ve set (see: 1 Million Dollars in 365 days!)

However, this has not perturbed me and while it can be challenging at times, it’s nothing compared to what some people have to go through. I often have to re-read some of my blogs to keep on track. Sometimes it’s easy enough to give out advice and also easy to forget to take that advice yourself!

So to cut a long story short, today just as I was thinking about how we were going to pay a particular bill - I opened up the mail….the the problem was solved. Just like that! Now it may be cutting it a bit fine, but we hung in there and things worked out. I’ll finish off with a great saying from Kurek Ashely :

 ”You always get what you wish for and it rarely comes in the package you were expecting!”

I’ve just returned from a fantastic dinner at my sister-in-law’s house. It really reminded me how important it is to be surrounded by people that you care about, and people that care about you. I truly believe that a lot of “problems” of the world could be solved by a few family meals around the dinner table, complimented with a bunch of healthy laughter and kids running around in circles!

Laughing is certainly infectious,and I think it’s even better when coming from children. I know I always go on about being grateful for what we have, and I make no apologies for it! I think we need to make more noise about the awesome stuff in our lives!

People seem to get too complacent and don’t emphasise all the great things we have going on! Everyone likes drama so they focus on dis-empowering events such as murders, assaults, abuse, poverty…the list goes on. You only have to watch the 6 o’ clock news to see what I’m talking about. (This is why I don’t watch the news anymore).

It appears that it’s more abnormal to focus on empowering events, such as eating a meal with your family around the dinner table. Again, this depends on what is important to you in your life.For the majority of people, once they lose something like “Spending time with their family”, this soon becomes the most important thing in their life and they would usually do anything to get it back. Don’t wait until you lose it. Make the most of it now.

And for all my friends abroad that don’t have their immediate families with them at the moment, or those that have lost loved ones, don’t worry as luckily the world has millions of people of all ages, ethnicity’s and geographic locations, that are looking for love and support.

“Sometimes the best way to receive something, is to give it.”

So if you’re looking for a “family” why not volunteer somewhere, get involved in a community group or visit an old-age home.

I’m sure you’ll be surprised by what you get in return for your time.

Ok folks, as you can see, I’ve stepped up to the mark and am blogging every second day - part of my 30 day program! And I’m really enjoying it

So, I posed the question “Where does happiness live?”. I thought if we could track down it’s location it may be easier to locate when we need it. Where do I start looking though? Then it hit me - that magic binary machine that is google…

As with most things, I went to the first link - the one with the highest ranking on google. Turns out it was written by a lady named Helena Aramendia:

“Probably the most important thing that I see is that happy people do not identify with their life or their situation. This is my personal definition of freedom. They do not rely on any external factor in order to feel happiness. They are happy even if, at a given moment, they feel upset, or sad. They “are” intrinsically happy even if they “feel” different emotionally at some point. That makes me think that if both feelings are possible at the same time, it is safe to conclude that happiness is not an emotional response, but a state that is generated and developed at a deeper level. Is happiness a state of the soul ?”

This is a really good article and I would suggest reading it if you have a few minutes. It gives a great perception on happiness and how we can achieve it. There are lots of ideas, from meditation, affirmations, thought patterns, through to volunteering, karma & religious beliefs.

Read the full article here....and choose to be happy

I’ve just recently completed a 30 day personal development program. The beauty of this program is that I designed it myself, and it cost me nothing other than my time, some paper and a desire to stick with it. The rewards have been fantastic!

The purpose of this 30 day program was to challenge myself, take things to another level and give myself a sort of “detox” from the everyday things in life. This was also an experiment - I knew what I wanted to achieve, but I wasn’t sure how it was going to work.

My main focus was to complete the 30 day program. I could then evaluate it, the results I got and then refine the program for the next 30 days and so on. The objective is to improve my life in a holistic way - covering as many aspects of my life as possible. The way I designed it was simple:

“Complete 5 daily tasks, each day, for a period of 30 days. “

It’s pretty basic to setup. I just made a word document, tabled with each day and 5 rows for the 5 tasks for that day. The way I planned it, was by thinking of the goals I wanted to achieve. An example of my plan below

As I mentioned….pretty simple, yet effective. Now as you can see, I would leave a couple of spaces each day so that I could add some tasks either on the day or at the beginning of the week.

Some tips for making your own 30 day program:

• Once you’ve completed your program, print it out and staple it or get it bound.
• Reward yourself - under the last day, write something you will get if you complete the 30 days, that will motivate you to continue
• Choose tasks that work towards making you feel empowered and achieving your goals
• For extra motivation, encourage your partner (or friends) to do the their own 30 day program & then compare results at the end (and celebrate!)

One of the coolest things for me, was once I completed the first 30 day programme, my wife asked me to set one up for her. She’s been doing really great so far and seems to be achieving more & feeling more empowered!
You may also be pleased to know that I’ve put “update blog” as one of my five to-do’s, every second day, on my current 30 day program - so the drought is over!

So get cracking & start your 30 days program TODAY!

Yes, I know, I talk about action a lot. And I guess that’s because I am constantly astounded as to how this affects my life and those around me. Taking action is one of those things that we all know that we need to do, if we want to get something or get somewhere in life.

Taking action is also one of those things that can be challenging at times. I have to agree, because I often find myself knowing what to do, but not taking action and doing it! There’s always a plethora of excuses we manage to conjure up, and we may even do such a good job of convincing ourselves that it becomes a habit NOT TO TAKE action. This creates a problem, as if you’re not taking action towards your goals, then I hate to break it to you….but you’re not going to achieve them…

So what can we do to overcome this challenge of not taking action? It’s simple. Grow up and take responsibility for your goals. Once you take responsibility for what you want to achieve in life, then you know that the only thing standing between yourself and your goals… is you!

One of the challenges in life is to change the habits that we have become used to ie, that we can’t have everything we want in life, that we are here to work 9-5, then retire and then die (how exciting!) etc etc. These have been drilled into society on so many levels, it can be difficult to undo them, however it can be done.

Just be conscious of your thoughts, as much as possible. If your thoughts turn into actions, which then generate your results, it makes sense to monitor your thoughts to make sure that you’re having empowering thoughts.

Once you decide to take action and follow through everything changes. Taking action is the key to success to everything in life. So if you’re been putting off something that you know is a critical factor in your success, then consider this your personal reminder - DO IT NOW!

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

Part 1 (The Preamble):

There are so many things in my life that I am grateful for. One of these great things, is the ability to talk to all sorts of interesting people on a daily basis. I think this is one way you can definitely inspire yourself to take action everyday. There are some amazing people out there, and just talking to them gets me excited and motivated to achieve the things I want in life.

Over the past few weeks I have talked to some very interesting and successful people with regards to my fundraising efforts for Stop the Traffik to try and canvas more support. Some of the coolest people were listed below:

• Mike Pero from Mike Pero Mortgages
• Michael Mayell from CookieTime
• Scott Townsend from Just Tees

Without a doubt, Scott Townsend captured my attention the most. This 21 year old from Hamilton is doing some amazing things. He is the director of http://JustTees.co.nz and has come up with a crazy stunt, designed to get his business some more exposure. This is entrepreneurial thinking at it’s best!

While I can’t blab on about it too much on this post, I will talk about it at a later date. In the mean time, have a look for yourself - RIGHT  HERE! While you’re there, you may as well vote and tell your friends to do the same. Crazy times call for crazy measures!!

So I was supposed to be talking about a butterfly right?….

Part 2 The Butterfly Story:

Someone else that I met yesterday, said something pretty profound. I thought it was an excellent analogy, so decided then and there to share it with you all:

We’re all looking for success in our lives, whether that comes in the form of money, love, being healthy or a combination of these things (plus other things I haven’t mentioned). Let’s say that whatever our goal is like a Butterfly in the wild. For this purpose, our goal can be “to earn a million dollars in one year” (don’t know where I got that idea from!).

So we set out to catch our butterfly. So perhaps we buy ourselves a net to catch this butterfly with. We then spend a considerable amount of time and energy trying to catch this $#%$ butterfly with out net. It just so happens that this butterfly is one of the world’s most elusive butterflies and proves to be a challenge. So it’s time to bring in the big guns, we then purchase an even bigger net (with extendable pole) in our attempt to finally get hold of this creature.

This carries on for some time (I told you it was an elusive butterfly!). Eventually we give up. After maxing out our credit card at “Net’s R Us”and spending a good part of our time chasing this butterfly. We look around us and realise that the world hasn’t stopped while we were chasing the butterfly. Our famillies are older, our children grown up. There are some experiences that we have perhaps missed, even though they were important to us.

Some people spend their whole lives chasing the butterfly. Sometimes this can become all-consuming, and they never get the chance to refocus their lives on what’s important. So perhaps this is your chance. Your chance to refocus on what’s important in your life.

But if I don’t chase the butterfly with my expensive nets, then I’ll never get what I want!?

Well, what if I were to tell you that there are other ways to bring this butterfly into your life? Why not spend some time making a garden. Very soon, Butterflies will be FLYING TO YOUR GARDEN! No chasing involved You can grow this garden and add to it as you want. It won’t take up much time, which leaves you with lots of time to spend with your family and friends and on the other important things in your life.

So focus on the important things in your life, tend to your garden and let the butterflies come to you. Don’t spend your life trying to catch the butterflies and miss out on all the wonderful things life has to offer. Happy gardening…

While one can argue that there are many secrets to a successful life, some of these “secrets” are plainly there for all to see. You may have already stumbled upon them, without realising the sheer power they can offer you.

This particular “secret” that I will disclose with you now, has helped me through so many periods of my life, where it looked as though there was no silver lining. Sometimes when things don’t go your way, despair can take over your soul and suddenly you lose perspective. It is this perspective that helps us frame our world in a more meaningful way. Perspective allows us to escape the daily grind of our supposedly mundane lives and helps to define our purpose and ultimately, our journey.

So what is this secret that will propel you to success? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you gratitude…

How can something so simple have such a profound effect on your success?

Well, I believe there are two reasons:

1. When you are grateful for the things you have, the life you lead, you are saying “thanks” to the creator / higher power / universe or whatever you believe in. You are saying “I love what I’ve got so far and I appreciate it, so give me some more!”
2. Being grateful can instantly change your mood, and make life seem that much better, no matter what’s just happened.

As I mentioned, gratitude gives us perspective in our lives. Even when you are stressed and having a “bad day”, by taking 1 minute to think about the things that you are truly grateful for, you can shift your energy to more empowering thoughts and instantly make yourself feel better.

In fact, why not do it right now? I’m sure there’s never been a better time! What have you got to lose? And I personally guarantee that you will feel MUCH BETTER after completing this short exercise. For the next 60 seconds, just think about the things you are grateful for in your life.

I’ve learnt just  how important being grateful is. I have become more aware of being grateful and use this strategy on a regular basis to keep myself empowered and positive. At times, when I feel myself slipping (yes this happens to me too!), I think about what I am grateful for, and I instantly get back on track. Now I’m doing this right now - so I hope you are too!

What am I grateful for?

• My family (my beautiful wife & two children, my parents, brother, grandparents etc etc)
• Being in a position to write this blog, and interact with an audience on an international level - the power of the internet!
• Being surrounded by like-minded people that support me, no matter what crazy goals I come up with!
• Everything that has happened in my life so far - it has made me who I am today.
• Owning our beautiful home with our garden & amazing views
• Being able to afford to give 10% of my earnings to Charity
• The ability to run & learn how to run far! Please support my marathon here!
• Being able to spend time with my wife & children
• That I feel so passionate about my purpose in life
• That my wife and I love each other more and more as every day passes

It’s funny where you can actually areas of your life to be grateful for. Again - going back to perception. Say you are angry because you have a huge tax bill to pay? How can you be grateful about that? Well, if you have such a big tax bill, then you can be grateful that you earned money to enable you to get a tax bill!

It may seem strange, but how many people out there would kill to have a job and earn money? Here you are complaining about a tax bill, when there are people in our world that would trade anything to receive a paycheck and would happily pay any amount of tax as at least they earned some money!

Gratitude has certainly helped shaped my life and the way I do things. It has given me perspective on how I lead my life and the decisions I make. It is constant reminder of the wonderful life I live and that there is so much for us all to achieve. So please, take what you can from this post - and next time you’re feeling down - just think about all the things you are grateful for!