Let me give you an example from an email I received – from an investment advisor (to the rich and wealthy)…

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Good morning,

When you are next at a dinner party and the conversation slows, ask your fellow diners what is the all-time closing high of the Dow Jones Industrial Average?

The answer is 14,164, hit on the 9th of October 2007.

To keep the conversation going, then ask them what percentage the Dow is current below that record closing high and then what percentage it is above its Global Financial Crisis (GFC) low.

The answer is -10.2% and +93%.

I believe most people who aren’t as close to equity markets as the readers of these notes would be stunned to know the Dow is only -10% below its all-time high and +93% above its GFC low.

I realise there is a big business in the scaring the hell out of uneducated investors, but I believe over the short, medium and long term all those who have capitulated from equities to less volatile, yet grossly overpriced “safe” asset classes, will regret it in an absolute and real return sense.

I have seen others describe the switch from equities to other “less volatile” asset classes as “asset allocation”. That’s a very convenient way of describing what is a classic capitulation, but particularly by those approaching retirement who believe they are protecting their lifestyle expectations.

However, at the end of the day all investors must do what they are comfortable with. I have no issue with that and perhaps my relative youth leads me to be far more risk tolerant and volatility tolerant than my investment strategy writing peers.

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Interesting perspective isn’t it?

I’ve been advocating alternative investments to create wealth and abundance for years – with a contrarian approach that is endorsed by none other than Warren Buffett.

Of course the poor person might shout as loud as he/she can that it’s the perspective of a BILLIONAIRE… But how does one BECOME a billionaire?

Hmmm… Something to think about.

I just wanted to share this with you because when it’s all said and done, if you do what everyone else does, you get the same results they do – AVERAGE RETURNS.

To get BETTER results, you have to think differently. It’s what I call antimimeticisomorphism.

If you want to determine your Next Best Step, click on the hyperlink… There are a handful of financial advice bonuses available for you.

“Dear Friends,

He was surrounded by family and friends and achieved his wish to die peacefully and with dignity. He did this (as always) on his own terms, and those with him felt privileged to witness such a beautiful exit.

While his family is heart-broken and will miss him terribly, they are extremely proud of him. As Mal’s life was lived almost entirely in overdrive, with such passion and untiring focus, none of us really believed in our heart of hearts that he’d achieve the serene departure we were honored to be part of.

We invite you to the celebration of Malcolm’s life at 10.30am, on Thursday, February 2, at the Katsumata Centre at Kardinia International College, Geelong. Further funeral details will follow. See Saturday’s Age and Geelong Advertiser.

Love Ann and Family”

Please click here to access a Legacy Interview I recorded with Malcolm only a few short months ago, on 11 November 2011.

There is an audio recording you can download as well as a word-for-word transcript. It is Malcolm’s gift, part of his enduring legacy.

Lots of people TRYING to make a change, based on their New Year’s Resolutions…

What’s too bad is most will stop coming to class – probably before the end of January.

Not surprisingly, 88 percent of New Year’s Resolutions fail. Alarmingly, research shows that 25% of 1 out of every 4 people give up in the first WEEK.

Whether it’s yoga, a new diet (even though I don’t believe in diets) or something else, the odds are against you achieving your goals or dreams.

You need a SYSTEM, a PROCESS to take the guesswork out of it.

Too many people think that luck and chance are cornerstones of ‘success, wealth and happiness’… Even though luck and fate do have a role, the question is simple:

Are you the type of person who makes things happen?
Or are you a person that things happen to?

Out of the 20 ‘newbies’ at yoga today, only 1 will make it past the initial introductory period.

Of course for some, yoga’s not for them, I get that, but for the majority who do want the benefits of yoga – they’re just not going to make it. That is the fate of the majority of the population – it’s inertia that’s hard to overcome. Most succumb to its force – I call it the Vortex Of Mediocrity.

Will 2012 be your best year ever?

Why not this year? It’s a leap year – you have an extra 24 hours to make it happen!

Click here to make 2012 “My Best Year Ever“

One simple reason is that most people forget that decisions are made every minute of every day and they add up at the end of the week/month/year.

Non-decisions are the same – the decision NOT made to put your runners on to go for a run. The decision NOT to turn down the (extra) piece of pie. The decision NOT to get up early.

“It is in the moments of INdecision
that dreams are destroyed.” – Dr Marc Dussault

If you made a list of New Year’s Resolutions for 2012 – take them out right now and re-commit yourself to following through.

If you’re not motivated – the problem is you have impotent goals.

You need something that will MOTIVATE, INSPIRE and MOVE YOU TO ACTION.

Pick something exciting, but within the realm of possibility – something you can really get enthused about – something that would CHANGE you and your life.

I know too many “people who end up where they don’t want to be” simply through lack of planning and commitment.

No decision IS a decision – it’s the worst one of all – one made by someone else for all the wrong reasons.

There is no joy in living a life by default.

To live a life by design, you need to know what YOU want and desire.

You decide.

By NOT deciding, all you’re doing is letting yourself down – no one cares that you don’t make a decision. That’s why it’s so easy.

One day leads to a week then to a month and before you know it, another year has passed. If you get lulled into complacency, a whole decade can pass you buy.

That’s tragic.

Don’t just sit there – do something!

Anything!

If you didn’t create a list of New Year’s Resolutions – do it now!

Though you can’t see it happening, every minute of the day we lose about 30,000 to 40,000 dead skin cells off the surface of our skin. So just in the time it took you to read this far, you’ve probably lost about 20,000 cells.

That’s almost 9 pounds (4 kilograms) of cells every year! But don’t think your skin might wear out someday. Your epidermis is always making new skin cells that rise to the top to replace the old ones. Most of the cells in your epidermis (95%) work to make new skin cells.

The question is – which (new) body do you want?

Given the choice, which one would you prefer?

Here’s the thing – you have the choice… Click on the image to see how you can have a great ‘new body’ in 2012!

Deciding or NOT deciding are both decisions. One gets you the body you want, the other well…

Life is to be lived, shared and enjoyed with others. Enough said.

I hired a plumber to help me restore an old farmhouse, and after he had just finished a rough first day on the job, a flat tyre made him lose an hour of work, his electric drill quit and his ancient one-ton truck refused to start. While I drove him home, he sat in stony silence.

On arriving he invited me in to meet his family. As we walked towards the front door, he paused briefly at a tree, touching the tips of the tree. When opening the door he underwent an amazing transformation.

His tanned face was wreathed in smiles and he hugged his two small children and gave his wife a kiss. Afterward he walked me to the car. We passed the tree and my curiosity got the better of me. I asked him about what I had seen him do earlier.

Oh, that’s my trouble tree,” he replied. “I know I can’t help having troubles on the job, but one thing’s for sure, those troubles don’t belong in the house with my wife and the children.

So I just hang them up on the tree every night when I come home and ask God to take care of them. Then in the morning I pick them up again.

“Funny thing is,” he smiled, “when I come out in the morning to pick them up, there aren’t nearly as many as I remember hanging up the night before.”

I thought it would be a great visual to ask you the question “Do you feel lucky?”

If you don’t feel lucky, why not? You can create your own luck when you adopt Exponential Mindset Thinking™.

As Norman Vincent Peale professed “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”

Feeling angry, envious or resentful toward someone who appears “luckier” than you is not the way to be successful.

What you want to do is getting into the right “mindspace” and manifest those things you want – FIRST by BELIEVING they can happen.

Then by MAKING them happen.

It’s what I do for my clients – creating success with a work-life balance approach that doesn’t compromise your RESULTS.

A friend of mine just made the cover of the Chinese Journal Of Cancer Dr Malcom Simons. I’ve blogged about his inspirational perspective several times on this and other blogs.

The cover portrait entitled, “Dr DNA”, is of Professor Malcolm James Simons. Born in 1939 in New Zealand, Simons was Director of the WHO Immunology Research & Training Centre, University of Singapore, from 1970 to 1976, during which time he established an HLA genetic laboratory for Chinese, Malays, and Indians and discovered HLA genetic associations with diseases including nasopharyngeal carcinoma and hepatitis B-associated hepatocyte carcinoma.

Perhaps best known as the inventor of the 1989/90 “junk DNA” patents that found diagnostic value for genome-wide association studies in non-coding DNA, Simons created another suite of far-reaching patents on single chromosome analysis of linear DNA and of epigenetic haplotypes starting in 2005.

In 1979, Simons and his life-long colleague, Brian Tait, were the first foreigners to conduct an HLA and NPC Workshop in China at the Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center. In 2010, now a visiting professor in the same university, Simons is bringing a lifetime of experience to HLA and whole-genome data analysis of NPC that he expects will reveal hitherto-unrecognised genetic characteristics.

Simons is eight years out from a diagnosis of the currently incurable cancer multiple myeloma. During this time, he has continued working throughout his various treatments. As befits an indomitable spirit with a formidable focus, Simons has been even more productive, using the cancer as a means of reevaluating his life, researching, and developing another biotechnology company.

The cover portrait, created by Ann Abrahmsen, an artist and Simons’ wife, shows him serene yet slightly quizzical, surrounded by a sea of DNA printouts, his hands at rest, and his contribution to the work complete. To read his latest editorial and related manuscripts in this issue of the Chinese Journal of Cancer, please see pages 79-123.