Rich Man's World

Watch this Space

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:21:00 +0000

As my time in Japan draws to a close with more goodbye parties than bowls of noodles at a sumo noodle eating competition, I reflect back on the wonderful time I’ve had here for the last 3 years.

Too many memories to remember them all but I’ve got some photos to help jog things along when I get stuck. I haven’t posted any pics online in a while, as I’m still thinking long term about my digital footprint. You know this stuff will be studied when I reach Hollywood.

Not that I’m aiming for Hollywood, it’s just not that I’m not aiming for Hollywood, you follow? However with things about to get interesting again it might be worth paying attention here once again. I understand if you’ve found all the book reviews boring, and I haven’t even gotten round to writing about half the things I’ve been reading.

Did I summarise Blink or Freakonomics for you? How about Effective Negotiation, The Automatic Millionaire, How Proust Can Change Your Life, Stumbling on Happiness, Three cups of Tea, The Warren Buffet Way, A Whole New Mind or The Long Tail? Really I’ve got to get round to summarising these at some point so I can remember anything at all a year from now.

It’s just that the knowledge within them has been far more interesting than the routine I’ve been in while saving up enough money for my next adventure, and that’s your reason for coming back here as a regular reader.

Parting company with with so many JET companions this month is another reason to have a place like this where the curious, noisy, and downright interested can catch up on the latest.

So what’s next? Well I’ve told you before but I know you don’t listen so here it is:

Leave Japan on August 4th after 3 fantastic years teaching English in this amazing country.
Go to the Isle of Man from the 5th to the 15th August
Paris 15th - 18th. August
London 19th August
Tokyo - 20th August
Beijing - 21st
Things get fussy now, but I’ll be China for about 6 weeks, with one month of that at This Shaolin School learning Kung Fu, Chinese and how to kick your ass.
In October I’ll probably head to Laos and possibly Thailand for possibly some volunteer work, or possibly not. I’ve decided to leave this flexible and go with the flow, man.
After that, magic happens and I get to India. I end up at this Yoga School where I’m booked in on November 9th to start my month long Yoga Teacher Training course. That’s right, I’ll be a Yoga teacher by Chrimbo. Hopefully my hamstrings will have loosened up by then.
Fly home for Christmas, brimming with import-export-yoga-DVD-travel-supplement ideas to start my first online ventures in the Happy New Year.

I’m only really planning the next 6 months but I’ve got a direction and check back here if you want to see how it all pans out. Should be an interesting journey anyway, so won’t you join me?

Don’t watch TV, Watch TED

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:29:00 +0000

TED - ideas worth spreading.

The reading slowed down this month (but nearly finished Atlas Shrugged), and this is pretty much what I have been doing.

It’s a series of short lectures and presentations (10-30minutes) from basically all the people who’s books you've read, or want to read. You’ve got Stephen Levitt - Freakonomics, Malcolm Gladwell - Blink, Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion, as well as entrepreneurs and leaders like the Google guys, Richard Branson, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Tony Robbins and scientists and charity workers, who might not be quite as famous. It’s everyone who’s got something important to say.

Since TED stands for Technology Entertainment Design, there’s a fair amount of that too, but to be honest I haven’t watched many on design. I challenge you not to find something interesting on this website.

I would post a video here for you to click on but youtube seems to be down.

Walden - Henry David Thoreau

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:27:00 +0000

A classic piece of American literature about the experiences of the author living simply for a year. It was published in 1854. Here are 5 quotes. You may notice I have already quoted it in the Vagabonding entry.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

To be awake is to be alive.

In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.

...if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.

The Photoreading Whole Mind System - Paul Scheele

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Fri, 02 May 2008 03:10:00 +0000

The 5 steps to photoreading significantly summarized.

Prepare - Your purpose and mental state
Preview - Survey, trigger words, reading goals
Photoread - Photofocus, enter state, say affirmations, breathe.
Activate - Incubate, probe, super read, dip and mind map
Rapid Read - move rapidly through text without stopping.

5 Online Automated Business Models and Entrepreneurs

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Fri, 02 May 2008 02:57:00 +0000

Supplements

http://www.brainquicken.com/ - Tim Ferriss. Before becoming the best selling author of The 4 Hour Work-Week (and my hero), Tim made $10,000 - $40,000 per month on his cognition supplement from 4-16 hour’s work (checking emails and payments). It took a lot longer in the early days but he learned how to automate and outsource.
http://www.yogabodynaturals.com/ Lucas Rockwood. Yoga teacher in Thailand, using the same formula as Tim Ferriss to sell flexibility supplement, except advertises on Facebook to people who have yoga listed as an interest or activity - i.e. pre-qualified customers. Monthly income unknown.

Information

http://www.desperatebuyersonly.com/ Alexis Dawes makes around $2000 a week selling ebooks and information products to what she calls “motivated buyers”. She specialises in doing the work/writing once but getting paid automatically many times afterwards.
http://www.teflonline.net/ The Teaching English as a Foreign Language course I just took cost $200 for the course (information and worksheets), a few personal emails, and the certificate. It was exactly the same information and exam for my friends too. The company has global customers and is based in Thailand. $200 goes a long way in Thailand.

Dropshipper

http://www.prosoundeffects.com/ Douglas Price’s “royalty-free sound effects library distribution, metadata services, turnkey sound library management systems”. He simply sends the orders he receives through his website to the manufacturer who ships the products directly to the customer. Makes around $10,000 profit with 5-10 hours work a month. He has several websites.

Bonus

http://www.warriorforum.com/Forum/ For more on buying websites, affiliate marketing, Google adsense etc - Tons of information at this internet marketer’s forum.

First Things First - Steven Covey

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:12:00 +0000

5 steps to take now for a better life from the author of this book and of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Educate your conscience. Think deeper, and spend more time reading and studying.
Personal leadership. Write your personal mission statement.
Double the time you spend on important, none urgent tasks. Study, improving communication, getting feedback, preparation, planning, education, seizing opportunities, personal development and developing others.
Rebuild one relationship you care about. Boss, spouse, child, parent or friend.
Spend time on the physical, mental, spiritual and social aspects of your life every day.

“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”

Can a Robot be Human? - Peter Cave

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:10:00 +0000

5 of my favourite questions from this thought provoking philosophy book that I received from my big sister.

Why are all the things the way they are? Metaphysics/God
Can you sincerely want a more equal society while knowingly being wealthy? Politics/Ethics
What makes me me, and continue to be me? Metaphysics/Selves
Morally, ought you not kill one person to save the lives of others? Ethics/Politics
Why vote? Politics/Rationality

Vagabonding - Rolf Potts

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:09:00 +0000

5 quotes for long term traveling from this book, which its self includes many quotes.

This book views long-term travel not as an escape but as an adventure and a passion - a way of overcoming your fears and living life to the fullest - Rolf Potts, Vagabonding
My greatest skill has been to want little - Hendry David Thoreau, Walden
A good traveler has no plan, and is not intent on arriving - Lao-Tzu, The Way of Life
What I find is that you can do almost anything or go almost anywhere, if you’re not in a hurry. Paul Theroux, The Happiness Isles of Oceania
And in the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know it for the first time. T.S. Elliot, Little Gidding

The Game - Neil Strauss

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:47:00 +0000

5 tips for meeting women from this interesting and funny book about the lives and subculture of “PUAs” (Pick Up Artists).

3 second rule. Don’t wait longer than 3 seconds from making first eye contact or seeing a woman you would like to meet before talking to her.
Try not to approach directly/head on. Start conversation casually or over your shoulder
Give yourself a deadline. Let them know you’ll be leaving soon.
When approaching a group, it’s good to ignore and make fun of the woman you want to meet while you befriend the other men/women in the group.
Be the alpha male of the group. Dominate and make decisions, but always with a smile on your face.

How to Learn

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:30:00 +0000

5 reasons why learning through teaching is so powerful

When you know you are going to teach, you learn better. Change your role from learner to teacher. You will learn 90-95% of what you teach.
It motivates you to be socially committed to live it. If you think it’s good enough to learn and teach to others, why aren’t you doing it/living it? To learn something but not to do it, is not to learn it.
Increases your capacity to listen. You make sure you get all the key ideas to share.
Makes change acceptable. Significant learning events allow people to listen to and accept ways you may have changed.
It’s bonding. It deepens relationships by sharing the experience of learning.

Happiness and money

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 07:45:00 +0000

How much money does it take to be happy? Everyone wants to be happy, right? People have different views on the matter. A lot of wealthy people talk about realising your potential, setting big goals, finding your passion, believing you can do more and then doing it. Examples of this type of person would be Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, and the motivational speakers.

Next there seems to be the less is more, simplicity, voluntary poverty type. As long as you meet your basic needs, you’ll be unburdened by the worries of money and the world will be yours. This would be Gandhi, Socrates, Jesus, and several other modern philosophers.

Finally, we come to the hallowed Mens Health magazine model... Average earning people (28,000GBP in the UK apparently) are the happiest. A mixture of low expectations and many meals with family and friends is the route of happiness through this model. i.e. Focusing less on that super-yacht and working overtime to please the boss frees more time for social activities, families and relationships.

In conclusion, the world needs all of the above type of people and it looks like all can be happy. It’s everywhere, if you look for it!

Books

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 00:54:00 +0000

Hello and welcome to another episode of Richard’s book blog! This month we will be covering the books from February and March, along with the benefits and drawbacks of audio books.

Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman
Great book about the Patagonia outdoor clothing company and the work it does for the environment. Talks about the founder finding his passion in his work. Shows that business doesn’t have to be shareholder profit lead, but can still make a profit, while helping the environment as well. Company (and the owner) worth over $500million today. An inspirational blueprint for sustainable international business and entrepreneurial hopefuls.

Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed
Start to finish complete book on the application of living a successful life. From positive mental attitude to goal setting to parenting and love. This guy loves making lists. List your strengths, list things that are important to you, list your goals. Worth reading (and making lists) again.

How to Make Millions with Your Ideas: An Entrepreneur's Guide
Great book with lots of strategy tips, examples and anecdotes from people who’ve made millions of dollars in the direct marketing industry. People like the inventor of Barney the purple dinosaur to informational direct marketers like Tony Robbins (who is also worth about $500million today).

The Monk and the Riddle: The Art of Creating a Life While Making a Living
A book about finding fulfillment and passion in your work every day, not just in the phantom “pot of gold” at the end of the rainbow that may or may not come. The writer is a venture capitalist based in Silicon Valley, and the story follows his experiences with the typical twenty something year old entrepreneurs who every day come to Silicon Valley seeking their fortunes, but don't think about why.

"This business has legs": How I Used Infomercial Marketing to Create the$100,000,000 ThighMaster Craze
Half way through this interesting story of the man behind the Thighmaster craze. Once the product was launched it took him only two years to make $100,000,000. He didn’t invent it. He just knew he wanted to sell something and spend six months looking for things.

I Am America (And So Can You!)
Comedy book from American satirist Stephen Colbert.

Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Popular and recommended economics book. Just started. Very interesting.

Atlas Shrugged
Here we have the big one. It’s over a thousand pages (about equal to 5 of the books here put together), and in audio format 2.2days – over 50 hours! I’m less than a quarter way through, about 10 hours, but it’s fascinating and comes highly recommended.

In April I’ll be continuing with that mammoth, as well as possibly going back over my favourites from the last year. 7 Habits, The 4Hour Work Week and Think and Grow Rich all need another going over, but I might start Blink, Winning or The Game instead.

Audio Books.

The drawbacks
Currently no way to speed read. You can read comfortably about 500 or 600 words per minute(wpm) on paper by pacing, developing your peripheral vision and eliminating sub-vocalisation (when you say the words in your head as you read them), but you can’t do any of that with an audio book. In fact you are forced to listen at the speaking speed of about 150wpm, and that’s the rate at which you must go through the book.
I think it's almost impossible to sit on a chair doing nothing but listening. Not so with actual reading.

The benefits
The voice actor can add to the experience of the book – This is the case for I Am America, read by the author, and Atlas Shrugged.
You can simultaneously share the listening experience.
You can listen to it driving, cooking, cleaning etc adding about 5 hours of reading each week that you wouldn’t have other wise done.
You can “share” them for free online. I like to think of it like an online library card.

Conclusion
With software developments in the pipeline for speeding up audio without raising the pitch or losing any understanding to 300-500wpm, audio books are a great addition to normal reading. Audio books are available from iTunes, audible.com and for free from your choice of bit torrent file sharing networks!

Thoughts are Things.

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 05:20:00 +0000

Thoughts are things. We are always moving towards our current dominant thought, whether we know it or not. Is your dominant thought something you really want? Let’s make sure.

When you’re snowboarding, what do you think about? Staying relaxed or about falling over? If you always say to yourself, “Don’t fall over and hurt yourself” all your subconscious hears is “fall over and hurt yourself”. It might not work 100% of the time, but it’s better to say “stay relaxed”. It’s a lot like the power of questions in the post before.

Ah, the way we think. Isn’t it fascinating?

The Power of Questions

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 05:11:00 +0000

The way you talk to yourself, or think to yourself is a determining factor in your overall success and happiness. The quality of questions you ask of yourself is one of the most important steps in taking control of your full potential. Are you asking the right questions?

If you say “why can I never come up with good ideas for my team teaching class?” your brain will search for and always find an answer, like “because I’m not smart enough” or “because it’s too hard”, and you won’t get anywhere. Try asking different questions like “how can I find better ideas?” Now your brain will come up with more useful suggestions like “search online” or “read a book”.

OK so that was a bit of a simple example. Believe it or not, it’s not just for team teaching. How about this one “Why am I overweight?” Answer “because I eat too much and don’t exercise” Action: I accept my self-concept that I am an overweight person and that I eat too much and don't exercise, therefore no action is needed, great!
A better question might be “How can I maintain my ideal weight?” Answer “healthy diet and regular exercise of course!” Action: I’d better try on my running shoes…

First Post of the New Year

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 11:42:00 +0000

Welcome 2008, and hello to my loyal readers (mum) and bored colleges around Toyama. I’m back in Japan feeling refreshed and relaxed after my 2 week holiday in Cambodia, Malaysia and Singapore.

The holiday with Jose, Jake, Joy and Andrea was great, I’ve posted pictures on flickr and facebook and I’ll be darned if I have to post them here too.

The best thing about the trip was the friendly and funny kids we kept running into in Cambodia. Sure they were trying to sell us things, but they made me laugh so much I wanted to buy from them in the end. They weren’t begging, they were little entrepreneurs in the making. I learned a lot about buying and negotiation from them!

Singapore was basically a shopping mall, but that was ok because I needed some new jeans and a jumper. Jose is a very good shopping partner.

Malaysia was cool. It probably meant the most to Jake to go here, as he got to catch up with all his old mates from the days when he used to live here. Great beaches on Langkawi. Kuala Lumpur is cleaner and better organized than any other big city in the region, but I think when I went there I’d rather have been on the beach than in a big city. I think the east coast of the west part of Malaysia might be worth exploring in the future, as we had to stick to the west coast due to the rainy season affecting the other side.

If that sounded a bit boring, it’s probably because a) it was, and b) I’ve been giving presentations to my students about this holiday every day this week and now I’m doing it in my free time too! But I wanted to make a note of it here for the future.

By the by this month I have just finished Noam Chompsky’s What We Say Goes and I’ll finish Richard Branson’s Losing My Virginity and a book on NLP before the end of January.

The Mid Year Seminar and The JLPT

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 14:08:00 +0000

Hello, how are you?

I'm Super Happy Optimistic Joyful and Prodigious.

Or in Japanese it's something like sugoi kampeki subarashi sekiokuteki genki! Just a little rhyme I learned from a teaching seminar 2 weeks ago. We had a language professor come from Tokyo and he gave a very entertaining speech on learning and enjoying the process. He even picked on me a couple of times to help him out on stage, which was good fun.

I thought what he had to say was really good, especially since it echoed a lot of what I have been reading about learning. It did remind me however that you only remember 30% of what you read. I'm going to go back through the best books that I've read this year and take notes!

Also, you remember 90% of what you say and do, so it's great that at this same seminar I was assigned the role of giving a "Goals for JET and Beyond" presentation to the other teachers. I enjoyed putting it all together, since I've learned a lot about the subject recently, and it was a great chance to share my take on it. And since I was the one giving the talk, almost certainly I'm the one who got the most out of it. They say teachers are the ones who learn the most a school.. it's true for seminars too I think. I'm going to have to see if I can give presentations on other subjects I'm interesting in learning!

I hope the attendees got something out of it. I got positive feed back and a few people said they could see me as a motivational speaker! Well, maybe one day, who knows. I think it went really well and I felt like I'd done a good job. Makes a change from the day job, where I'm not sure the students are even vaguely interested in listening to me or learning anything. I'll be dressing up as Santa and singing Jingle Bells to them this week, in an effort to get some attention.

Also, talking about goals, last weekend saw the completion of the previous six months top priority goal, the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JPLT - it's only once a year - results are out in February). I now have to think about what my language goals are for the next 8 months with no formal test to aim for. I've kind of been in goal limbo since then, reorganising and re-prioritising.

This goal setting stuff isn't as easy as it sounds, but I'm glad I'm getting used to it sooner rather than later.

PS. Just in case I don't write again before the big day.. Merry Christmas! It's December now and I'll be off on my travels to Malaysia, Singapore and Cambodia in less than 2 weeks!

Thanksgiving

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 11:40:00 +0000

Friday was a holiday here in Japan (Labour Thanksgiving Day), and since it was the day after the American Thanksgiving Day, a great big "pot luck" party was enjoyed at Andrea's house.

Of course it was a fantastic success. Roast turkey perhaps being the best thing, and the huge cockroach appearing probably being the worst (for the hostess at least)! In one of my chat's with new ALT James, he mentioned that by searching for my local wellness resort Windy on Google (who's name is only mentioned in the comments section, not the actual post), he stumbled upon this blog and quickly identified it as mine. I guess posting pictures of myself isn't helping me hide my digital footprint very much, is it.

But that's not my point. My point is that I checked out the post he was probably talking about and found it to be this one: The Changing Seasons of Toyama. The interesting coincidence is that I wrote that nearly exactly one year ago (November 21st), after I had just spent this long weekend in Tokyo.

It was nice to have a record of life one year ago and has shown me the value of recording the things that happen. If you don't keep a blog, I hope you keep a diary!

In the entry, I talked a little bit about my decision to re-contract or not, and so far I'm glad I have stayed. I don't think I would have been emotionally ready to leave, but I almost certainly will be this time.

I've got a bit more of an idea about what I'd like to do from now on, but I'm not going to talk about it any more, I'm just going to do it.

Question of the day.

Why is Japan ok with the fact that in any toilet you can wash your bottom with a jet of warm water, and blow dry it, but you have to wash your hands in ice cold water, and be offered no place to dry them?

Charity Widget

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 04:35:00 +0000

Does anyone know how I can put this widget on the left hand side of my page?

YOU can make a difference

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 14:05:00 +0000

This Christmas I'll be travelling again. This time to Malaysia, Singapore and Cambodia. While Singapore is fully developed and Malaysia not far behind, Cambodia has had a difficult past and listening to my friends experiences who have already been, I wanted to do something before I set off.

With this in mind I have started the fund raising of $10,000 with my travel buddies, Jake, Andrea and Jose, to a build a library in Cambodia. We're already 1/20th of the way there, and with a lot of people giving a small amount, we'll make it before my Christmas deadline.

We've organised a charity dinner for next week which costs in the almighty British currency about £10 to attend, with £2.50 of that going to our charity - Room To Read

Room to Read, the not-for-profit who will do the building, will keep us posted on every step of construction, and their work was recently commended by Bill Clinton at his Clinton Global Initiative (And you know I'm a fan of his now!).

To all my friends outside Japan, sorry, I know you'd want to attend the dinner if you were in town. But don't worry, please just use the fund raising page below where you can easily leave your $5 (it's an American website) or what ever you can afford by credit card and receive a record of your donation. It's completely safe and secure.

Here's my page, and even if you don't have anything to spare, please just click on the link and have a look:

http://www.firstgiving.com/cambodianlibrary

Thanks for helping to make a difference.

Effectivity

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 12:10:00 +0000

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Have you read this book? I'm going through it again now for the third time. It's quite a powerful book. I'm stuck on Habit 2 "start with the end in mind", it's difficult to plan your entire life out, but I'm giving it a go.

This is turning into Rich's book review site isn't it. I also forgot to mention Victor Frankl's 'Man's Search for Meaning' as one of the books I recently read. It was mentioned by just about every other author I read so I thought I'd give it a read too.

I need to keep a better book diary. I enjoy making mind maps of the good books I read, but it takes at least an hour, and I can't really be doing that at work during term time when I'm supposed to be making 'edutaining' Halloween or Harry Potter lesson plans. I don't even like Harry Potter, but I can see why it's popular. I just watched the Prisoner of Azkaban as I heard it was a good one, and…

Wow this post is all over the place. I could talk about so much but I shall study Kanji instead. After all that's what an effective person would do.

Lately

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 07:04:00 +0000

It's been a short while since I lasted posted to this blog and you could be forgiven for thinking I'd given up on it altogether. I some respects, you'd be right. It was a lot easier to write about the new and exciting things being experienced every couple of weeks when I was doing things I thought were new and exciting every couple of weeks.

Two things have happened, I've lost some perspective of what would be interesting for the reader (whoever you are) and my interests developed away from this blog.

For example, I recently had a lovely weekend with Shino in a traditional old fashioned expensive Japanese guest house with perhaps the most extravagant meals I have ever eaten. It was lovely, but not that exciting, at least for someone living in Japan.

I've been to a couple of mountain "raves", with some good dance music and inexplicably low turn outs (think 25 people dancing in a field), and some nice dinners and parties around the place. I've finished a few more books (see below) and I've also set up a Charity Donation page with some friends which I'll talk about some other time.

And as for interests developing away from blogging, I think what I mean is that I started to feel like if I was going to be spending time blogging, I wanted it to be earning me money, which lead to a lot of blog and general internet money making research instead of actual blog updates.

So that's kind of what I've been doing really, and internet business is still a top priority, only coming behind studying for my Japanese Proficiency test this December. To be honest, I believe that a successful internet start up is going to play a much more valuable role in my future than the proficiency of my Japanese, but the actual studying is building self discipline, activating the brain and allowing me to communicate more effectively in the community I'm currently in. Or maybe that's just my way of justifying my procrastination. What do you think?

The books:

Supernatural Isle Of Man:

A nice present from Mum which allowed me to give Shino the occasional ghost story while she was visiting the Isle of Man.

Derren Brown's Tricks of the Mind

Good book with a few simple tricks. Doesn't give away Derren's best mind reading tricks (which I'm currently loving) but does have some great beginner advice on memory, hypnosis, NLP, psuedo science and memory :) Also, quite a lot of anti-religious ranting. About half the book in fact. His favourite book is Dawkins 'The God Delusion"... Not that that's a bad thing, but I would have preferred more stuff about his skills instead.

The World Is Flat [Updated and Expanded]: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Centuryby Thomas Friedman

Good book on globalization. Loads of interesting things, especially near the end. A real eye opener. A best seller and award winning book.

The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About Itby Michael Gerber

An entrepreneurial guide from a guru of small business management. A bit boring for me since I don't have an actual small business yet.

The 4-Hour work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New RichTim Ferriss

Amazing book. The current manifesto of my life. A complete how-to guide in internet entrepreneurship and much more. I'm going through it again now highlighting and making notes, in preparation for my own start up.

Bill Clinton's My Life

Good interesting story of the man's life. Certainly makes him out to be more of a complete real person, not just the 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman' man we all remember. Also made me feel that Republicans are power hungry, win at any cost, progress haters. I guess if Bush ever writes a book (can he write?) I should read that too, you know, just to be fair.

Ha ha :) Can you tell which books I set up affilate links to Amazon.com with? It's my first time playing round with affiliate links but I think I get about 4% of the cost of the book if you buy it through my link. That's assuming any Americans are reading this. I have yet to see if there is a British version (I'm sure there is). I've also set something up that's supposed to automatically make links, but that one doesn't seem to be working yet. Ah well, it's all new. Welcome internet money skillz.

The 2nd year in Japan Summary

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 12:19:00 +0000

You may remember about this time last year, I gave a summary of my first year in Japan just before I returned home, so people knew what I had been up to. It had nice little month by month pictures and a little description of what had happened, and the interesting things that I did, saw, or had held in my hand.

Well since I'll be back in the Isle of Man and London, I thought it was time for another update. But this year, I haven't really been to big cities, or world heritage sites or other asian countries.

So what have I been doing? People out here have been asking me this too, since I stopped drinking, and I’ve had a hard time answering. Then when I thought about it, well, I guess I’ve spent quite a lot of time…

Reading.

Richard? Reading? It's kind of become a hobby.

Here’s a list of the books I’ve read this year, most of them in the last 6 months. Some have been ebooks, some audio books and some are just plain old pieces of paper bound together.

I’d love to talk about any of them and be interested to know which ones you’ve read too. Oh I don’t know why I’ve ordered them in alphabetical order of the first name of the Author. I must be the only person in the world to order books like that. There’s probably a few mistakes too.

Non - Fiction

Anthony Grant

Coach Yourself: It's Your Life, What Are You Going to Do with It?

Andy Riley

Book of Bunny Suicides

Antony Robbins

Personal power II

Awaken the Giant within

Get the Edge

Lessons in Mastery

Brian Tracy

21 absolutely unbreakable laws of money

21 ways to double your productivity

21 ways to build a high profit business

Accelerated learning techniques

Dalai Lama

The way to a meaningful life

Dale Carnegie

How to win friends and influence people

David Allen

Getting Things Done

David J. Schwartz

The Magic of Thinking Big

Deepak Shopra

The 7 spiritual laws

Donald Trump andRobert Kyosaki

Why we want you to be rich

Joseph Bennette

A course in light speed reading

John Gray

Men are from mars, women are from Venus

Kenneth Weiss

Building an Import/Export Business

Larry King

How to talk to anyone, anytime, anywhere

Napolean Hill

Think and Grow Rich

Rhonda Byrne

The Secret

Robert Kyosaki

Rich Dad Poor Dad

Rich Dad Poor Dad 2: The Cash flow Quadrant

Retire Young Retire Rich

Choose to be Rich

How to find great investments

Richard Templar

The Rules of Wealth

The Rules of Work

The Rules of Life

Stephen R Covey

7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Living the 7 habits

Tina Konstant.

Teach yourself speed reading

Wayne Dyer

Manifesting your destiny

Fiction

Aldous Huxley

Brave New World

Benjamin Kunkel

Indecision

George Orwell

1984

JD Salinger

Catcher in the Rye

Paulo Coelho

The Alchemist

Started but not finish

Karl Jung

Memories Dreams and Reflections

Michael E Gerber

The E-myth Mastery Revisted

Thomas L Friedman

The World is Flat

Timothy Ferriss

The 4 hour work week

Joseph Heller

Catch 22

John Fowles

The Magus

David Shuttleworth

Mind control, NLP and Hypnosis

James Heisig

Remembering the Kanji: Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters

Not started but have

Anthony Robbins

Live with Passion

Ultimate Relationships

Brian Tracy

The science of self confidence

Robert Kyosaki

Rich Dad’s prophecy

Steven Levitt

Freakonomics

Jenny Randles

Supernatural Isle of Man

Neil Strauss

The Game

40 downloaded ebooks of various quality on psychology, social interactions, hypnosis and mind power.
5 Gigabytes of probably pretty good audio books on wealth, health, life etc.

Not have but want/recommended/on my wishlist

Richard Branson

Losing my Virginity: the Autobiography (the new one is out August 6th!)

And a load of other ones. Go to amazon.co.uk and search for my wishlist if you would like to see all of them. I think you can do this by just typing my name in to amazon, but who knows!

Since that's about 4 times as many books as I've read in the whole previous 24 years of my life, it's fair to say a small about of personal growth has occurred, hopefully for the best.

I’d say I'm on information input mode at the moment. Maybe I'll stay like this for a bit, or maybe I'll switch to output mode and write my own book in my third year in Japan, who knows?

Anyway, let me know if you want to talk about any of these books, or have a few recommendations you could see me enjoying. I'd like to write about which were my favourite and why some time, but don't hold your breath.

Hasta la vista, baby. Hopefully see you soon.

Camel Toe

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 00:15:00 +0000

Posts have been quite serious lately, so I thought I'd put up a rude video that made me laugh.

Hello June

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 12:00:00 +0000

It happened almost by accident. I didn't plan it. I don't know what happened. I just stopped doing it. I used to do it once or twice every week. I thought, it's not so bad, some of my friends do it much more than me. They're still doing it and having fun. In fact nearly everyone does it, but for several reasons, I seem to have stopped drinking.

Well, it's certainly lead to a healthy body and more productive weekends. This month I will be completing several goals. I'll let you know when they're done, or if things go really well, my personal assistant will.

Spoons, Bombs and Dom Perignon

noreply@blogger.com (Richard) — Wed, 09 May 2007 12:24:00 +0000

Hi there!

I have just returned from my Golden Week travels around Japan, and although it was rather expensive, it was really nice to get out and about and see some new parts of Japan. I went to three cities with similar population sizes to Toyama Ken (where I live) but completely different vibes. I hate to say 'better' vibes, but if you like a lively feel, lots of young people, international shops, and things to do, then yes, they were about a thousand times better than Toyama City. Luckily I also value things like Toyama's great weather, delicious water, and my fantastic school where I occasionally get free time to study Japanese and write blog entries.

The first trip was to a nearby cool city called Kanazawa. My girlfriend and I heard they had a new shopping centre and a new Zara and we couldn't resist! I don't think we bought anything but we had a nice time soaking in the sun and shops.

You might have heard of the second city I visited - Hiroshima.

I'm not going to dwell on the horrors of atomic war but the peace museum and memorial were worth visiting, as was Miyajima, the 'floating' shrine.

Not so 'floating' now is it. Look at all these people digging for clams, ignoring the beauty of the shrine! Ah Japan, you do so love your molluscs.

The final place was Fukuoka City down in Kyushu - the most southern of the four main islands of Japan. The city's normal population is about 1.3million, but the night we went, there were 2.1million people there for a crazy spoon festival, so it was pretty lively. Check out these old chicks being lively with spoons. Crazy.

Also, it was good to see the old business brain is still buzzing, and couldn't help but bore Shino with what I thought were market trends, export opportunities and great new products as we wondered round some of the many shopping malls of southern Japan. I really did pick up some new ideas and I'll be looking into them this week. As Shino pointed out, my brain was 70% business, 20% health, 9% robots and 1% Shino. I pointed out that if she was a robot that would bring her total up to 10%. She was not as impressed with my maths as I thought she would be.

Note worthy things -

Meeting Joy and her friend in Fukuoka and introducing them to a rich business man who bought us all Dom Perignon (at about 100 quid a bottle), and then tried to kiss my girlfriend.

Enjoying the clothes brand Zara so much that Shino and I visited 3 different Zara outlets in 3 different cities in one week.

Finding out that I'm now an extra-large in Japanese clothes shops. Thank you creatine.

Enjoying Spiderman 3 at Japan's biggest cinema complex.

Not getting drunk and still having a really great time.

And the amount of bad Japanese English at world heritage site Miyajima.