In this part of the Internet series, I’d like to share with you a very important source of information you might be missing out online. And yes, as the title says, it’s blogs.

Many people consider blogs to be personal and thus would not contain much useful information other than the entertaining aspect. No doubt blogs are supposed to be personal, but many blogs out there are also very professional. For example, JohnChowdotCom , Income Diary , Steve Pavlina , Huffington Post , and many more.

But the most important thing is that the information is free. Yeah you got it right, free. And they’re supposed to be selling the information because it’s so valuable. The quality of most popular blogs is often at least at par with you have to pay to get usually.

So how can you get the most out of all the great blogs out there? I’d suggest a few ways:

Free E-Course

Some blogs offer free e-course on subjects such as “how to build a great blog”, “how to make money online”, and “HTML and CSS tutorials”. These usually come in a sequence of emails on a fixed schedule (daily or weekly) and offer you great tips and advices on the topic you’re interested in.

Free E-Books

This is probably the most valuable information you can get from the blogs out there. A lot of blogs offer free e-books on the subject they blog about and the e-books would contain very valuable information. This is because bloggers want you to stay with them indefinitely, and if the e-books provide great content, you’d naturally spread the word to your friends and thus give the bloggers even more subscribers.

If you’d like to search for an avalanche of free e-books out there, you should check out the following sites:

1) www.free-ebooks.net

2) www.getfreeebooks.com

3) www.ebookdirectory.com

And one thing to note is that you usually have to provide your email in order to obtain the free e-book. To me, it’s a no-brainer because the author puts in hours and hours of hard work into making the e-book. So the least you can do is to give them your email so they can share with you even more great stuffs.

If you don’t want any more emails than you already have, just sign up, download the e-book, and then unsubscribe (although you’re encouraged to at least check out what they have to say in the following emails). And if you like, you can create an new email solely for the purpose of getting free e-books, but then again you might miss out on the great content later on because you won’t check the email anyway.

Email Subscription

Talking about email, it’s important for you to subscribe to the email newsletter of the blogs you like. This is great especially if you don’t have the time to check out the blogs regularly.

One caveat is that you shouldn’t have too many email subscriptions or you’d risk losing track of all of them. It’s all about the law of focus. If you’re working, I’d suggest having 10 email subscriptions. If you’re a student, you probably have a lot of free time to kill so I’d think you can probably afford at least 20 email subscriptions.

There are probably a lot of other ways you can obtain good information from the blogs out there. For instance, you could participate in the forum with like-minded people. Just be creative and you’d be a master in that field in no time!

How do you get information from blogs? Do you blog? Give us some tips!

Ever wonder what the famous authors read? I’m sure you have. Or maybe just whoever that you happen to know whom you think is a wonderful and respected person. The best way would be to look at the citation page and check out the book list and online URLs. Those are probably the most valuable sources you should tap into to learn more about a particular person or a field.

How to use Delicious bookmarks

If the author or whoever person you’re interested in uses Delicious bookmarks often, you’re in for a great information gold mine. A highly effective way is to look at his Delicious bookmarks and visit the all the links he’s saved in his profile.

If you want to be more targeted at a specific niche, say personal development, then dig around his bookmarks tags. Tags are useful ways to get into a specific category provided. They might not be exactly the same as you’d think initially, say the tag could be money, investment, budget, etc instead of personal finance. If the author is active in writing the description, it’s even better!

Use Delicious for Personal Branding

Using Delicious bookmarks is also good way to brand yourself. I believe the best way to use it is to save articles, videos, and sites that are interesting and useful only. Don’t save junks (read: another me-too article on losing weight). If you want to save junks, at least tag it junks so people know that you’re conscious about what you read.

Also, you should add a description of the link that you save so that people know what your opinion is on the subject. Do you think it’s genius? Or maybe it’s not backed up by facts? Or it could just be a random blog post by someone who’s stopped blogging for a year. Whatever it may be, make sure to note it down. It’s great for your own reference later on. You’d probably had forgotten most of the stuffs by then.

Finally, post your Delicious link on your profile (Twitter, Facebook, Blog, etc) so that it’s visible to your audience, which could be your friends, coworkers, or your blog readers. There’s no point in trying to brand yourself when nobody knows that you even exist.

Video Tutorial

Charlie Hoehn talked about how to hack into someone’s mind by using Delicious bookmarks in this video. You might want to check it out while you’re here to get more out of Delicious bookmarks. His example about figuring out someone else’s marketing strategy is great, but then again it’s probably not as easy as it sounds. It takes time and patience to study all the materials a person reads, and finally get a sense of what he’s thinking about. If you’re not serious about it or you have no need for it, you could just bookmark the video for now.

A Two-edged Sword

The advantages of Delicious could also be its disadvantages. Sometimes people save a bunch of stuffs just because it’s fast and easy. In fact, if you’re using Firefox, you definitely want to download the Delicious add-on because it makes bookmarking much quicker. Here’s the link to the download.

Anyway, you have to be careful about what the person does with Delicious. If he’s just saving a bunch of stuffs to read but he might not necessarily agree with the materials or he may even think that they’re junks. In that case, if you follow him, you’re probably reading junks as well. If he has his own critics about the links though then it might be worth to check out the links and see you should avoid doing, otherwise you should just ignore the junks.

You Become What You Feed into Your Mind

The key is to stand guard of your mind. Don’t let junks come into you and pollute your beautiful mind. Even if it comes from the greatest person on earth (don’t know who that person is to you), but it’s junk to you, then it’s junk no matter what. So just ignore it and save yourself some time (which we don’t have enough these days!).

Remember, your thoughts are influenced by what you feed into your mind, and you will become what you think about.

Do you use Delicious bookmarks? And more importantly, are you getting the best out of it?

Share with us some great tips you’ve been using on this wonderful bookmarking service!

Are you frustrated at not being able to find the information you need online? Or maybe the information you found isn’t really providing substantial value (money?) for whatever purpose you have in mind? Fear not, I will share with you today the power of the internet – an information gold mine.

Say you’re considering to go to a brand new city for a degree or simply a career switch, you might want to find out how populated the city is.

Or, to put it closer to the theme of this blog, you want to make some money but you don’t really want a job.

There’s a great tool out there you could use to do these, you’ve probably heard of it, it’s called Craigslist.

Study the population of a city

If you’re trying to check out a city, go to Craigslist.org and search for the city you plan to move to, say New York City. You’ll undoubtedly see a ton of posts every day, showing that people are active and there are probably a lot of Internet savvy people in the city (which is true).

On the other hand, if the city is dead, you’d most likely see very few posts on Craigslist. And pardon my bluntness, most people in the neighborhood are probably older too (cause they don’t use Craigslist!).

Make money from Craigslist

What about the money? You got it, Craigslist is literally a gold mine. Well, maybe not exactly a gold mine, but good enough anyway. You can often get free stuffs off Craigslist, especially furniture, provided you’re willing to go grab it from the owner. Many people want to get rid of their old furniture so they tend to give it out for free. It’s usually on a first come, first served basis, so it’s best to find somewhere local that you could get to rather quickly.

Also, as you may already know, there are many freelance jobs available on Craigslist. However, what you may not know is that there are companies out there that pay you to help them with their marketing effort.

I have a friend in the West Coast who went for a teeth whitening experience study and got a lot of freebies (teeth whitening products) worth hundreds of dollars. Of course, he had to go to the place almost every day for like a week. But hey, his teeth are sparkling white now, in fact I’m gonna meet him tomorrow so I’ll find out how effective that has been!

How to avoid scams

Truth be told, there are a lot of scams on Craigslist. If you’re not careful, you could easily lose hundreds of dollars. When I was hunting for apartment in NYC (I live in White Plains now), I always looked for posts that contain phone numbers and photos. Those without phone numbers are instantly labeled as scams by me.

If you still don’t believe me and email them anyway, you’d most likely (99% of the time) get an email asking you to pay some sort of deposit for a key to a really awesome apartment (in photos) at an incredibly affordable price. The owner is abroad, and will deal with you through an agent, bla bla bla…

All in all, only deal with people just like how you’d deal with them in real life. Don’t give them money until you see the real products (in this case, the apartment). Craigslist has a full page on scams, check it out before you’re doing transactions through Craigslist.

Dig around

Look around and see what else you can find, I probably haven’t talked about a million other things you can do on Craigslist. It’s essentially an online marketplace for everybody in the world, although it’s locale specific.

Having said that, Craigslist is not for the faint of heart. If you’re not comfortable dealing with strangers through Craigslist, that’s cool. Know that you’re missing out a very useful tool on the Internet, but then again nothing is indispensable.

In fact, later in the week I will touch on more tools out there that would help make your life easier, so wait for the next post!

What’s your Craigslist experience like? Share some good tips with us!

One fine day, I was riding on my way on the subway and as usual saw a few homeless people sleeping along the way. Suddenly, the idea of why these people would be so broke struck me. Some of them looked perfectly capable of working, but yet they just lived on the street.

I think it’s got to do with the street being free, no rent nor mortgage to pay off. Also, some of them just gave up, what they’re hanging onto is just survival.

And I had an idea for my post. I don’t want any more people to be homeless. So I thought, maybe if people could figure out when they might get broke, they could start doing things in advance to prevent that. That’s what inspired this post – finding the broke point.

What’s the broke point?

It’s the age when you will be broke, based on the projection of your income and expenses. Basically, if your broke point is 70, you get broke when you’re 70 years old.

After much calculation, the broke point I came up with for a typical case is 78 years old. On average, that’s about the time a person dies (for females it’s about 81 years old, and males 75, according to sources such as US Census Bureau). But if you happen to be non-average, which will most likely happen, you’d be broke. Yes, broke and in debt, and you have to survive somehow by borrowing or declaring bankruptcy.

As each individual is in different situation, please download the spreadsheet here (right click – save as) and run your own broke point. If you find it useful, feel free to share it with your friends and family.

What about Social Security?

If they still exist by the time you retire then you might have a chance. On average, 3 people are paying for the social security of a person. That means you’d need 9 people to pay for the 3 people who will retire eventually, then 27 people for the 9 retirees in the future, so on so forth.

Ultimately, the social security will go bust because there won’t be enough people to pay to the social security fund, unless the government raises taxes (bad thing considering how much we’re already paying – 6.2%).

In fact, according to the Social Security Board of Trustees, the tax revenues will be lower than the cost in 2016, and the whole social security program is projected to go bust in 2037.

But getting broke at 78 is not so bad…

You will most likely live beyond that. I’m not trying to scare you here, just trying to raise some awareness. In the calculation, I assume the income will increase every year by 3%, and that your savings, if any, will also go up by 3% (interest rate).

Bank Interest Rate

In reality, it’s not the case. Most banks are paying less than 1.5% to your savings account, so if you have a portion of money that’ won’t be used any time you might want to move them to the CDs (Certificate of Deposits). Even then, you’d be getting 3% or less for a CD term of 4-5 years.

Salary Increase and Inflation

Annual salary increment, not to mention, is not going to be promising in the near future. Most people are probably grateful if they don’t have to take pay cut. Good thing is inflation rate also stay low at the same time, but in the long run it’s about 3%.

Age and Income

Also, as you start to play with the numbers in the spreadsheet I’ve built, you’d notice that a typical person might not start out at age 22 with $50,000 income (cause that’s for a household), and you would probably not think about investing 5% of your salary to the 401k. As each individual is different, I’d leave it to you to find your broke point.

The national median of annual income income for a typical household is about $50,000 based on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. That’s before-tax however, but since the expenses is just a percentage of the income so it doesn’t matter. So, as you change your income your broke point won’t change. Remember, it’s not what you earn, but what you keep that counts!

What should we do?

There are really 2 things we can do immediately:

1) Save more and Lower Your Debt

It’s a no-brainer. A good way to get started is to start paying off your credit card debt, which is eating you alive with it’s average of 15% interest rate. You should also set up savings account or CDs and channel a percentage of your paycheck to the account every month before you spend it. I’d suggest saving up for an emergency fund before anything else. I’ve talked about these in details in this post.

2) Invest into 401k and IRA

If you employer provides 401k match, it is basically free money for you to invest in the stock market, which in the past has averaged a long-term annual return of about 8%. Even if they don’t, you should take advantage of the deferred taxes in the 401k system (whether you go traditional or Roth 401k). Find out why you should join the 401k in this post.

An often overlooked investment vehicle is the IRA (Individual Retirement Account). It provides you with essentially the same benefits as the 401k (with some differences in the withdrawals and contributions). The maximum contribution per year is $5,000/year if you’re 49 years old and below, $6,000 otherwise.

However, you don’t need your employer to do it for you, you can set it up yourself! It’s a great advantage for especially students or those whose companies do not provide 401k plan to invest their money. If you’re interested to learn more, I’ve written more on IRA in this post.

If you don’t want to get broke, it’s time to get up and take control of your finances (again, you can download the spreadsheet here)

So, what’s your broke point? Do you have a strategy to get rich and most importantly, stay rich? Please share with us in the comments section.

As a consultant by profession, I have to face a completely new project almost every month, sometimes weeks. It’s challenging because I’d feel like a beginner again and won’t know what to do. In fact, I will have to learn the terminology, the industry, the work procedures, and the clients. I’m sure you’ve faced the same situation, and often would get frustrated and stressed out by the steep learning curve and tight deadlines. So how do I get up to speed? I follow these 7 powerful steps:

1) Perform a high-level overview

You need to know, see, and feel the big picture. What’s the purpose of the project? What’s the outcome? Without the bigger picture, you’d often stumble upon roadblocks during your work and wouldn’t be able to make any educated judgment as to how you should proceed.

2) Perform a detailed level overview

Once you’re done the with the big picture you’d have to drill down to the details. For instance, you know the project is to facilitate the mergers of 2 companies and the outcome would be the integration of 2 different HR systems. But you have to know your specific task, such as selecting the final system that would be used.

3) Review past workpapers

If it’s a recurring project in which had previous workpapers lying around, take a look at them to see how things were done last time. You don’t have to follow every single step exactly, but you’d have a better idea what to do overall.

If it’s a brand new project, search for the workpapers of similar projects and get a general framework. You can be a little more creative here since no one really knows what to do, so you should add or subtract as you see fit.

4) Review past documentation

Similar to step 3, be sure to look at any documentation recorded in the past. This serves as a useful guide to your current work, and most likely will save you a lot of time as you’d know what to do specifically. Well, hopefully it’s specific enough for you to make use of it.

5) Begin work

Dive in! Don’t wait until you’ve learnt everything done in the past. You’ll never be able to. Just do it and learn along the way, things will make more sense once you’re actually doing it than just philosophizing. Besides, you’d better get started before the deadlines hit!

6) Ask a lot of questions upfront

Ask many questions upfront if there’s an expert you could reach out to. I emphasize the word ‘upfront’ because as you go deeper into the work, you’re naturally expected to be more proficient too. So, take the chance to ask questions while you’re still perceived as a newbie.

Also, I’m sure you’ve heard “there’s no dumb question, just ask.” WRONG. There IS a dumb question. People don’t tell you this but they form their own opinion of you based on your questions, so think before you ask. If you could find out the answers yourself, do it. Otherwise, phrase it in such a way that shows that you’ve tried and the person you’re asking is the only person that could help you.

Note: If you ignore this, you’d be the dumb one, not the question.

7) Understand your work and make good notes

Finally, understand at least the core part of your work and make very good notes and documentation. It helps you when you have to do the same thing next time around, or if not, it’d be useful when you’re trying to teach the same thing to somebody else. You don’t want to be a newbie again, do you?

Here you go, the 7 powerful steps that you should use to get yourself up to speed, but you could always be more creative and apply the same principles in whatever you’re doing. A complete makeover of the list above:

1) Find your purpose and passion (big picture such as teaching personal development to others)

2) Determine exactly what you gonna do (specific goals and milestones such as building a blog with the intention to reach out to as many people as possible)

3) Look at successful examples (study blogs and websites that have huge traffic and community)

4) Seek out tutorials/advices from the successful examples (get their ebooks, reach out to them and ask for tips/advices)

5) Start doing what you’ve decided to do (in this case, start blogging and learn along the way)

6) Get feedback and track progress (send out survey to readers, get feedback from friends/bloggers, track progress with specific milestones)

7) Understand what you’re doing and record important activities (understand what blogging is all about and keep track of useful websites and lessons)

How do you learn something new? Share your tips and advices with us.

The ability to make quick decisions is an important key to success. According to Napoleon Hill, famous author who wrote the bestseller non-fiction titled “Think and Grow Rich”, the Declaration of Independence, the beginning of this free country, originated from the swift and courageous decisions made by 56 men. If they didn’t decide to make this country independent, there wouldn’t be July 4 holiday any more!

Do you struggle at making decisions? And I’m not even talking about important decisions that would change your life dramatically such as becoming an entrepreneur, getting married, and having a kid. I’m referring to the daily decisions that you have to make, such as choosing which clothes to wear in the morning, whether you would say good morning to strangers, things like that.

I have a very good example to illustrate the benefits of advance decision-making (ADM). I take the train to work in the morning, and while I’m walking to the station I usually see the janitor lady with her whole cart of cleaning tools, getting ready to start the day. I’d say good morning to her no matter how I feel that morning. I might be tired, I might be in a good mood, I might be having sore throat. But I’ve made the decision in advance that I’d smile and greet her “Good Morning!” every time I see her. It’s a simple gesture, but if I didn’t make that decision, I might just pass by her without looking if I’m not “feeling it”. I’d feel a little guilty after that because she’d expect a “Good Morning!” from me, and I struggle emotionally for a little early in the morning. Not that it’s a big deal if it happens once in a while, you and I have those kind of the days when you don’t feel like talking to anybody. But if that accumulates day by day, it’d grow into a big emotional hustle in your mind, and that’s not very effective and might even ruin your morning ride to work.

Taking it to the next level, after I hop on the train, I will start looking for seats so I can sit down and begin my commute reading (I usually read during my commute time, it’s a great way to utilize the time). Know that the Metronorth train is rather crowded in the morning, especially after 8 am. And the struggle comes when you have to start looking for empty seats, because some people would sit on aisle seat with their bags put on the window seat. Sometimes, I’d think, “Should I ask him to put away the bag so I can have a seat?” The answer usually comes in different forms: “Maybe I’ll just look for another empty seat down the aisle.” But based on experience, sometimes I’d just have the same thought over and over again and eventually reach the end of the train and just stand (but I’d still read while standing!). Or when I’m feeling great, I’d say, “Excuse me, sir, do you mind?” It’s a mental hassle, and makes me feel ineffective. So one day, I made up my mind to just ask for the empty seat whenever I see them, and sit down to enjoy my reading.

Some may have doubts, “Isn’t that inconsiderate?” But really, every single seat is supposed to be filled, and nobody has the privilege to occupy 2 seats since we all paid for it. And if you haven’t taken the Metronorth train before, there’s an overhead compartment where you could put your bags, or you could put the bag below your seat, so that solves the space problem. Of course, there’s always exception, so I’d sometimes stand if the space is really tight. The point I’m trying to make here is that decisions you make in advance will help you automate the daily thought process and actions, backed by your principles and values. It saves you so many headaches if you just have enough decisions made well before something happens, as you won’t even have to think about what to do.

Some suggested applications for you:

1) I’ll never drink alcohol again. Next time someone asks you to drink, if you’re struggling, you would tell yourself, “I’ve made the decision not to drink. I’m going to stick to my commitment.” Note that I do drink occasionally, but that’s my decision. It’s yours to decide the “what”.

2) I’ll never swear again.

3) I’ll always be patient to my spouse no matter how I feel.

4) I’ll always greet strangers whom I make eye contact with.

There are millions of things you can apply ADM on. I’ll leave it to your imagination. Hope this will help you the next time you feel frustrated at an annoying decision-making process that could have been solved in advance. Remember, the less you have to think about unimportant things, the more time you have to think about the important matters.

I will share with you a secret checklist that most people you know on earth don’t know about! What is it, you ask? It’s a list that would make you realize why you’re doing what you’re doing and if you should continue doing it. It also helps you to identify the things you should be doing that you haven’t been doing much so far. You will finally know yourself, much better than the past 20 years or so. The secret checklist, is none other than Zig Ziglar’s success checklist! I’m going to reveal it to you now, the most important checklist in your life. Most people don’t dare to evaluate where they are, including myself. But if we don’t find out where we are, how can we get to where we want? So, grab your pen and paper, write down the following headings, and put a “+” or “-” or “?” next to it as we go along.

Ready? Go!

You’re likely to be successful if you’re (in no particular order):

1 ) Reasonably Prosperous – Money is important. It’s true that money can’t buy everything, including happiness, genuine relationships, peace of mind, etc. However, money could buy everything else! It could get you a comfortable house, get you some nice warm clothing so you won’t catch a cold in the winter, and let you have some money to pursue your interests. So, don’t feel guilty when you’re making money legitimately. Just remember to give them when you have the opportunity – it always comes back in one form or another. I used to think that making money and giving it out could be a conflict, but after reading so many stories and meeting so many people that prove it wrong, I’ve learned to make money and give out money whenever I can afford to. If you think you’re reasonably wealthy, living a good life without having to worry about the next bill, put a “+”, otherwise a “-”.

2 ) Secure – Most people think of this as financial security, which would make sense. But what really is financial security? How much money do you need to be financially secure? I think the question is tough to answer. Billionaires could go bankrupt any time, a good example being Donald Trump. But the key is that he could come back with a second round and become a billionaire AGAIN! Man you gotta respect that persistence and competence. So, don’t make money for the sake of making money, learn about how you could make money even if you lose all of them now. I’m not a millionaire, but I’m learning. That’s all that matters. Give it a “+” if you think you’re pretty secure, otherwise a “-”.

3 ) Friends – Easy. You have good friends you can count on whenever you’re feeling blue and depressed? Or do you have friends you can share your joy and success with? If you do, give yourself a thumbs up (+)! Otherwise, a “-”, and pick up your phone to call the friends you’ve been wanting to hang out with!

4 ) Good Family Relationships – It’s a tough one. Do you have good relationships with your family members? Are you doing little things to make your family joyful? Good family relationships don’t come by easily, you have to work at it. If there’s any trouble in your family that you can help to solve, do it. If love is in your family, give yourself a plus, otherwise a minus.

5 ) Hope – Do you have great hope for the future? Do you have plans that would make yourself live life to the fullest? Hope is wonderful thing because it gives you the energy and courage to go on, no matter what obstacles you face. If you’re feeling hopeful for what lies ahead, give yourself a big “+”, otherwise a “-” (there’s some work to do).

6 ) Happy – Ya feeling happy every day? Part of the day? One day of the week? There’s no reason to feel unhappy, you’re alive and kicking! So, go watch a funny video. Ya know what to do for your checklist, don’t you?

7 ) Healthy – Are you healthy overall? It’s not easy to find a physically perfect person. Most people have a small health problem or two. As long as you’re working hard at your health (going to gym, walking a lot, swimming, etc) and feeling good about yourself, I think you deserve a plus! Don’t let health be an excuse for you to not do something. Think of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the only US president elected to 4 terms. He was crippled by polio as a young adult but he went on to  become the US president anyway!

8 ) Peace of mind – Last thing, peace of mind. If you’re achieving what you want and you can’t have a peace of mind, that’s not really a life you want, is it? Listening to some soothing music might help. I hope you’re giving yourself a plus for this, otherwise you should lie on the couch and just relax for 15 minutes and think about nothing.

As Zig said, life cannot be in balance every day and every week. But if we keep this checklist and work on it regularly to keep the balance in place as often as possible, then we’re on a good track. I have 2 +,3 –  and 3 ?, so there’s still a lot of work to do. Please share your stories and inspire everyone here in the comments!