For many people, no matter what the issue is, communicating to them that they should change is a lot easier than communicating to them to change. In other words, it is easy to highlight a problem to someone and to get them to agree with you but difficult to demonstrate why it would be worth it for them to go through the energy and effort required to change it. I call this whole idea relating to having motivation to advance and progress The Worth of Advancement. The Worth of Advancement basically states that 1) If something has worth, then we desire it, 2) If we desire it, then we are motivated to pursue it, and 3) Therefore, if something has worth, then we are motivated to pursue it.

Or, put another way: if someone sees why something has worth then they will want to obtain it and will work toward doing so. Without seeing why money has worth, you may be broke. Without seeing why love has worth, you may be antisocial. Without seeing why exercise has worth, you may be something like physically lazy.

So, the question of beginning to create a change starts with what we are doing to cause that change to begin with, and why we are going after that particular change. When you think about it, this is the same way that negative changes happen too, not just positive ones! Or rather, this is the same way that disadvantageous changes happen instead of advantageous and beneficial ones. Someone will take up smoking cigarettes because they perceive the bad health effects to be worth the sense of relaxation and control they get from lighting up.

Worth ties into beliefs. When we believe something to be true, our beliefs are generally constructed from our thoughts, feelings, and the actions we take upon our environment. Of course, the environment is constantly sending stimuli our way to try and convince us that we should act one way or another but the entire time we have to make choices and decisions regarding how we go about responding to our environment. Perhaps one of the first places you should always start for change is knowing what you can or cannot control. This is the truth: you can control your response to the environment but not the environment itself.

Robert J. Stanley, for example, in his book Stop Acting Rich: …And Start Living Like A Real Millionaire, remarks upon the fact that a huge percentage of modern millionaires avoid the stock market like the plague. My own grandmother has given me the advice that if you want a reliable return on your stock investments that you should never purchase a stock without a paying dividend. Still, some millionaires have avoided the stock market together for the reason that they have no control over what shifts the market takes; you can control your business as a business owner and how that business is run but you may not be able to control economic conditions and the actions of your competitors. From a certain perspective it makes total sense!

Now, am I saying specifically that you should avoid the stock market all together? Well no, not necessarily. In fact, one of my favorite coaches, the ever popular Tony Robbins remarked that while things have taken a drastic economic turn there is still tremendous opportunity for the right investors. I agree with him, he is right – when stock prices have plummeted and the economic conditions begin to recover you may just see the prices rise an amazing high at an exponential rate for a while. If you buy stock at $5 a share when the economy has hit either rock bottom or near rock bottom it is possible you could see that stock rise to around $12 to $14 or even more once the economy recovers. That’s more than a 100% increase and a huge return! Of course, I do not recommend that you gamble away all your savings on such an idea.

Another portion of change that is a huge element: some of the things that you believe are true and some of the things that are true you do not believe. Back in early 2006, I pitched the idea of my old t-shirt side business to my production company, Barton Ct. Productions Inc., so that we could have a source of income outside of the indie/amateur film industry (which in terms of money is basically non-existent). Later on in April of that same year, after they had shot down the idea saying it would be, basically, a waste of time if it did not work and something we “weren’t ready for” I decided to launch that side business myself and ended up coming out of it with over $15,000 in profit by the end of the business’s run. Not bad for a guy who had not even turned 21 and had only been through a couple semesters of college, running that operation part time!

Aside from just money, the lack of belief in what may be the truth constantly happens in other areas as well. Relationships can tend to suffer (or never even happen at all) because someone does not believe that they can grow being in a relationship with you or sometimes when you open your mouth to a stranger they will automatically assume, because of past experience or some other perception, that you have nothing to offer them. In many cases, rejection of a friendship or a romantic relationship can result from a belief in something that simply is not true.

So how do you tell the difference? How do you decipher the truth? To begin with, it certainly is not easy. Of course, there are right and wrong ways of going about it and the one thing you should probably rely on as little as possible is your emotional guidance, or intuition. The most fail proof way we have is engaging in the scientific method. I will not get too deep into the scientific method for this particular article but essentially it involves forming something you believe to be true in the first place, a hypothesis, and then setting up a rational process in which you can validly and reliably test that hypothesis. Many people probably already know about the scientific method because fortunately: it is taught as young as elementary school.

Under my conclusions, everything also relates back to Long Term Survival Theory, which essentially says that we should always be following this general process:

• Survive – physical longevity, staying alive, being healthy.
• Replication – reproducing aspects of ourselves but outside of our own mind and body.
  • Mimetic Replication – the expansion and reproduction of our ideas and non-material traits.
  • Genetic Replication – the biological reproduction of our physical body, our DNA, sexual reproduction.
• Empower – enable the other people in the population around you to do the first two main portions of the process.

The last part can be a bit confusing to some but the reasoning behind it comes from findings demonstrable in the field of social network analysis, sociology, and psychology. If we exert effort on making sure the others around us are doing well it has been proven that it will aid us as well! If your family is happy, you are more likely to be happy. If your friends are all in a great mood then that great mood can be contagious and chances are pretty soon you might be in a great mood as well. Human beings have a remarkable ability for empathy due in part to our own ability for cognitive (or thought) constructs and something in our brains known as mirror neurons – where the brain will literally fire off some of the same connections that other people are firing off when those people express certain emotions that you see.

To sum everything up, it is really essential that you understand these basics regarding creating any life transformation, or change, from your core foundations. You need to:
1) Understand what your beliefs are, why you have them, and ask whether or not they can be known to be absolutely true.
2) Figure out what you feel has worth and consider why you want to work toward it. Make a list of other things that might have worth and another list of things that you feel are entirely worthless.
3) Begin to test and experiment with what you feel has worth, what you believe, and begin to learn and understand what is true. Remember that emotion should have little influence on this process. Be scientific and measure, measure, measure!

If you perform this exercise on a continuous basis you will quickly find that it opens up more and more questions which become more and more challenging to answer. For someone who has never really conducted this process on their life, it could prove to be challenging to simply write down the beliefs in which they have because there are many people who do not even know what it is they actually believe!

A general example of what this process might look like would be:
1) I believe that if I advertise for my business, I will receive more customers – is this true?
2) It is worth it to receive more customers for my business because I will receive more money and money is good – is this true?
3) Assuming that both things are true, let me begin conducting experiments to see if this entire concept is true.

Then you proceed to attempt different kinds of advertising and marketing strategies and so on and so forth. The interesting thing is that, in this example, sometimes not all businesses will receive more customers from advertising. Sometimes “money being good” might be true but maybe the fact that the money being good being your motivation actually presents a problem in your action plan. This is not an absolutely concrete process, it is an abstract one that is designed to get you thinking about all kinds of different angles on one single concept, which will then turn into endless concepts.

Remember that creating a change should happen from first understanding the foundations of where that change, and the desire for that change, are coming from. You must understand why it is you believe what it is you believe before you decide whether or not it is worth changing the belief in the first place. Sometimes being entrenched in a single belief without truly looking to outside sources with an open mind can be remarkably damaging and will only cause you to become further entrenched in a harmful, useless, or just plain false belief. Forming a hypothesis and testing it through rationally oriented experimentation is the best way to finding reliable and valid solutions to any problem that you may face whether those problems relate to relationships, money, or any aspect of health and beyond.

Of course, that is not to say that the right girl could not come along and change everything. Certainly, there are a few different types of girls out there that are still making me smile on a daily basis. I have also noticed that during the time I have been single is when the most women are stepping up to take charge. It is nice, for once, to finally be pursued.

I do not think my being ‘pursued’ is a coincidence at all, though, and there are a few reasons for that. For one, I have worked tirelessly on myself for years now, especially since getting out of high school. The clothes I wear look nicer, I am almost always well groomed, I have been made significant headway toward graduating with my degree, and I have completed a number of other side projects that make me feel very accomplished for a 22 year old.

As a part of working on myself, I have discovered that there are particular things that really do attract women as well as make me feel happier about just being me. Here are the top ten things to do while being single that have worked very well for me.

1. Make all of the extra dirty, filthy money you can. Yes, it is true. Women cost money. And during the time you are single is one of the best opportunities you have to rake in the extra doe. No dinner to pay for, no anniversary gifts, DEFINITELY no shiny ring, not even extra groceries. And hey, if you find other ways to pass the time, there’s not even a Netflix membership fee. Hooray! So that’s savings, and then there’s all that extra time you have to work extra hours on your business or at your hourly rate job.

2. Work on your body and the women will follow. I have begun to lose track of how many times I have run into old female friends and they all remark “wow, Scott, you’ve lost a LOT of weight!” I was not even fat to begin with but now I am super skinny from eating low carb and doing high intensity, short burst interval training. Of course, my body still lacks perfection. But that is okay – the girls are noticing the effort nonetheless.

3. Make lots of new friends. Truthfully, this may just be one of the most important things you can possibly do and may just belong at #1 on the list. But since money helps you eat and friends do not (all the time, at least), I’ll place it a little lower. Friends are the lifeblood of your social life while you are single and by extension are probably part of the lifeblood of your overall happiness as well. Find people that are just like you who can give you support in all areas of your life. Use sites like Meetup.com to find people with similar interests and find a good spot in your city’s local night life to frequent. Be a familiar face in an unfamiliar crowd and overcome any level of shyness you may have.

4. Take up a hobby or give to charity with your time. Especially if you are just coming out of a break up, it is essential to spend your time in a meaningful way besides lounging around the house, picking your nose, or watching movies. Do something that you enjoy and that brings you fulfillment.

5. Get educated in a new subject. Sometimes your opportunity to learn new things goes hand in hand with some of the other items on this list. Tackle different areas of your social skills or learn a new technical trade. I know that for me, following break ups, it is one of the best things that will push me right back to this blog or into working on a new book. For others, it might be learning a new language, taking up a self defense class, or learning how to sky dive. There are a wide range of things to do, get out into the world and experience it!

6. Cut ties with your addictions and vices. If you have an addiction to smoking, cigarettes, sex, alcohol, or anything else – now is a good time to focus on getting your health back together. This could even mean making a new goal and commitment to do away with junk food. Something within your routines is probably messed up. Figure out what it is and work on it. If it takes doing so, start seeing a therapist with cognitive-behavior therapy background and who is a licensed professional counselor (LPC).

7. Give yourself a style makeover. I know it might sound very girlish of me to say but here I am, a guy, and telling other guys here to get style makeovers. Head out to the store and pick up a brand new suit if you are a professional person, buy some new casual clothes for a night out on the town, and use them. Try out and experiment with different looks and test to see what others’ responses are.

8. Work on your career and getting to a place you want to be. This might, in some sense, resemble item #1, but it is a bit different. It is sometimes possible to make a horrendous amount of money without enjoying yourself so be sure you are also working on either getting that next promotion at work or are working on making a new impact in your business or field of study.

9. Figure out what went wrong with past relationships and exactly what you want in the next partner. If you do not yet know what you want, then get everything together and get back to trying again. If you do know then remember not to bother settling for less than what you deserve. Sometimes, figuring out what you want can be as simple as doing a little meditation or sitting down for several minutes to write down what you like and dislike on a sheet of paper. It might seem like common sense or things that are “universal” but believe it or not you may desire things that are remarkably unique in relationships. Single is one of the times to determine what those things are.

10. Flirt. A lot. And create options. Part of being single means that you hold obligations to no one. For this reason, it only makes sense that you should be able to test the waters a bit. Where you can, open the opportunity for shifting the context of different relationships and see how the various candidates respond! For some people this is not fun, but I admit it is one of the best parts of being single for me.

For each one of these categories there are literally countless different books that could be written regarding the different points but all of these have one thing in common – they all have to do with improving yourself and working to become more attractive for that next relationship. I can also understand, following a breakup, needing some time off from relationships. Maybe I am in that category and do not realize it but chances are more likely that I am really just taking more time off from girls because the right one (or ones) has not popped up.

In the mean time, I will enjoy the increased productivity, financial savings, peace of mind, and quiet that goes with the single life. Cheers.

Do you hate exercise? Sometimes, I do too. Most of the time I am one of those people who makes the excuse that I “do not have time” for exercise. Obviously, there is no real excuse and if you really want to exercise more you will but when it comes down to it exercising without changing your diet is really not going to get you any results, and changing your diet to just anything is really not a simple enough solution. If you really want to lose weight you have to also really want to be healthy.

I am going to tell you in easy terms how to do this by eating alone but I will also give you a small hint as to where to go with your exercise habits as well at the very end of this article. But let’s begin! I hope you’re taking notes.

First things first: take your vitamins every day. If you are like most people, your daily diet consists of modern foods that have been robbed of their naturally high nutritional intake. Your very first task to compensate for this could easily be to take a daily multivitamin and some nutritional supplements. I take a normal Centrum which you can get from virtually any grocery store.

• B-Vitamins unite! The B Vitamins are so ridiculously important to you and your activities throughout your waking day that I would even argue that even going a week without them is devastating in ways you probably cannot imagine and unfortunately are not even visible. One study even found that people had highly reduced brain volume after not getting a good intake of Vitamin B12 (Vogiatzoglou et al. “Vitamin B12 status and rate of brain volume loss in community-dwelling elderly.” Neurology. 2008. 71:826-832). I would highly recommend taking Vitamin B1 (Riboflavin), B6, and B12 supplements every day.

• There are good fats and bad fats for you. Omega-3’s are good, omega-6’s are bad. Pick up a Fish Oil supplement to get your daily intake of Omega-3 fatty acids.

• CoQ10 is another good one which will aid visual function.(Blasi MA, Bovina C, Carella G, et al. Does coenzyme Q10 play a role in opposing oxidative stress in patients with age-related macular degeneration? Opthalmologica. 2001 Jan-Feb;215(1):51-4).

Some simple rules that if you follow them, you will be just fine… Eating healthy is not actually as complicated as the media makes it sound. I will prove it to you if you want to try my approach. Essentially, all you have to do is…

• Do not eat anything that has anything but natural sugars (this means no sugar from anything but normal fruit). We have an obscene amount of sugar flooding our diets from modern food companies and the way that food is delivered. This means not drinking sodas. Ever. It also means no pies, cakes, cupcakes, whip cream, or when drinking your coffee sweetening it with sugar. If you absolutely MUST add sugar, I’d recommend trying out adding natural, real sugar (like “Sugar in the RAW”) and brown sugar. But really? You get enough natural sugars from everything you eat, especially fruits like oranges and apples. Oh, but on top of that – if you are to eat bread, eat less than one serving. Bread, or anything made from flour, is essentially sugar. Yes, sandwiches are bad for you.

• Eat a high protein diet. Your body can manufacture certain kinds of fats that it can burn off and various other things it might need but it has no real way to produce protein. Protein is in stuff like steak, chicken, turkey, ham and any kind of meat. Remember what I said about vitamin B12 – just a side note – you can only get your B vitamin intake naturally by eating red meat. The best source of protein anywhere? Eggs, eat LOTS of eggs!

• Fat does not make you fat. Do not worry about fat, but NEVER eat trans fat. Trans fat is sort of like eating plastic: it never fully breaks down, it’s artificial, and it kills you. On the other hand, normal fat, even saturated fat, you do not even have to worry about if you follow the other rules presented here! That means you can eat those giant, juicy, delicious pieces of meat and stuff that vegetarians hate so much and you will never have to regret it! And for vegetarians, see my last bullet point here.

• Drink lots of water. More than any other fluid that you could drink, drink more water than anything else. For stuff that is caffeinated, drink purely black tea or black coffee – do not add sugar. Water is essential. In fact, the majority of every single one of our bodies is composed of water anyway so always keep plenty of drinking water around.

• Do not count calories. If you’re eating the right foods – calories simply do not matter. When I first cut out all of the excess sugar from my own diet and began eating an enormous amount of eggs, meat, cheese, and vegetables I had a ravenous hunger I had not experienced in a long time. Interestingly, it was probably because I had dramatically dropped my blood sugar in a short amount of time and I ate more than ever. Even as I did, I got thinner and skinnier. Calories do not make the difference – the right food does.

• Forget about including corn as a “vegetable.” In fact, corn is actually more like a grain. It just is not that good for you and it sort of could be equated to the evil of eating sugar. High fructose corn syrup, which is in virtually every soda (again, do NOT drink sodas EVER), is in a variety of products and it is going to make you fatter and more unhealthy.

• When all else fails eat a low carb diet with low sugar and high protein. When it comes down to it the three main rules I am mainly trying to get across are:

• • Eat low carb.
  • Eat low sugar.
  • Eat high protein.

Think Atkin’s diet (cutting out carbs) where you eliminate bread, chips, crackers, and other items with high carb content because it is essentially the same as sugar. In regard to the more obvious things with actual sugar: getting rid of anything with sugar like sodas, syrup, cake, pie, ice cream, brownies, and so on. I know, I know, sugar is delicious but so is fat! Remember that there is nothing really that wrong with fat provided you are consuming a low carb, low sugar, high protein diet. It has been scientifically proven (and from my own experience) that your body will burn high amounts of fat if you consume a diet that follows these rules.

• And finally: do not be a vegetarian. Human beings, or homo sapiens, are omnivores. They need meat. Stop acting like we did not evolve and grow into existence on anything other than an omnivorous diet. We didn’t. Science shows it, the academic scholars agree, vegetarianism does not work as a sustainable diet. You are better off eating things like eggs and steak mixed in with vegetables, fruit, and just a tiny little tad of grains and sugars (again, less than 1 serving a day for the grains and sugars).

But hey, I should also make a brief side note: I even break my own rules from time to time. Every once and a while, I admit that I will eat ice cream, order pizza, and eat a piece of key lime pie. Fortunately, it hurts me less if I stick to these other rules.

Here is an example of what I typically might consume in a day following my rules.

MEAL 1 OF DAY:

• 2 Fried Eggs, Over Medium
• Orange Juice
• Supplements: Centrum Multivitamin
  • Chromium picolinate 200mcg
  • CoQ10 200mg
  • Fish Oil 1000mg
  • Vitamin C 500mg
• 4 Strips of Bacon

“BRUNCH”:

• Water
• Apple or Orange

MEAL 2, LUNCH:

• 12 Thin Slices of Ham
• Cheddar Cheese
• Cup of Milk
• 1 Can of Green Beans

MEAL 3:

• ½ of a Turkey Leg or 1 Chicken Breast or Steak (Medium)
• 1 Can of Sliced Carrots
• Water

Hopefully this will give you a good start. Looking at the layout of my typical meals and food throughout the day you might be a bit awe struck by realizing how much food you may be consuming that resembles nothing of this! In fact, in this example I might actually try throwing in a couple more eggs. Some people prefer eating eggs completely uncooked by themselves: not me. I like to cook all my food for the most part!

Follow a diet similar to this one and I promise you will see some results, both in your health and in your weight. But what do we do for exercise with this kind of a diet? A hint I will give you is that you should NOT be doing cardio. I repeat: do NOT do cardio! Instead, you want to do short burst, high intensity workouts which burn off whatever carbohydrate energy you may have in your system and then stop – this will program your body to burn whatever fat you have. Doing cardio while consuming a high carb diet is only going to make you miserable and probably will not get you good results.

I look forward to hearing the experiences of bloggers and other readers who may actually try this sort of approach!