Recap From Our Last Event - Immigrants Success Life Skills

Speakers (successful immigrants) shared the following success strategy:

1. Always focus on your strength. You can't sell yourself based on your weakness.

2. You are your own BRAND. Even if you are an employee, you are branding yourself in the company and in the market.

3. Be comfortable with being uncomfortable every single day. For instance one of the participant shared "I did salsa dance for a year, though I couldn't move well enough for months, was shy to dance with ladies." He was uncomfortable every single time he practiced salsa dance. In a year with continuous practice, he mastered it.

4. Understanding what vision you have and willing to do whatever it takes to get it. Obstacles will come and stop your way, now what can you do? Self-Discipline, Determination and Perseverance will be your best friend to move through obstacles.

5.  Last one is to be LASER focused on your goal/aspirations. Cut away all the distraction that your surrounding says or does. When you want something with emotion and total clarity, Universe stand with you to contribute to your SUCCESS.

Note: For more info on events, please follow a link on the right side of the page.

Sub-Conscious Mind - It's Mastery can create unlimited SUCCESS.

Why should immigrants know about the subconscious mind and how can they use it for their benefit?

What is subconscious mind?

It’s referred to a part of the mind that stores all that we practice over and over again; something that becomes second nature to us. Many of us don’t know about the subconscious mind. I believe your subconscious mind can help you integrate into a new culture. After immigrants move to a new country to live, for some people, subconsciously they still live in their countries of origin. In other words, all immigrants possess habits and attitude that they learned while living in their country so what happens is when they come to their new country, they still have those habits and attitude that worked for them while they were in their countries of origin. Those habits and attitude may or may not work while you are in a new country. I know people who had their habits and attitude from their countries of origin and within six months they were happily living here. They learned the new approach to adding to their performance and effectiveness, but their old habits and attitude didn’t become the blockage to their success. I also met people whose habits were a problem for them to get settled here. I have also met people whose attitude don’t support them to live here in a foreign country, and they keep struggling. These are the people usually face challenges getting a job and life that they want in a new country. Unless and until we redesign our habits and attitudes, we can’t get the success that we desire. When we know how our subconscious mind works and learn to let go of old habits and modify our attitude, we can excel in the path we choose to. A simple example would be as follows:

Example: I met this Doctor on Vancouver Island at a retreat. He came to Canada from South America. He was a doctor in South America. When he arrived in Canada, he was asked to give an exam again to become a Doctor in Canada. He was the person who never gives up. He was in his 40's. He studied and within three years passed the exam and got a residency in Canada. This doctor showed an attitude of "Never Give UP." It's impressive. Are you going to do whatever it takes to get what you want?

It’s our attitude that makes all the difference. When we spend too much time on complaining, we lose our focus on preparing for what we want. When we are complaining, people don’t like to stay around us. Watch your habits and attitude! He came to Canada and he had a clear intention without doubt, he would pursue his profession and will not give up. He got what he strived for.

Complaining usually happens when we have cultivated a habit of complaining in our past. It's second nature to our mind when a problem arises, we complain. This process of complaining is stored in our subconscious mind. We need to learn to re-frame and redesign what we learned before. We will find out more how our subconscious mind works and how we can assist ourselves modifying our habits and attitudes. Different immigrants have different challenges. Some people have a tendency to complain, some have a habit of coming late to work, some are unmotivated to take challenges that the new country gives, and some live in the past rather than living in the present and so on.

How Does Your Subconscious Mind Work?

The subconscious is the largest part of our mind. It contains all the messages we've received throughout our lives. It holds millions and millions of thoughts grouped into clusters that form beliefs, mindsets, and character traits. The relationship between the conscious and subconscious minds is like an iceberg. The conscious mind is represented by the visible tip of the iceberg, while the subconscious is represented by the huge lower portion of the iceberg hidden from view. You can't see the unconscious in action, but it certainly has a significant impact on your life.

The subconscious is the place where all of your learned behaviors reside. Once you learn to walk, you don't need to consider how to lift and place each foot to take the next step, do you? Of course not! Your subconscious mind automatically controls your next step or journey of your life. Similarly, when we first start riding a bicycle, we fall and learn. We practice so many times before we start riding our bike on a traffic road. Our subconscious mind makes a note of how to ride a bicycle. The more we practice, the more fearless we become in riding a bike. In the back of our mind, we register skills of riding a bike and it becomes second nature to us.

Your subconscious learns behavior through repetition and practice. Just as it learned to control your footsteps when you learned to walk, As your subconscious mind have precise information on how to walk without letting you think twice how to walk, it also can assist you to create your life’s journey based on what you’ve reinforced throughout your life. Living in a foreign country could be challenging. Our old habits and previous life experience may not support our survival in a new country. It’s important to learn new habits and gain new experience to ace your life in a foreign country.

[The mind is powerful, and you have more control than you think.” 

~ Scott D. Lewis]

Our subconscious mind is awake and aware all the time, and it takes information in real time. If any information is conveyed to our subconscious mind, it doesn't make a difference if it was in the past or future. It treats any information as it is happening now and stores it. That's very powerful. We can feed any positive statement to it, and it would make it happen. I know an acquaintance who is a psychiatrist. She said she had a bad habit of procrastination. Whenever she makes a plan, she delays it by procrastinating. She said, "I started writing ‘to do list' for a day and make sure I do those ‘to do list' every day." Now, it's been six months, she hardly procrastinates. 

The good news is you can reprogram your subconscious mind by inputting and reinforcing new thoughts and actions! There are several different techniques you can use to tap into the subconscious mind and reprogram it to work the way you want to work. One technique is through hypnosis. You can do hypnosis through two methods. One is you can hire a professional to put you into a trance and put the message that you want your subconscious mind to hear (habits or practice that you want to cultivate or habits that you want to get rid of). The other way is to prepare an audio file in your voice or your friend’s voice about affirmations and scripts about habits and practice that you want to have and listen to it when you go to sleep. At sleep, our conscious mind rests and subconscious mind still working. Subconscious mind is awake at all times and listens to everything that`s going around us and especially at night it`s super active. 

...

Success story

This gentleman named Tony (name changed for privacy) was having a hard time getting a job. He had everything that’s needed like education, personality, good English, etc. to get a job in his profession. He had the right knowledge in his field. He always had the interviews and never got a job. His problem of failing to get a job was not his credentials but himself. He had the tendency to think negative all the time. He saw himself as not getting a job. Five senses run our human mind: hear, see, smell, feel and taste. Tony was running his past failure in interviews in his mind.  He was interviewed few times, and he found himself not getting a job. Following his interviews, he had built the habit of running the video of how he was interviewed one after another job and couldn’t pass any interviews. After hearing from the Hypnotherapist of how he was blocking his own success, he planned to do Hypnosis. He practiced one of the hypnosis exercises called "Theatre of a mind." The "theater of mind" definition was introduced by Rene A. Bastarache, director and founder of the American school of Hypnosis. The "Theatre of mind" is a very powerful tool to get your goals. He practiced it for less than a month, and it worked. Following is the explanation of "Theatre of mind." 

Rene A. Bastarache, explains as follows: The Theater of the mind is an incredible self-hypnosis technique that utilizes imagination training. While sitting in your comfortable, relaxed spot, imagine a movie screen directly in front of you with yourself on it as the leading actor. It is important to realize that this technique will work better if you imagine the movie screen outside your head little away from you rather than inside your head.

Tony took the help of hypnosis to eradicate his negative talks about getting a job. He sat down comfortably every morning, in a room where there are no noise. He closed his eyes and visualized in front of him getting a job in the companies he wanted to work. He made a movie of how every day to day work would look like. He is getting up early in the morning, taking a bus to work, stepping into his workplace, working with people confidently, getting the job done and getting a recognition. In his visualization, he also, used all our five senses. He felt amazing, tasted his morning coffee, hearing people working around him, smelling his morning coffee and seeing his computer. He practiced his visualization exercise every day. He did for three months and later within four months he found a job he wanted. He later said, “it’s a miracle.” At the beginning he was having a trouble believing it and later on he started forming a belief that he can very well pass an interview and get a job. His belief got stronger as each day passes by.

Hypnosis alone don’t do a magic. That’s a morning exercise and you need to take action every day to achieve your goal. Tony did his morning exercise and rest of the day he took massive action. He found the company’s name where he wanted to work. He applied for a job online and also walked into the company and did an informational interview telling the employer why he liked the company. He took the action one after another on a regular basis that created the result. Hypnosis creates absolute certainty in your mind that you can achieve and your action creates a reality and make it happen.

- Immigrant's Secret To Success by Manny Daid.

Live Well, Spend Less

I started reading up on a financial guru named Dave Ramsey two years ago, and have been very inspired by his financial teachings. I learned from Dave Ramsey that in order for us to save more money and obtain better cashflow, we should cut back on spending, use only cash, and look for ways to increase income. 

1. Cash only
I completely stopped using credit cards since 2014. I cut up one card into 2 pieces and store it into a drawer, and closed down the other card. I read that if we don't use a credit card, it doesn't help our credit rating - so you could put something on your credit card each month, such as a cell phone bill and pay it off every month to keep your credit card history active. I pay for everything only by debit and cash everywhere I go. I pay all my online purchases via Paypal linked to my bank account, so it is taken directly out of my chequing account. If I can't afford something with the cash I have on hand, I don't buy it, plain and simple. I will save up the cash until I am able to afford it. For example, I had been thinking of purchasing a second car. I can easily afford a new Mini right now with a financialloan or a credit card. But instead, I'm slowly saving up for the future to put down $10,000 - $15,000 in full to buy a used Mini. Other items I would love is a new GoPro and a new laptop. But if I don't have the cash easily on hand, then I won't buy them until I do. I also purchase 80% of my items from Korean and Chinese sellers on eBay, so my clothes cost $5 - $30 per piece and their items look very stylish. If I were to buy similar items in Canada, they would be at least 3 - 10 times higher the cost.

2. Increase your income
According to Dave Ramsey, another method to improve your finances is to increase your income. I used to work in retail, but I quickly realized that I did not like the bad hours and low wages. I also had my fair share of unprofessional supervisors and uneducated co-workers (which can be a more common situation at the retail level), so it was not an industry I felt comfortable in. I wanted to make the jump into a corporate office with a higher salary to improve my lifestyle. I took out a student loan to study a Business degree at a local university. During graduation, I started working in private firms and climbed up to Senior management and Director roles in a very short time. However, the workload was very stressful and I felt that the pay was not worth the high workload demanded. I did not have a work-life balance, my life was all work-work-work. Then ironically, I ended up in a tight financial situation because I fell ill from the workload, but still had high student loans and bills to pay back. To make things worse, I ended up getting chronic health disorders and it was no longer feasible for me to work full-time in management roles. I decided that in order to sustain the same lifestyle but cut back on workload, I would have to make another change and get into the government or union. Now, I am making a comfortable part-time salary by working in government and union roles. Government and union work pay much higher wages and demand way less work than private firms. If I were to compare my current Union role to a similar role in a private firm, I am making double the salary for half the work. 

3. Generate passive income
A good way to earn easy money is through passive income. I placed tenants in a property we own in another city, so that the rent they pay covers our mortgage. Our future plan is to pick up another property, rent part of it out, and start up a beauty or baking business in one of the rooms.... when we can afford it one day. I also created this blog to see how much I could start earning passively from it. Think up a way to generate passive income, such as making Youtube videos, blogging, writing an e-book, investing in stocks etc.

4. Ask yourself: Is it a need or a want?
My high school biology teacher once said, "When in doubt, opt for out." She taught us that if we saw something at $100 or more, to think overnight on it before purchasing it. "When you wake up the next day, ask yourself if you still want it. This is so you avoid impulse buying." I am even more frugal. If I see something at $50 or more, I wait until the next day to see if I still want it. Most of the time, I wake up not wanting it, so I end up spending less!

5. Spend less on luxury brands
I rarely buy designer items. I only have a signature few at home as gifts from my husband or family (Tiffany & Co, Louis Vuitton, Dior, Gucci etc). I don't go out of my way to seek out a luxury item. Material items are not important to me since I don't really care for brand names. I'd rather have my husband take me out to eat, or do some traveling for birthdays and wedding anniversaries. I value experiences much more than physical objects. If I really like something I see at a luxury store, I will try to find something similar at a lower price. For example, I really love Tiffany & Co. rings. But I selected a ring from Blue Nile at a much more affordable price, since they both use the same diamond supplier.

6. Use coupons
I often use online discounts such as Groupon or Social Shopper for activities including spas, travel, and dining out. I save a lot using those websites, anywhere from 40% - 70% off.

7. Budget your travel
I prefer to stay in 3.5 - 5 star hotels for comfort and safety reasons, but at the 4 star level or higher, they get expensive. So I search for discounts on hotels and flights by using travel sites such as Booking.com, and go during low season when everything is half price. For more budgeting tips, I wrote a post here on how you can save more.

8. Sell your old stuff
For some of my old items, I sell them on Craigslist to get some cash back. Sometimes I am able to sell them at the same price and even higher if they hold a lot of value.

9. Enter contests
I also enter a lot of local and international contests - there was a year when I won about $700 worth of stuff. Some of them I kept, and other ones I sold for a profit if I didn't like them too much. I have a separate 'junk' email account for signing up to contests, since it generates a lot of spam. I check it periodically to see if I won anything. I also don't give out my main phone line to contests because I think they sell our phone numbers to third parties. I downloaded a free phone line (Fongo FreePhoneLine) onto my computer and I use that phone number when I fill out contest forms. I never turn on that phone line, I just check it once a week to see if it gets any voicemails.

By bonjour amour

Why you do that you do?

We know that we want to make a change in our lives and that we want to reach great levels of success, but unless you understand the importance of finding your why and the importance of knowing why we want to reach our goals, we are adrift in an endless ocean with no land in sight. Finding your “WHY” is one of the most important steps to accomplishing the goals that you set out to achieve. Goals are the finish line, or an achievement that you set in your mind, but the WHY is the big reason for your sacrifices.

Knowing your WHY in your Life and Work is an important part of inspiring those around you and having them supporting you on your life's journey. 

There are seven billion people on this planet and everyone's thumb streak lines are different. That's how UNIQUE we are and so as our WHY. We all go through life with different experiences and all seven billion people on this planet have a unique life experience. 

How can you find your WHY?

Write down your life story before the age of 8. If you don't remember, write the best you can. Write both the good and the bad times you had. Write that in detail. It may take few days to write that. Take your time because it will eventually determine how effective and powerful you are in your life. What you do today is formed by the events and experiences you had in your formative years. You story can be few pages long. Your story is not too long and not too short. It's personal to YOU!

My WHY Story: I grew up in Eastern part of India. I was turbaned in my childhood and my classmates usually mock and make fun of me saying "paddu". I had a fight few times when my classmates played a prank on my turban and my turban was misplaced. I was bullied few times a year. Because of those instances, I remained unhappy, withdrawn, felt lack of belongingness and was lonely. When I first came to Canada, I brought all of that in my suitcase. Though I was in a most beautiful country, I was unhappy and withdrawn from society. I had friends and didn't have deep connection that left me lonely. My life got transformed after I had a coach and a mentor. I chose to coach/mentor people because that transformed my life and I want to be a cause in people's transformation. I literally got my life back and felt ALIVE again. Without coaching and mentoring, it wouldn't have been possible.

Discover your WHY. Why you do that you do?

Manny Daid

Life Coach, Author, Speaker & Investor