A Blog by Tim Wade

I'm a big believer in rewarding your own effort. And today, after I dropped Zoe off at school, I'm here in a coffee shop by the beach. But my reward is - and I'm on a health and fitness kick - a giant breakfast. Full video of this post is at the bottom of the page! The reason why I'm finally on a health kick now is that I put a giant end goal in the middle of October: I'm doing a health talk about how to get fit and healthy on a cruise ship. Not how to get fit and healthy on a cruise ship, but the talk is on a cruise ship, and it's about how to get fit and healthy. So I figure it's probably a good idea that I'm reasonably fit and healthy by the time I get to the cruise ship or else it's going to look incongruous and idiotic. And I'm going to be pretty embarrassed. YOUR REWARDS So: Mindset of Victory. Victory has rewards. Breakfast: protein reward. There's a gym in my condo so I could just go down to the gym and ...

Zoe playing. I'm on the computer. I'm there but not present. She comes over with things, one time it was something that fell off the table and she wanted to add value to me by giving it back to me... Another time it was so that I could take a sip of her drink. She was trying to bring me in. She's not even two years old. Almost, just over a week from now.  But I saw it, I realised, and I shut the computer and went to engage. I love Christmas. I love it. I love the spirit of this time of year. It's undeniable. Even Ebenezer Scrooge transformed. It's amazing. And the reason for the season is either you believe in God's gift of Jesus Christ, or it's the nearly the end of your year and that will somehow make next year better. For me, I'm both the former AND the latter on this one. Whatever your belief right now, I hope you get your Christmas presence. Not a typo. I noticed that Zoe noticed that I wasn't being present. And isn't that re...

HANG IN THERE, ONE DAY YOUR MESS WILL BECOME YOUR MESSAGE. You're going through this so you can help someone else... I believe whatever you're in right now is not something that is happening to you, it’s happening for you, and more specifically, it's happening for you to draw from when helping someone else. In time to come. So as you live through it, also observe it, remember it, learn from it, and as you seek and find resources within you and around you to come out from it, remember to keep your eyes and ears open for those you are to share your journey with, to help them through theirs. 🙂 I heard "One day your mess will become your message" at church last Sunday morning from a video of a local tennis star quoting from a book that helped save her life during a low, a suicidal low. It moved me enough to write about it here. Hopefully, it‘ll give an amazing perspective to someone who could use a higher point of view right now. - Tim Wade Tim...

I was listening to some insights from Derek Sivers (sivers.org), the guy who created CD Baby, sold it for $22 million and rolled all of that into a fund that would support education for musicians after he died. Cool. He asked, why do you do what you do, and then suggested to pick from one of these 5 reasons: 1. Money 2. Prestige 3. Fame 4. Legacy 5. Freedom And he says choosing any is okay, just be true to yourself and then optimise your career for that: focus on that, make that your measure. But it may mean NOT focussing on getting the others too, but some of them might come as a by-product. So, for example, if you choose to go for Money, then you might let someone else take the spotlight (Fame) while you focus on the money. Like being the movie producer instead of the star actor. If you want prestige, then focus on the circles that you wish to be acknowledged for and give up some of the other stuff. If you want the limelight, be everywhere. If you want legacy, put...

Tweet Image Have you - in the past of course - been too lazy to be more successful? Or richer or healthier or to get the results you want or whatever? You already know what you need to do. Do the work dude. You know it. Just do it. Get annoyed enough with yourself for not doing it so that you do it. So what do you need to do? The stuff you've been putting off usually. The stuff you avoid. The stuff you make excuses about not being able to do. Fat and don't like running? Start running. But my knee... Walk then... My other knee... Swim. Stop making stupid excuses that blame something else other than your resistance to doing what needs to be done. Albert Gray, an insurance guy in the 1940s said in a famous speech titled The Common Denominator of Success , "The common denominator of success is that successful people form the habit of doing things that failures don't like to do." We all have areas of our life that we could be more successful in. So w...

Basics: 3 Action Cycles to Start Creating Wealth. It's not rocket science, but it's a straightforward process. These actionable strategies only require you and some time, and you can start from any wealth level. Even the "miserable wealth" level. :) If you're miserable about not being wealthy, there are usually 3 actions you haven't taken. Get these three things done and moving and you'll likely stop being miserable and start getting wealthier. Action Step 1: Define your wealth goal immediately Define what being wealthy is for you. "Having more than now" is not a suitable definition because finding 20 cents on the pavement will meet that criteria, yet it doesn't transform your life. In Richard Templar's book The Rules of Wealth , he shared how a friend defined being wealthy as when he could live off the interest earned from the interest earned on his earned stash. So his stash earns interest, and the interest earned on the int...

This morning I began reading a book I bought over a decade and a half ago. When I bought it, I thought it would be beneficial, but I didn't take the action to realise the benefits. I hadn't made the time. Until now. Why does intention to action sometimes take over 15 years to happen? How can we shrink that time delay to benefit far more immediately from the wisdom we're presented with? The book is titled  50 Self-Help Classics a by Tom Butler-Bowden, 2001. Ah, the irony. Butler-Bowden writes, self-help is "the refusal to accept 'common unhappiness' or 'quiet desperation' as the lot of humankind." He continues, "To make the most of life, we need things like vision, emotional intelligence, ethics, an awareness of history and a thirst for knowledge and ideas. These qualities can't be force-fed by education, family or religion, or even provided by your firm. We live in a time in which institutions may be able to protect us from hunger,...

Life is made up of choices. We choose to do things every day. And what we choose to do, when we choose to do it, and how we choose to do it tends to craft the quality of our life. That quality might be swiss-watch-like quality, or it might be two-dollar store quality. It all depends on our choices and how we respond to the consequences of those choices. Consider the Duck and the Spectacle. A duck is a funny, cute, awkward and awesome creature that seems to add value in everything it does and is. A duck is also an action you take to get out of the way of something hurtling towards you. So maybe it's time to get out of our own way. A duck is also one of very few creatures that can swim, walk and fly. It can live happily on the water, on the land and in the air. Maybe it's time to recognise that our funny awkwardness has an awesome uniqueness that makes us, in this life, truly special. A spectacle is both something amazing to see and something to see amazingly through. If ...