Arel Moodie International (AMI)

What is Success? Who is Arel Moodie? Why Should I Care? These questions are answerd in this blog :)

Monday, June 28, 2010

The Four Words That Will Always Motivate You

You can attach four words to your goals that will help keep you motivated toward achieving them. Those four words are:

“So That I Can.”

The “So That I Can” is the most important part of your goal because what comes after it is what really motivates you. Going to the gym isn’t exciting, but going to the gym “so that I can” look great in a bathing suit this summer IS exciting... and motivating.

Let’s say your goal for the semester is to get on the dean’s list. For that to happen, you need at least a 3.5 this semester. So the goal of merely getting a 3.5 transforms into the goal of getting a 3.5 this semester so that I can get into a top med school. This technique will allow you to focus on the benefit you’ll get from accomplishing that specific goal.

A lot of students write “4.0” on an index card, tape it to their desks, and look at the number 4.0, but there’s no feeling behind it. It’s just a number. The “So That I Can” gives you the emotion needed to take massive action. And without a good enough reason, most things seem to find a way of not getting done.

Arel Moodie is widely known as America's Top Young Speaker. He has spoken to over 65,000 students in 39 states and 2 countries on the topics of student success, student leadership and student entrepreneurship. He is a leading authority on helping students of this generation succeed in school and in life. He is also the best selling author of the book Your Starting Point For Student Success. To find out more about Arel's book, go to www.startingpointbook.com. To find out more about Arel's speaking please go to www.arelmoodie.com.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Case Study with SMART Goals

The concept of SMART goals may be a little challenging, so let’s apply the SMART goal-setting formula to the vague “make more money” goal. This goal will now become:

Within 24 hours of earning any money,
I will put 10% of everything I make (paychecks, gifts, etc.) 
into my online savings account.

Now let’s hold it up to the SMART rubric to see how well it holds up.
  • Is it Specific? Yes, I know the way I will make more money is by saving more of the money I already have.
  • Is it Measurable? Yes, I can measure 10% of the total amount of money I receive.
  • Is it Action-Oriented? Yes, I have to actually do something once I get the money.
  • Is it Reachable? Yes, I am working within the money I already make, so there is no problem there.
  • Is it Time-Sensitive? Yes, I know within twenty-four hours of receiving money, it will go into an online savings account.
A “yes” answer to all these questions means you’re being SMART in your goal setting. And now that you have a clear goal in mind (saving 10% of your money), you also have to set up mini-goals to help you eventually achieve your main objective.

Some of the mini-goals for the above example would include:

Day 1
  1. Research three different online savings accounts by the end of the day.
  2. Spend no more than two hours researching through Google the most important aspects in choosing the proper online savings account.
  3. Spend at least thirty minutes comparing the benefits of the different online savings accounts (interest rate paid, ease of use).
Day 2
  1. Choose the online savings account I will open before end of the day.
  2. Register my information with the online savings account I chose before Monday.
  3. Before my next paycheck, set up direct deposit with my job so my paycheck gets directly deposited into my bank account (bye-bye paper checks).
Day 3
  1. Call my bank and online savings account provider to find out how to automatically get 10% of my paycheck automatically deposited into my online savings account.
  2. Go through the steps the bank explained to me to set up the automatic transfer of 10% of all money that goes into my checking account.
  3. Check my bank account when my first direct deposit happens to make sure everything was set up properly.
By the way, if you haven’t already done this for yourself, I recommend doing it ASAP. Go to www.yourstartingpointonline.com to get a list of online savings accounts that offer the best rates.

Arel Moodie is widely known as America's Top Young Speaker. He has spoken to over 65,000 students in 39 states and 2 countries on the topics of student success, student leadership and student entrepreneurship. He is a leading authority on helping students of this generation succeed in school and in life. He is also the best selling author of the book Your Starting Point For Student Success. To find out more about Arel's book, go to www.startingpointbook.com. To find out more about Arel's speaking please go to www.arelmoodie.com.

Monday, June 21, 2010

The Ingredients of the 3 to Succeed Recipe

To achieve more in the next few weeks of your life than ever before, just focus on doing three main things every single day that will move you at least a little bit toward your goals. It’s simple, but most people have no idea how to properly set goals and, most importantly, how to achieve them in a day.

So starting today, every day, I want you to set three SMART goals you can accomplish before you go to sleep at night. The word SMART is actually a mnemonic memory device to help you remember how to properly focus your goal setting. SMART stands for:

S—Specific
M—Measurable
A—Action-Oriented
R—Reachable
T—Time-Sensitive

One of the biggest mistakes people make when setting goals is not following the above formula. Most people’s goals are so vague they have no idea what they should be doing... or when they’ve actually accomplished their goals! Let me give you an example...

How many people do you know who have set the goal to make more money? (Maybe you’re one of those people.) It’s a perfectly fine goal, but here’s the problem: if your goal is just to “make more money,” what does that mean? If I give you one more penny than you previously had, isn’t it true you made more money? That really isn’t what you would want, is it? One more penny isn’t going to negatively or positively affect your life in any way.

You have to be crystal clear on what you want to achieve. Be specific. Words like “more,” “better,” and “soon” don’t have any meaning. You don’t want to make “more” money; you want to increase your monthly income by $250. You don’t just want a better GPA; you want at least a 3.5. Make sense?

Arel Moodie is widely known as America's Top Young Speaker. He has spoken to over 65,000 students in 39 states and 2 countries on the topics of student success, student leadership and student entrepreneurship. He is a leading authority on helping students of this generation succeed in school and in life. He is also the best selling author of the book Your Starting Point For Student Success. To find out more about Arel's book, go to www.startingpointbook.com. To find out more about Arel's speaking please go to www.arelmoodie.com.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Doing Small Things Over Time Turns Into Big Results

You are in a marathon, not a sprint. I know, I know. It’s hard to think of waiting X number of months to attain a goal you want right now. But remember the Just Blink philosophy? You have to focus on the little things you can do now that will pay massive dividends in time. We’ve all heard it’s the little things that count. Jeff Olson describes it this way:
The slight edge is easy to do—and it is easy not to do. Now, I’m defining EASY here as simply “something you can do.” The Slight Edge philosophy is based on doing things that are easy—little disciplines, which, done consistently over time, add up to the biggest accomplishments. The problem is that all those things that are easy to do are just as easy not to do. Why is something easy not to do? Because if you don’t do it, it won’t kill you today. But, that simple, seemingly insignificant error in judgment, compounded over time, will kill you, destroy you, ruin your chances for success, and demolish your dreams. You can count on it.”
Let’s make this theory practical. If you drank one glass of water, would that make you healthy? Absolutely not. If you went to the gym only once, would you get six-pack abs? No way. However, working out consistently and drinking water daily will absolutely change your health and your body for the better.

Here’s an example of how you can apply the slight edge to improving your health.

Wake up every single morning and immediately do ten push-ups and drink one glass of water, that’s it. If you can’t do ten push-ups, do five. If you can’t do five, do three. As soon as you wake up, open your eyes and jump on the floor, do 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and chug a glass of water. At most, this will take forty seconds of your time. You won’t even think anything of it. What will happen is this will become part of who you are, part of your routine. This one act done consistently will eventually lead to better choices.

From this one simple act, your health over time will dramatically improve. Why? Because one day, effortlessly, you’re going to say to yourself, “You know, ten just is not working for me anymore, I’m going to do fifteen push-ups instead.” Then you’re going to want to go to the gym or an exercise class or join a sports team. One glass of water turns into two, into three, and so on and so forth. Good eating choices start to replace bad. And to be a successful student, you MUST take care of your health.

One simple choice can change everything. But by the same token, not making one simple choice can change everything as well... and not for the better! Not doing anything for your health is definitely going to have negative effects over time.

Let’s say your professor assigns you a twenty-page paper to write and gives you a deadline thirty days away. By just writing one page a day, you can have your paper done in time to get it reviewed by your professor, write a second draft, and still have time to party with your friends... stress-free!

Arel Moodie is widely known as America's Top Young Speaker. He has spoken to over 65,000 students in 39 states and 2 countries on the topics of student success, student leadership and student entrepreneurship. He is a leading authority on helping students of this generation succeed in school and in life. He is also the best selling author of the book Your Starting Point For Student Success. To find out more about Arel's book, go to www.startingpointbook.com. To find out more about Arel's speaking please go to www.arelmoodie.com.

Monday, June 14, 2010

The Secret of the Slight Edge Philosophy

3 to Succeed is about doing small things consistently over time to reach your goals. If you want to be successful in school and in life, then you cannot be in the habit of doing a lot of things at once and then sitting down, resting on your laurels, and hoping everything will work itself out. Instead, you should use the slight edge.

So here’s what the slight edge says: it’s the little things we do every single day, consistently, over time that compound into massive results.

Jeff Olson, author of The Slight Edge, puts it a great way:
If you were to improve just .003 each day—that’s only 3/10 of one percent, a very Slight Edge—and you kept that up for the next five years, here’s what would happen to you:

The first year, you would improve 100 percent (you would already be twice what you are today). The second year, you would improve 200 percent. The third year, 400 percent. And the fourth year, 800 percent. And by the end of year five—by simply improving 3/10 of one percent each day—you will have magnified your value, your skills, and the results you accomplished 1,600 percent. That’s 22 times more than you are today.
It’s amazing when you look at what little effort compounded over time will yield. In fact, when asked to name the greatest invention in human history, Albert Einstein simply replied, “compound inter- est.” Compound interest makes people rich.

Compounded action makes people successful.

Tell me whether this scenario sounds familiar to you. Let’s say you have an exam coming up. You study really hard for the test and stay up all night cramming the information into your head. You take the test. What happens over the next few days? You forget almost every- thing, right? Or the experience of studying so hard is so draining you don’t even want to think about picking up a book for at least another two weeks, which turns into three weeks, which turns into a vicious cycle of constantly pulling all-nighters before your exams.

The truth is we don’t ever have to do all-nighters. Your exams are never a surprise, are they? You always know exactly when your finals and midterms are. There’s this little thing called a syllabus. I’ve never heard of a professor giving a pop final. So rather than cram- ming in a brutal all-nighter, you can review your course work each day and compound the effects of your studies.

The bottom line is little steps done over time produce the best and least stressful results.

“Little hinges swing big doors.”
-W. Clement Stone


Arel Moodie is widely known as America's Top Young Speaker. He has spoken to over 65,000 students in 39 states and 2 countries on the topics of student success, student leadership and student entrepreneurship. He is a leading authority on helping students of this generation succeed in school and in life. He is also the best selling author of the book Your Starting Point For Student Success. To find out more about Arel's book, go to www.startingpointbook.com. To find out more about Arel's speaking please go to www.arelmoodie.com.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Less is More

Taking action toward your goals in school and in life every single day will be the difference between actually creating the life you want and just dreaming about it. The problem most people face is they stop taking action before they achieve their goals, or they quit soon after starting because they’ve lost the motivation to continue.

It happens every year, all over the country, right around January 1st. Does the term New Year’s Resolution ring a bell? I once heard top-selling author and motivational speaker Tony Robbins break it downperfectly. He mentions how people say to themselves that every single morning, they are “gunna” wake up at 5 am and run three miles.

So here’s what happens. The first morning, they get up, jump out of bed at 5 am, and run like they are training for the Olympics! They start telling everybody they see about their “accomplishment” that they are making things different in their lives and they are in the “habit” of running three miles every morning while everyone else is still sleeping.

Sooner than later, the excuse monster starts rearing its ugly little head. “Man, it’s a little cold outside, I didn’t get enough sleep last night, and plenty of sleep is part of a good health regimen, isn’t it?, I don’t want to push myself too hard, let me just get a few more minutes of sleep.” Then you start rationalizing that tomorrow will be different, and when tomorrow becomes today, the task gets put off until tomorrow again. People start rationalizing all the reasons why they can’t do whatever it is they promised to do.

The funny thing about the word “rationalize” is when you break it down into its syllables, it sounds like the words “ration-lies.” What most people are doing when they rationalize is just “rationing lies” to themselves about all of the reasons they aren’t accomplishing the goals they want for themselves. This process can be avoided. Most people try to do huge things all at once and fail. Most people try to run before they learn to crawl, and that is a recipe for guaranteed failure.

It’s better to take small baby steps to make consistent change. Less really is more.

Arel Moodie is widely known as America's Top Young Speaker. He has spoken to over 65,000 students in 39 states and 2 countries on the topics of student success, student leadership and student entrepreneurship. He is a leading authority on helping students of this generation succeed in school and in life. He is also the best selling author of the book Your Starting Point For Student Success. To find out more about Arel's book, go to www.startingpointbook.com. To find out more about Arel's speaking please go to www.arelmoodie.com.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Are You a C Person or an O Person?

Many students right now are good at starting things but horrible at finishing. I call them “C people.” A select group of students are out there accomplishing their goals in life; I call them “O people.” C people are those who start many projects but don’t finish any of them. They have all of these half-open circles that need to be completed and transformed from a C to an O. As long as they don’t complete the projects they start, their lives are always going to be filled with stress and unhappiness because they will have no sense of accomplishment. The O people start on a goal and then complete it.

What type of person will you commit to being?

Arel Moodie is widely known as America's Top Young Speaker. He has spoken to over 65,000 students in 39 states and 2 countries on the topics of student success, student leadership and student entrepreneurship. He is a leading authority on helping students of this generation succeed in school and in life. He is also the best selling author of the book Your Starting Point For Student Success. To find out more about Arel's book, go to www.startingpointbook.com. To find out more about Arel's speaking please go to www.arelmoodie.com.

Friday, June 4, 2010

New Virtual Service for Entrepreneurship Educators






This is the welcome video for the new service called "Virtual Speaker Series" Please go to http://www.virtualspeakerseries.com to find out more

Thursday, June 3, 2010

The Third Pillar: The Missing Ingredient and How to Get More Done in Less Time

Now that you’ve learned the keys and little-known secrets to taking charge of your life and are developing amazing self-confidence, what will you do with it? That is what our Third Pillar is all about. The Third Pillar is quintessential to your success because it deals with the one concept that will put all the principles you learn into play. The Third Pillar deals with the one thing most people just don’t do, and if you don’t, you’ll never be a successful student. It’s the one thing that separates the Haves from the Have-Nots. If you don’t do this one thing, all the knowledge in the world means absolutely nothing.

You’ve probably heard that knowledge is power, right? WRONG! Knowledge is only potential power. It’s what you do with that knowledge that is powerful. So what is this one thing?

You must take action—not just action, but consistent action!

Simple, but true. Successful individuals are well-known for taking action on a consistent basis toward their goals and not quitting until they reach their destination.

Most people are really good at talking about what they want to do, but very few people are good at actually doing it. My father always told me I should not be part of the “Gunna” family. Have you heard of the Gunna family before? This is the group of people who say, “You know what, tomorrow I’m gunna do this and I’m gunna do that.” In the end, “all talk and no action” does not produce results. If you find yourself saying, “I should do this, and I should do that,” all that happens is you end up doing nothing but “shoulding” all over yourself!

A subset of this family is the Shoulda-Woulda-Coulda people. They should have done something, but now it’s too late. They would have done something, but the circumstances weren’t perfect. They could have done something, but they didn’t.

You can imagine how far in life the Shoulda-Would-Couldas and the Gunnas will get.

One of the main differences between successful people, like you and me, and everyone else is successful people take action toward their goals as a daily habit. If you want to know how to get more done in the next thirty days than you have in the last five years, whether it’s organizing your class and social time or organizing your studying, this is the technique to implement. Our Third Pillar is called “3 to Succeed,” which in a nutshell means:

Take three specific, measurable, actionable steps toward your goals every single day.

Arel Moodie is widely known as America's Top Young Speaker. He has spoken to over 65,000 students in 39 states and 2 countries on the topics of student success, student leadership and student entrepreneurship. He is a leading authority on helping students of this generation succeed in school and in life. He is also the best selling author of the book Your Starting Point For Student Success. To find out more about Arel's book, go to www.startingpointbook.com. To find out more about Arel's speaking please go to www.arelmoodie.com.