Thanksgiving – The Gift of Gratitude by Tom Ziglar

One of the greatest gifts Dad ever gave me was the gift of gratitude. Dad taught me how to be grateful, no matter the circumstance.

It was a cool, crisp morning at the end of 2011. I had just picked Dad up and we were headed to the office for Monday morning devotions. The sky was blue and the sun was early-morning intense. And I was angry. Angry that Dad’s Alzheimer’s was getting worse and our good conversations were getting fewer and fewer. Angry that we were saying the long good bye and he didn’t realize it. How could this man, who had impacted millions, who truly loved everyone he met, who always found a way to give just a little bit more, how could he be required to go through this? It just didn’t seem fair.

Dad didn’t realize it, but I was holding back tears. At that very moment I saw a smile come across his face. He had his Bible in his left hand, and with his right had he slapped the dashboard of my car. “Son,” he said in his big, deep, Zig Ziglar voice, “WE have so much to be grateful for! We live in America. We are going to devotions. We have a beautiful family and God has blessed us with so much. Oh, what an amazing life I have had. I could have never imagined I would have so much to be thankful for.”

I had heard Dad go down his gratitude list countless times. But this time I realized it was who he was, and it was true – and the circumstances didn’t matter. That was the day I truly understood what Dad meant when he said that your circumstances don’t determine your attitude – you determine your attitude. Thank you for the gift Dad. I love you and I am grateful for you and I look forward to seeing you again in heaven.

The 12 Computer Programming Languages That Will Earn You The Most $$

Computer programming has quickly become one of the most lucrative industries in the US.

The average salary for a computer programmer just hit an all-time high as it approaches $100,000.

But there are some languages and skill sets that are more valuable than others, and Quartz has compiled some data to break down these differences.

Quartz’s Max Nisen pulled out some figures on the most valuable programming languages based on a larger study from the Brookings Institution that was published in July.

Based on that data, here are programming languages listed next to their average annual salary from lowest to highest:

12. PERL - $82,513

11. SQL – $85,511

10. Visual Basic – $85,962

9. C# – $89,074

8. R- $90,055

7. C – 90,134

6. JavaScript – $91,461

5. C++ – $93,502

4. JAVA – $94,908

3. Python – $100,717

2. Objective C – $108,225

1. Ruby on Rails – $109,460

While some of these coding languages can help you earn $100,000, train to become a Salesforce architect if you want one of the highest-paying jobs in tech.

According to data from IT recruiting firm Mondo that was published in March, Salesforce Architects can earn between $180,000 and $200,000.

This story originally appeared on www.businessinsider.com.

Chinese restaurant now using robotic waiters

A restaurant in eastern China has ditched its traditional wait staff and is looking to the future.

That’s because the restaurant has pioneered the use of robots as waiters in Cixi, a city in China‘s Zhejiang Province.

The bionic stewards utilize magnetic strips on the ground to navigate the restaurant and deliver tasty treats to hungry patrons.

In addition, the robots can dance to the celebrated song “Gangnam Style”.

“The robot’s service is very good. They can serve food automatically, so waiters do not need to work,” an unnamed child eating at the restaurant told CCTV.

When talking about having robots in the restaurant, the manager said he just wanted local people to get to know robots.

“As time goes by, our lives will become more and more high-tech. Catering has to have a breakthrough, I thought about robots and bought robots to serve us. I want Cixi residents to know that robots can enter into the catering industry,” said Lu, who did not give his full name

Two female suicide bombers blow up market in Maiduguri, North Eastern Nigeria early this morning, Killing Scores.

Eyewitness account that the suicide bombers detonated their explosives in the midst of the market rush hour in the metropolis this morning around 11:30 AM.

Update: At least 27 dead and 45 injured in Maiduguri market bombing.

Effective Decision Making By Hishaam Caramanli

What sets excellent organizations apart? What makes one so much more effective than another? What enables their teams to outperform others - and do it consistently over time?

More important, can the excellence of a team or organization be transferred to another - either by products, services, technology or a learning process?

I believe it can.

The key to it is the thinking process itself, how we think as individuals and as teams, how we access and use relevant information and discard the irrelevant and how we build different ideas together to create novel structures and genuine business innovation.

If you look at teams that innovate and perform better, they share certain characteristics. They share a real sense of purpose, a collaborative mission and a creative drive. This goes far beyond conventional mission statements; it combines into a gestalt feeling where everyone is able to sense the direction, rhythm and flow of progress.   

My view is that a great enabler here is having precisely the relevant information you need in one place to make decisions - being able to integrate what you want, where you want it and how you want it to appear  - like having several linked search engine platforms linked together working on your behalf. Of course, even having the right information isn’t enough. You need to be able to use and interpret it, then make creative leaps in an atmosphere where risk and innovation is encouraged.

In our work we have identified three fundamentals that function together to create decision effectiveness from the kind of information we can all possess.

The first of these is speed. If everyone’s having ideas, the team that’s first to make the decision to implement an idea wins. There is no substitute for first place. Effective teams are able to make these decisions at high speed at the same time as minimising risk and errors. This can come from the aggregation of expertise in a specific area, having a track record of success that provides a head of steam around what works and what doesn’t and then, having the confidence to strike.
Second is quality, by which I mean it’s not enough to make fast decisions, they have to be the right decisions that lead to results and in turn to further innovation. Fast, quality decision-making has an exhilarating feel about it. We all refer to this in various ways, like being on a roll, like finding tasks easier and more rewarding.

The third is yield, where the cumulative effects of speed and quality deliver quantifiable results - better products, better service, more profits. Fast, high quality multiple decisions aren’t simply additive; they create a multiplier effect. It’s as if instead of 1 + 1 + 1 = 3, we get 1 x 2 x 3 = 6 for the same thinking effort.

This multiplier effect delivers a synchronicity, a smoothness of flow. This further enhances the process and ensures that the components of the team or organization are all pushing in the same, and the right, direction. Just as shoals of fish or flocks of birds flow together, so a 'decision-effective' team or organization pushes forward, all in the same direction, swirling around obstacles, avoiding predators and making the most efficient use of its energy and environment.

It sounds simple, and like all good ideas, it is.   

It’s founded, as I said earlier, on having precise and relevant information all in one place and on everyone having clearly defined roles and responsibilities in the team. Like the birds in the flock, they fly each on their own, but in perfect harmony with all the others, towards their mutual goals.

What enables this is an environment where thinkers can collaborate, challenge and communicate - ultimately to create. It’s a process that evolves like a human neural network, where the creative power of individuals is multiplied by the energy and effectiveness of those around them. It’s a process that evolves and learns as well. We’ve all discovered the wonderful benefits of a team that works well together and the great results that it delivers.

No matter how powerful our tools and information, no matter how much super crunching we do, humans will always be able to make faster and more effective decisions that yield better results - when we work together in a decision-effective environment.

A case in point is our digital platform, UBS NEO, a direct transfer of our own decision effectiveness into benefits for UBS clients.
Clients gain their own decision effectiveness through the NEO platform as it delivers simplicity and precision through the three fundamentals described above: speed, quality and yield, which are the NEO operating ethos. It’s an example of how innovative thinking in one team can directly transfer innovative thinking to another.

At the end of it, the key word is team. It really is about the human component. Because while the machines and the programs are brilliant in supporting what we need done, determining that is down to people - what you want, what I want, what we mutually want - and how we can help each other to achieve our goals.

Obama on Ferguson: U.S. 'has more work to do' on race relations

President Barack Obama issued an appeal on Monday for restraint by protesters and police after a Missouri grand jury decided not to indict a white police officer in the shooting death of a black teen last August.

In a late-night appearance in the White House briefing room, Obama also urged Americans to understand that much work remained to be done to improve relations between black Americans and law enforcement.

"We need to accept that this decision was the grand jury's to make. There are Americans who agree with it and there are Americans who are deeply disappointed, even angry. It’s an understandable reaction," Obama said.

Angry crowds in Ferguson, Missouri, took to the streets on Monday night and there were flashes of violence after the grand jury determined there was no probable cause to charge officer Darren Wilson in the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

The shooting set off weeks of sometimes violent protests in the St. Louis suburb and highlighted racial tensions in the community.

Obama said there were still many parts of the country where a deep distrust existed between law enforcement and communities of color, and that steps must be taken to improve the situation, such as increasing the number of minority people who enter the police ranks.

"Some of this is the result of racial discrimination in this country and this is tragic because nobody needs good policing more than poor communities with higher crime rates. The good news is we know there are things we can do to help," he said.

About 200 protesters demonstrated peacefully outside the White House on Monday night, holding signs and chanting: "We are Michael Brown."

Obama has weighed in on questions of race previously. When black Florida teenager Trayvon Martin was killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer in 2012, Obama said: "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon."

In 2009, he criticized the police handling of the arrest of Harvard University professor Henry Gates, saying police acted "stupidly."

4 Simple Rules For a Successful Business Meeting By Jeff Shore

1. No end goal = no meeting

Every meeting should include a brief and clearly defined objective before ever getting scheduled and everyone attending the meeting should clearly understand this end goal. A goal indicates a bias for action, not merely a discussion. Everyone in attendance must agree to drive toward the goal as rapidly as possible.

2. Cut the planned meeting time in half

Determine how much time you need for the meeting and then divide it by two. Most 60-minute meetings I attend can easily be handled in 30. Give the meeting a firm time limit and watch everyone become amazingly efficient! (Shorter sentences, no unnecessary chatter, etc.)

Take this an extra step further by changing the default meeting duration in your Outlook or Google calendar from "60 minutes" to "30 minutes." Even better -- set it to "15 minutes"!

3. Limit the number of participants

The more people who attend a meeting, the more time wasted, and the harder it is to stay on target. (Think: “Too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the broth!”) Meetings with two people are far more productive than those with three, etc., assuming they are theright people -- so send meeting invitations selectively!

Jeff Bezos famously adheres to the "two-pizza rule": Never hold a meeting where two pizzas can't feed the entire group. If you work in a larger company, consider adopting this as a rule of thumb going forward!

4. Absolutely no tangents

Someone must play the role of "enforcer" to keep the conversation on point at all times. Of course, this means establishing a clear outcome for the meeting to begin with. No one wants the role of conversation police, but someone has to do it. “I’m sorry -- that might be an important topic, but it’s not for this meeting.”

Meetings still exist, of course, as a necessary evil. But you can significantly diminish the evil while unleashing your team's productivity by implementing these four very simple rules.

Creepy-Looking ‘Seadevil’ Fish Seen in deep sea for first time

This fish has never been filmed so deep in the ocean — until now. Researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) have been able to record the mug of the elusive deep-sea angler fish known as the Black Seadevil or Melanocetus.

Angler fish have rarely been filmed in their natural habitat. According to MBARI, fewer than half a dozen have ever been captured on film or video.

The reason may lay in the fact that this Black Seadevil is tiny (just 9 cm long), and lives in the dark waters of Monterey Canyon.

Angler fish have a fishing-pole-like structure that they dangle in front of their mouths, luring in unsuspecting fish for consumption — hence their name.

This little fish was observed at a depth of 600 metres using a remote research vehicle. The institute believes that this is the first video footage of this species alive and at that depth.

Thousands rally across the U.S. after Ferguson decision

Thousands of people rallied late Monday in U.S. cities including Los Angeles and New York to passionately but peacefully protest a grand jury’s decision not to indict a white police officer who killed a black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri.

They led marches, waved signs and shouted chants of “Hands Up! Don’t Shoot,” the slogan that has become a rallying cry in protests over police killings across the country.

Activists had been planning to protest even before the nighttime announcement that Officer Darren Wilson will not be charged in the shooting death of Michael Brown.

The racially charged case in Ferguson has inflamed tensions and reignited debates over police-community relations even in cities hundreds of miles from the predominantly black St. Louis suburb. For many staging protests Monday, the shooting was personal, calling to mind other galvanizing encounters with local law enforcement.

Police departments in several major cities said they were bracing for large demonstrations with the potential for the kind of violence that marred nightly protests in Ferguson after Brown’s killing. Demonstrators there vandalized police cars, hugged barricades and taunted officers with expletives Monday night while police fired smoke canisters and pepper spray. Gunshots were heard on the streets.

But police elsewhere reported that gatherings were mostly peaceful immediately following Monday’s announcement.

About 100 people holding signs that read “The People Say Guilty!” blocked an intersection in downtown Oakland, California, after a line of police officers stopped them from getting on a highway on-ramp. Minutes earlier, some of the protesters lay on the ground while others outlined their bodies in chalk. A similar scene unfolded in Seattle as dozens of police officers watched.

Several hundred people marched through downtown Philadelphia with a large contingent of police nearby.

“Mike Brown is an emblem (of a movement). This country is at its boiling point,” said Ethan Jury, a protester in Philadelphia. “How many people need to die? How many black people need to die?”

Several hundred people who had gathered in Manhattan’s Union Square to watch the announcement marched peacefully to Times Square after the family of Eric Garner, a Staten Island man killed by a police chokehold earlier this year, joined the Rev. Al Sharpton at a speech lamenting the grand jury’s decision.

In Los Angeles, which was rocked by riots in 1992 after the acquittal of police officers in the videotaped beating of Rodney King, police officers were told to remain on duty until released by their supervisors. About 100 people gathered in Leimert Park while others held a small news conference demanding changes in police policies.

A splinter group of about 30 people broke away and marched through surrounding streets, blocking intersections, but the demonstrations remained mostly small and peaceful.

Chris Manor, with Utah Against Police Brutality, helped organize an event in Salt Lake City that attracted about 35 people.

“There are things that have affected us locally, but at the same time, it’s important to show solidarity with people in other cities who are facing the very same thing that we’re facing,” Manor said.

In Denver, where a civil jury last month found deputies used excessive force in the death of a homeless street preacher, clergy gathered at a church to discuss the decision, and dozens of people rallied in a downtown park with a moment of silence.

At Cleveland’s Public Square, at least a dozen protesters held signs Monday afternoon and chanted “Hands up, don’t shoot,” which has become a rallying cry since the Ferguson shooting. Their signs referenced police shootings that have shaken the community there, including Saturday’s fatal shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who had a fake gun at a Cleveland playground when officers confronted him.

A few hundred people marched from Chicago police headquarters toward downtown after hearing the Ferguson decision, using profanity but causing no damage. Police on bicycles, horseback and in squad cars closed portions of roads along the protesters’ route.

President Obama's immigration move is a win

President Obama finally did it. Through an executive order, the President intends to grant up to 5 million undocumented immigrants relief from deportation.

Will the angry bulls rise up? Has the well been poisoned? Will Republicans follow through on their threats of government shutdowns because they consider this an "impeachable offense"?

Republicans, who now have a responsibility to prove that they can govern, should take a step back and see what the President is trying to achieve and then decide whether it's worth expending political capital to battle over.

The President's Executive Action on deferring deportations for noncriminal undocumented immigrants who have been in the country for many years and contributed to our society will achieve three major goals:e coming?

1. Boost the American economy

Studies show that passing comprehensive immigration reform will increase our economic gain by more than $1.5 trillion over 10 years, decrease our deficit by almost a trillion dollars in the next 20 years, and boost GDP growth by more than 5 percentage points. While the President's action is not the permanent legislative reform we ultimately need to gain all these benefits, starting out by letting a large group of people legally work and holding them accountable by ensuring they pay their fair share of taxes will put us on a more prosperous path.

2. Strengthen our national security

Millions of undocumented immigrants will now be allowed to come out of the shadows, be identified, given background checks and legal work permits. This will help us understand who they are and if any are here to do us harm.

3. Help keep families together

America was built on the labor of generations of immigrants. Our strength as a country comes also from the strength of families. Instead of deporting grandmothers and fathers and children, the President will use our precious resources to deport gang members instead. This priority will reduce the tragic loss that occurs when families are torn apart by senseless deportations.

For a political party that prides itself in standing for a strong economy, strong national security and strong family values, please tell me -- which of these values are Republicans so adamantly against?

The President's detractors say he has no constitutional authority to give relief to so many people. While the courts may ultimately decide this, as someone who has worked in what was formerly known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service, I can tell you without question, the President indeed has prosecutorial discretion to decide which limited resources to dedicate to which undocumented immigrants he wants to deport. In fact, immigration officials, district attorneys and other law enforcement personnel exercise prosecutorial discretion every single day.

Moreover, Presidents Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II, each in their own ways, used executive authorities derived from this notion of prosecutorial discretion to grant relief to whole populations of undocumented immigrants for many reasons.

Conservatives who oppose the President might also say that an executive order on immigration will poison the well and that he should work with Congress to pass a legitimate and permanent reform the way it should be passed: in Congress.

I would be the first one to advise President Obama to wait in favor of congressional action. And by the way, it is the preferred way to go. There is just one problem. We have already seen this movie and we know how it ends. The President has been trying for years to get Congress on the same page. But Republicans have looked for excuses, continued to move the goalposts and voted several times to deport DREAMers.

Republicans must understand just how ridiculous they sound when they say President Obama should wait until the new Congress is sworn in and work with them to pass real reform. Who in their right minds -- no pun intended -- thinks that with both houses of Congress controlled by more conservative Republicans who ran on a platform to oppose anything President Obama does, we can get a bill out of Congress that the President can sign?

Republicans will point out that the American people are not on the side of the President on the immigration issue by pointing to a recent USA Today poll indicating that 46% preferred waiting for a Republican Congress to take action, while 42% approved of the President taking unilateral action now.

However, perhaps a better reflection is the Washington Post September 2014 poll that asked whether Americans would support presidential action in the absence of any congressional action. Support rose to 52%.

The absence of congressional action is exactly what we have had for the past year and half. As such, the American people cannot now let Republicans off the hook to get comprehensive immigration reform done legislatively, no matter how upset the GOP may be that the President acted. Temper tantrums are not an excuse for no action.

So, the President delivered on his executive action and he, the Democrats and the immigration advocacy community will now have to work diligently to explain to the American people that the well is not poisoned, and that this is the right thing to do for our economy, national security and above all, it is consistent with our American values.

For Republicans, it is not too late. They can make what the President announced moot and irrelevant. How? House Speaker John Boehner could bring the current bipartisan Senate immigration bill to the House floor for a vote on Friday -- and it would pass. Done.

So when the Republicans get it together, if they can get it together to pass something the President can sign, the President's unilateral action would be stopped, the angry bulls will calm down, and showdowns, shutdowns and impeachment hearings can be left for another day.

Most importantly, the American people would finally see their elected leaders put politics aside and do what is best for the country.

Culled from CNN

69 Countries Partner with Nigeria To Become Africa’s Financial Centre

Capital inflows into Nigeria worth $37.6 billion (N5.9 trillion) between January 2013 and Q3 2014 have moved the country a step closer to becoming Africa’s number one financial centre, according to BusinessDay Research and Intelligence Unit’s (BRIU) findings.

This value represents the amount of capital importation into the country in fiscal year 2013 ($21.3billion) and from January to September 2014 ($16.3billion).

An International Financial Centre (IFC) is a place where global financial business can be done profitably, easily and efficiently. It has a pool of highly skilled management and talents covering business, finance, legal, accounting and other interdependent services that can facilitate large scale cross-border transactions within the shortest possible time.

According to the recent ranking, the top ten IFCs are New York, London, Hong Kong, Singapore and Zurich. Others are Tokyo, Seoul, Boston, Geneva and San Francisco.

BRIU analysed the data on capital importation made available by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and found that these investments came from 69 countries during the period under review.

Lagos State, Nigeria’s commercial centre got 99 percent and 98 percent of the 2013 and 2014 capital inflows respectively.

In addition, the majority of the capital inflows went into equity investment. Seventy-one percent or $15.1 billion in 2013 went to equities, while $9.9 billion, or 61 percent of the amount brought in as at Q3 2014 also went to the same investment.

This is in spite of the 17.38 percent negative returns the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) index has posted year-to-date. The implication of the strategic positioning of foreign investors is that the current capital market state is temporary.

“We believe a few of the factors accounting for the continued attraction of the Nigerian market to foreign portfolio investors despite the headwinds include the relative pricing of the market compared to peers (11.04x vs 15.03x peer average), sound fundamentals of the economy, CBN’s resolve to defend the naira has minimised FX volatility until recently.

“They also include the relative stability and transparency in the management of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) as well as a number of reforms taking place. This has also led to the recent admission of the NSE into the World Federation of Exchanges(WFE), which is another image booster for transparency, sound regulations, to mention a few”, according to Olawale Olusi, a research analyst with Meristem Research. 

The plan to make Nigeria Africa’s financial centre is fully encapsulated in the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) report on Financial System Strategy (FSS) 2020 through which it aims to make the nation “the safest and fastest growing financial system among emerging markets which will have the capacity to drive rapid and sustainable economic growth primarily in Nigeria and Africa.”

Our analysis shows that 15 African countries invested in Nigeria during this period; ten from Asia; 24 from Europe and eight from the Middle East. There are seven countries from North America; three from the Oceania and two from South America.

The highest capital inflows into Nigeria from African countries came from Mauritius whose investors injected $673.7 million in fiscal year 2013 as well as $392.9million between January and September 2014. From Asia, Singapore was the highest source of capital inflows in 2013 with $158.8million to its credit but has since been dethroned by China whose investors have so far injected $115.1 million into the Nigerian economy in 2014 while the Singaporean investors can only boast of $74 million capital injection year-to-date.

The United Kingdom (UK) remains the highest source of capital inflows into Nigeria from Europe and among all the 69 countries put together. A total of $10.6 billion or 50 percent of the entire capital importation in 2013 came in through the UK investors, while $8.99billion or 55 percent has also come into the country through the same source in 2014.

Investments from Lebanon, worth $47.3 million, topped the list of the capital inflows from the Middle East in 2013, but that position has been taken over by Saudi Arabia which has so far invested $376.3 million into the Nigerian economy in 2014.

The United States of America (USA) has the second highest capital inflows into Nigeria overall and first among the countries from the North America. A total of $4.14 billion or 19 percent of the entire capital importation in 2013 and $2.66 billion or 16 percent of the 2014 capital importation into the Nigerian economy came from the US.

Furthermore, the $70 million and $200 million investments from Pitcairn put the small island as the highest source of capital importation from the Oceania in 2013 and 2014 respectively. The highest inflows from South America came from Brazil.

Interestingly, ten new countries in 2014 joined the list of nations investing in the country, a move which suggests that the global confidence in the Nigerian economy is very high, our short term problems regardless. These countries are Armenia, Greece, Hungary, Malaysia, Malta, Qatar, and Seychelles. Others are Thailand, Uganda and Vietnam. Total capital inflows from these countries added up to $613.43 million in 2014.

http://businessdayonline.com/2014/11/69-countries-propel-nigeria-to-africas-financial-centre/#.VHLvojTF8wJ

The 3 Decisions That Will Change Your Financial Life By Tony Robbins

There’s nothing worse than a rich person who’s chronically angry or unhappy. There’s really no excuse for it, yet I see this phenomenon every day. It results from an extremely unbalanced life, one with too much expectation and not enough appreciation for what’s there.

Without gratitude and appreciation for what you already have, you’ll never know true fulfillment. But how do you cultivate balance in life? What’s the point of achievement if your life has no balance?

For nearly four decades, I’ve had the privilege of coaching people from every walk of life, including some of the most powerful men and women on the planet. I’ve worked with presidents of the United States as well as owners of small businesses.   

Across the board, I’ve found that virtually every moment people make three key decisions that dictate the quality of their lives.

If you make these decisions unconsciously, you'll end up like majority of people who tend to be out of shape physically, exhausted emotionally and often financially stressed. But if you make these decisions consciously, you can literally change the course of your life today. 

Decision 1: Carefully choose what to focus on.

At every moment, millions of things compete for your attention. You can focus on things that are happening right here and now or on what you want to create in the future. Or you can focus on the past.

Where focus goes, energy flows. What you focus on and your pattern for doing so shapes your entire life. 

Which area do you tend to focus on more: what you have or what’s missing from your life?

I’m sure you think about both sides of this coin. But if you examine your habitual thoughts, what do you tend to spend most of your time dwelling on? 

Rather than focusing on what you don’t have and begrudging those who are better off than you financially, perhaps you should acknowledge that you have much to be grateful for and some of it has nothing to do with money. You can be grateful for your health, family, friends, opportunities and mind.

Developing a habit of appreciating what you have can create a new level of emotional well-being and wealth. But the real question is, do you take time to deeply feel grateful with your mind, body, heart and soul? That’s where the joy, happiness and fulfillment can be found. 

Consider a second pattern of focus that affects the quality of your life: Do you tend to focus more on what you can control or what you can’t?

If you focus on what you can’t control, you’ll have more stress in life. You can influence many aspects of your life but you usually can’t control them. 

When you adopt this pattern of focus, your brain has to make another decision:  

Decision 2: Figure out, What does this all mean?

Ultimately, how you feel about your life has nothing to do with the events in it or with your financial condition or what has (or hasn't) happened to you. The quality of your life is controlled by the meaning you give these things.

Most of the time you may be unaware of the effect of your unconscious mind in assigning meaning to life’s events. 

When something happens that disrupts your life (a car accident, a health issue, a job loss), do you tend to think that this is the end or the beginning?

If someone confronts you, is that person insulting you, coaching you or truly caring for you?

Does a devastating problem mean that God is punishing you or challenging you? Or is it possible that this problem is a gift from God? 

Your life takes on whatever meaning you give it. With each meaning comes a unique feeling or emotion and the quality of your life involves where you live emotionally. 

I always ask during my seminars, “How many of you know someone who is on antidepressants and still depressed?” Typically 85 percent to 90 percent of those assembled raise their hands.

How is this possible? The drugs should make people feel better. It's true that antidepressants do come with labels warning that suicidal thoughts are a possible side effect.

But no matter how much a person drugs himself, if he constantly focuses on what he can’t control in life and what’s missing, he won't find it hard to despair. If he adds to that a meaning like “life is not worth living,” that's an emotional cocktail that no antidepressant can consistently overcome. 

Yet if that same person can arrive at a new meaning, a reason to live or a belief that all this was meant to be, then he will be stronger than anything that ever happened to him.

When people shift their habitual focus and meanings, there’s no limit on what life can become. A change of focus and a shift in meaning can literally alter someone's biochemistry in minutes. 

So take control and always remember: Meaning equals emotion and emotion equals life. Choose consciously and wisely. Find an empowering meaning in any event, and wealth in its deepest sense will be yours today. 

Once you create a meaning in your mind, it creates an emotion, and that emotion leads to a state for making your third decision:

Decision 3: What will you do?  

The actions you take are powerfully shaped by the emotional state you're in. If you're angry, you're going to behave quite differently than if you're feeling playful or outrageous. 

If you want to shape your actions, the fastest way is to change what you focus on and shift the meaning to be something more empowering.

Two people who are angry will behave differently. Some pull back. Others push through.

Some individuals express anger quietly. Others do so loudly or violently. Yet others suppress it only to look for a passive-aggressive opportunity to regain the upper hand or even exact revenge.  

Where do these patterns come from? People tend to model their behavior on those they respect, enjoy and love.

The people who frustrated or angered you? You often reject their approaches.

Yet far too often you may find yourself falling back into patterns you witnessed over and over again in your youth and were displeased by. 

It’s very useful for you to become aware of your patterns when you are frustrated, angry or sad or feel lonely. You can’t change your patterns if you’re not aware of them.

Now that you’re aware of the power of these three decisions, start looking for role models who are experiencing what you want out of life. I promise you that those who have passionate relationships have a totally different focus and arrive at totally different meanings for the challenges in relationships than people who are constantly bickering or fighting. 

It’s not rocket science. If you become aware of the differences in how people approach these three decisions, you’ll have a pathway to help you create a permanent positive change in any area of life. 

This piece was adapted from Tony Robbins' new book, Money Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom.