Book Promo ~ The Kid and the King

The Hidden Inner Struggle High Achievers Must
Conquer to Reignite and Reengage with Life

Who Do High Achievers Seek When They Need
to Refuel and Re-Engage with Life?

You’ve achieved impressive goals and made your dreams come true. But now, something is blocking the energy. You’re no longer living life. You might be working around the clock (again!) or trying to figure out what to do next. You need to climb your next mountain, but you’ve hit a wall. And it’s standing between you and what matters most: authentic joy, motivation and fulfillment. Does this sound familiar?

In his transformative new book, The Kid and the King, Shasheen Shah opens his field-tested playbook to reveal the approach he has used one-on-one with top executives from companies such as Tesla, LinkedIn, Hewlett Packard, IBM and Ashley HomeStores, as well as many at the helms of startups, to help them realize not only outstanding business results, but also rewarding, balanced personal lives.

“There is an inherent duality within the human psyche: one that seeks to protect and operates from fear (the Kid) and the other that knows no bounds (the King or Queen),” Shasheen explained. “Understanding and allowing this duality to peacefully coexist is the key to living a successful and fulfilling life.”

In The Kid and the King, Shasheen takes readers on a step-by-step journey through the Emotional Mastery Process (EMP™), a system he uses to empower professionals worldwide, and provides compelling success stories that show his methods in action. His proven, life-changing insights and strategies include:

• A 3-minute exercise that immediately reveals the hidden inner struggle that individuals face;
• 5 questions that help empower individuals to choose emotions and take actions consistent with outcomes that are most important to them;
• Powerful paradigm-shifting letter writing exercises that reframe the relationships individuals have with themselves and others from adversarial to a truly loving and compassionate perspective;
• A series of tactical exercises designed to help individuals eliminate much of the inner struggle, learn what not to do when strong emotions surface and how to move from reaction to action;
• And so much more.

Practical, applicable and filled with meaningful life lessons, The Kid and the King equips you with the knowledge and the power you need to break through imagined limitations and excels you into a reengaged and reignited life.

“Ultimately, fighting battles every day is exhausting and has a lot of undesirable side effects,” Shah added. “What is motivating the individual to get to the destination is a promise that life will all work out and they will feel good when they finally get there. I’m here to tell you that without doing the inner work — really doing the inner work — you’ll be chasing that for the rest of your life and never find it ‘out there.’ It’s an inside job and not that complicated. You just have to have the courage to do it.” 

Author Shasheen Shah is the CEO of Coherent Strategies Consulting and Coaching. For more than 20 years, he has delivered breakthrough results to successful leaders around the world, navigating business outcomes and the personal challenges that go hand in hand with the journey. High-achieving professionals from numerous Fortune 500 companies are but a few who have benefitted from Shasheen’s paradigm-shifting coaching skills. Shasheen describes his powerful new book, The Kid and the King, as “a one-part philosophical and three-parts tactical training approach to a very crowded leadership and personal development space, providing the reader with the best field-tested strategies and exercises that have consistently produced results.”

For more information, please visit www.shasheen.com, or connect with the author on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at @shasheen.

The Kid and the King:
The Hidden Inner Struggle High Achievers Must
Conquer to Reignite and Reengage with Life

Publisher: Coherent Strategies, LLC
ISBN-10: ‎ 0578944723
ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0578944722

Available from Amazon.com

Biggest End of the Year Financial Mistake

The Biggest Financial Mistake
At The End of the Year

By Marc Sarner

As the end of the year approaches we make plans to spend time with family and friends. Where are we going for Thanksgiving? Are we traveling somewhere for Christmas?

I find that many people think about their investments and reevaluate goals. However, they don’t think to examine whether or not they can convert part of their IRA to a Roth IRA with little or no tax liability.
That’s right. It is possible that you can convert your IRA with no tax consequence.

If you are having a low-income year or are in retirement and have a large IRA balance, it is possible for you to convert part of it without incurring tax consequences.

Why would you want to convert to a Roth IRA? Here are a few advantages to the Roth:

•  Withdrawals from a traditional IRA are taxed because you were able to defer taxes on that money when you made contributions to your account. Withdrawals from a Roth IRA aren’t taxed because the deposits into the account weren’t tax deductible.

•  Any growth in a Roth IRA is tax free as long as it has grown for at least five years.

•  With a traditional IRA, when you reach age 70½ you must begin withdrawing a certain amount each year whether you want to or not. That’s called the Required Minimum Distribution. But with a Roth IRA, there is no Required Minimum Distribution so even at 70½ you can withdraw as much or as little as you like.

 You want to make sure you are talking to your tax specialist or a seasoned experienced advisor when looking at these options. One thing you can do is have them do a mock tax return to see the effect.

Why haven’t you heard of this before from your advisors? If you think about it, tax professionals are reacting to the previous year’s income and transactions. They are paid to do taxes.

Advisors are hired to manage money and plan.  When was the last time your advisor looked at your tax return to see how much money they can save you? This really isn’t an area they specialize in and they aren’t paid by you to focus on it.

For pre-retirees and retirees, planning for retirement is more than picking investments that fit your goals. Retirement planning is about becoming financially independent. Including Roth IRA conversion as part of your end of the year game plan could save you thousands in the long run.

 You have until Dec. 31 to convert. If you end up doing too much, you can always re-characterize or reverse the transaction come tax time.  However, if you don’t do enough, you can’t do more conversion.

About Marc Sarner

As president of Wake Up Financial and Insurance Services, Inc. (www.wakeupretirement.net) for nearly two decades, Marc Sarner provides retirement solutions for retirees and pre-retirees that focus on reducing taxes, increasing income and managing risks. He earned his Bachelor of Business Administration from California Polytechnic State University.

Super Performing at Work and at Home

6 Tips for Improving Your ‘Lines of Gratification’
‘The Michael Jordan of Lung Surgery’ Lists
Principles that Reliably Yield Success

As we enter the year’s final quarter, Dr. Robert J. Cerfolio, a world-renowned cardiothoracic surgeon, says it’s never too early to think about self-improvement for the New Year … and this year.

“Habitual procrastination can really hurt you in the long run because waiting to take care of something that’s obviously important to you – health, money, family matters – weighs on your subconscious,” says Dr. Cerfolio, known as “the Michael Jordan of lung surgery.”

Understanding one’s personal “line of gratification” is the foundation for sticking to self-improvement goals, he says.

“There are many kinds of lines of gratification,” he says. “For some, they’re the number of zeroes in their bank statement; for others, the curves of their muscles after they leave the gym. It’s good and healthy to look back on your hard work and admire what you have accomplished before moving on to the next task.”

Dr. Cerfolio, author of “Super Performing at Work and at Home: The Athleticism of Surgery and Life,” shares tips on how to make those lines of gratification more impressive.

•  Be an early riser. The main reason operating rooms hum into action at 7 a.m. is tied to human physiology; the bodies of patients are better able to handle the stress of surgery at that time.

“People are generally better off getting work done early in the day when we’re better prepared for stress and performance,” he says. “And getting a job done early frees you up later in the day.”

•  Love what you do. Why wouldn’t you want to take ownership, responsibility and pride in what you do for a living? When you treat a job as only a means to a paycheck, you are missing the point. If your job isn’t the one you’d really love to have, don’t make it worse with a negative attitude. Instead, make it your own. Make it a point of personal integrity and principle to challenge yourself to achieve something every day. After all, 40 hours a week is a long time to stay anywhere.

•  Ask yourself: Did I really try my best? “I tried my best” is a common refrain from those who haven’t reached their goals. An honest response you can ask yourself is, “Am I sure?” This question is not about being overly critical. It’s simply about realizing that, if you had practiced or studied an extra 10 minutes each day, you would’ve been that much closer to your goals.

•  Set specific, measurable goals. Results define goals. Every individual should have clear goals that are objective and measurable. Goals such as “to be happy,” “to do well at work” or “to get along” are too nebulous. To be successful, you have to be able to define your goals by measurable results.

•  Find the high ground. In anything you do, aspire to live up to the noblest, highest aspect of your job. Certain jobs – such as police work, firefighting, teaching or working in health care – are service oriented, so it’s easier to feel good about your contributions. Look for the contributions you’re making in your job and take pride in what you’re doing to make the world a little better.

•  Be the go-to guy or girl. This takes time, practice and the confidence necessary to want the ball in a critical situation. Being the go-to guy or girl means being willing to take responsibility and risk failing. A go-to person is also willing to speak up about problems or changes necessary in a business or organization, and suggest solutions.

About Robert J. Cerfolio, MD, MBA

Robert J. Cerfolio, MD, MBA, is the James H. Estes Family Endowed Chair of Lung Cancer Research and Full Professor Chief of Thoracic Surgery at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. He received his medical degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine, surgical training at the Mayo Clinic and at Cornell-Sloan Kettering hospital, and has been in practice for more than 26 years. The author of “Super Performing at Work and at Home,” Cerfolio, who was a First Team Academic All-American baseball player in college, is a world-renowned chest surgeon and recognized as one of the busiest and best thoracic surgeons in the world.

Goals for 2015

5 Tips for New Year’s Resolutions in 2015
Doctor Tells You How to Beat the Odds

If you’re one of the millions of Americans who will make a promise to improve yourself this New Year, there’s bad news: You’re 92 percent likely to fail in sticking to your resolutions, says a recent study from the University of Scranton’s Journal of Clinical Psychology.

About 45 percent of Americans make resolutions. Ranking at the top is losing weight, and staying fit and healthy ranks No. 5.

“Of course, those statistics represent the average – you don’t have to be average!” says Dr. Virender Sodhi, founder of the Ayurvedic and Naturopathic Medical Clinic, (ayurvedicscience.com), which provides complementary and alternative medicine.

“There are plenty of things individuals can do to improve their odds of success if they resolve to become healthier and fitter.”

Dr. Sodhi, author of the new guide, “Ayurvedic Herbs: The Comprehensive Resource for Ayurvedic Healing Solutions,” (www.ayush.com) believes we can move much closer to a world of disease-free societies by following the laws of Mother Nature. Individual commitment to health via New Year’s resolutions is one path to take us there. Dr. Sodhi offers five tips for staying true to your goals.

•  Get away from the instant-gratification mentality and avoid unrealistic goals. Don’t expect to go from zero to 60 – 60 being your ideal body image – in just a few months, especially if you have little background in training. Unfortunately, most who have resolutions like losing plenty of weight and quitting smoking are used to easy snack foods and quick rewards. Health is a long-term labor of love; commit to the love and wait for results.

•  Establish good habits! People make resolutions because they know they’re important, but they’re hard. With each passing week, more people drop their promises for self-improvement. You’ll want to set the right goals; if you want to lose 100 pounds, focus on the first 10, and then the next. Make sure to establish new and good habits – it takes about 28 days to stick. Once you train your mind with good habits, achieving your goals becomes much easier.

•  What you should expect from your “labor of love.” Frequency, intensity and time – these are the three investments you’ll need for losing weight or gaining muscle. As a general rule, exercise at least 30 minutes three to four times a week. Make sure to start with the appropriate intensity for your health; too little intensity and you’ll see little if any results, but too much and you’ll be prone to quit. Don’t think that it’s always better to exercise for a longer duration. What matters is quality. Increase time and intensity once you comfortably meet goals.

•  Solidify the gains with persistent positive reinforcement. Learn to reward yourself in a new way by paying attention to the gains in your body. Notice the improvement in stress levels, breathing, energy, sex life, mood and overall strength. While these improvements are wide-ranging and palpable, they increase over time and can be subtle. Don’t let these improvements occur without a personal recognition of your accomplishments.

•  Embrace supplemental support. Of course, all health efforts are connected to your overall well-being. When you make the investment to eat more vegetables, you’re reinforcing your commitment to exercise. Consider practices such as yoga and meditation, which will feed your health kick and provide unexpected benefits. Additionally, supplements such as kelp, green tea extract, Commiphora mukul (Guggul) and Bauhinia variegata (Kachnar) can yield even more health benefits. And, spices such as garlic, onion, black pepper, ginger, cinnamon, long pepper, and cayenne pepper all have important thermogenic properties, which stimulates metabolism.

About Virender Sodhi, M.D., N.D.

Dr. Virender Sodhi was the first Ayurvedic and Naturopathic physician in the United States. He is the author of “Ayurvedic Herbs: The Comprehensive Resource for Ayurvedic Healing Solutions,” (www.ayush.com) and founder of the Ayurvedic and Naturopathic Medical Clinic, (ayurvedicscience.com). Dr. Sodhi earned his M.D. (Ayurved) in 1980 from the Dayanand Ayurvedic Medical College in Jalandar, India. He served as a college professor in India until 1986, when the Indian government selected him to share Ayurveda with Western society as part of a cultural exchange program. He finished his fellowship in Integrative Oncology with Dr. Mark Rosenberg in 2012. Dr. Sodhi is a visiting professor at Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine in Scottsdale, Ariz., at the University of Washington School of Pharmacy, and at Des Moines University in Iowa.

Book Review: The Greatest Words You’ve Never Heard

The Greatest Words You’ve Never Heard:
True Stories of Triumph 

 Indispensable Source Of Inspiration And Hope, This Book Is A Perfect Read On The Road reviewed by Louis Columbus

“Filled with stories that resonate with hope and resilience, this book is an excellent read. What’s so powerful about this book is that it challenges the reader to be stronger and shows you that attitude, beliefs, and intensity, when combined with passion for a goal or vision – is unstoppable. Nothing great was ever accomplished without passion, and this book resonates with example after example proving that point. What I liked best is how it shows that no matter how challenging a situation looks, when people make up their minds to change a situation and passionately commit themselves to the task, they can. It will make you question your own limits.”

About the Book

Words are magical. They can transport you to other times, places and worlds. But many of our greatest words have been lost to the shadowy mists of history. You feel the power of these words when you read them. They stop you in your tracks, compelling you to listen, feel, remember. In these days of too many words with very little meaning, here are a few life changing words everyone should know.

Included within are some of the greatest tales ever told. Stories birthed in blood and chaos, turmoil and tragedy, they are symbols of inspiration and hope. In their place and time, these words resounded with all the subtlety of a sonic boom. How will they make a difference in your life today? Read and discover.

“Steve Kayser has delivered one of the most profoundly motivational books I’ve seen in years! These stories will help you succeed in business, raise your kids, be a better person and friend and leave a legacy. They are playful, painful and gloriously revealing of human nature and our yearning to matter. The uncovered gems are found in potent stories, profound recognitions and astonishing poetry. They are words that need to be heard!” – Dr. Rick Kirschner, coauthor of the international bestseller, Dealing with People You Can’t Stand: How to Bring Out the Best in People at Their Worst, and How to Click with People: The Secret to Better Relationships

About Steve Kayser

Steve Kayser is an award-winning writer, editor, publisher, former radio host and founder of Kayser Media. He has had the great fortune to interview and collaborate with some of the best minds in the business world, and his eclectic approach to public relations and marketing has been widely documented. He recently published “The Greatest Words You’ve Never Heart,” (www.stevekayser.com). 

Book Promo: Edgy Conversations: How Ordinary People Achieve Outrageous Success

How to Overcome Excuses
6 Tips to Gain the Edge & Meet Your Goals

Great people throughout history often fail, quite miserably, before finally reaching their goals, says international business strategist Dan Waldschmidt.

“Van Gogh sold only one painting during his lifetime; Winston Churchill lost every public election until becoming prime minister at age 62; Henry Ford went bankrupt five times; Albert Einstein was a terrible student and was expelled from school; Sigmund Freud was booed from a stage,” says Waldschmidt, author of “Edgy Conversations: How Ordinary People Achieve Outrageous Success,” (www.EdgyConversations.com).

“Ideas, brilliance, genius – they all mean nothing without the guts, passion and tenacity necessary to make your dream a reality. But often, people fall back on excuses and give up on trying to reach their goals.”

Most of us have dreams, and many of us have big ones, but few of us actually see them through, he says.

He offers six tricks for jumping off the excuse train and forge the path to your goals.

•  Avoid the need to blame others for anything. Mean, small-minded people know that they suck. That’s why they are so cranky and eager to point out others’ mistakes. They hope that by causing others to feel inadequate, everyone will forget about how woefully off the mark their own performance is. Don’t blame anyone, for any reason, ever. It’s a bad habit.

•  Stop working on things that just don’t matter. Not everything needs to be done in place of sleep. If you work for a boss, then you owe them solid time. You can’t cut that out. You can, however, cut out television time, meetings and anything else that gets in the way of achieving your goals. Replace entertainment with activity toward your goal.

•  Refuse to let yourself wallow in self-doubt. You’re alive to succeed. Stop comparing your current problems to your last 18 failures. They are not the same. You are not the same. Here’s something to remember: Your entire life has been a training ground for you to capture your destiny right now. Why would you doubt that? Stop whining. Go conquer.

•  Ask yourself, “What can I do better next time?” And then do it next time. If you spend a decade or two earnestly trying to be better, that’s exactly what will happen. The next best thing to doing something amazing is not doing something stupid. So learn from your mistakes and use the lessons to dominate.

•  Proactively take time to do things that fuel your passion. Exercise is a great example. Living in the moment requires you to live at peak performance. A huge part of mental fitness is physical fitness. A sparring or running partner is a great way to refresh physical competition. Physical activity accelerates mental motivation.

•  Apologize to yourself and those around you for having a bad attitude. Do this once or twice and you’ll snap out of your funk pretty fast. When you start genuinely apologizing for being a bad influence on those around you, you learn to stop whining and start winning.

About Dan Waldschmidt

Dan Waldschmidt is the author of “Edgy Conversations: How Ordinary People Achieve Outrageous Success,” (www.EdgyConversations.com). He is an international business strategist, speaker, author and extreme athlete. His consulting firm solves complex marketing and business strategy problems for savvy companies all over the world.

Retirement Danger Signs

6 Signs Your Retirement
Plan is in Trouble
Estate Planner Shares Tips for Avoiding a 2008-style
Disaster during the ‘Distribution’ Years

After the 2008 economic meltdown, when the stock market fell 37 percent, veteran financial advisor Curt Whipple says he met with clients from outside financial institutions who’d lost 50 to 60 percent of their portfolio in a single year.

“Almost no one foresaw what happened that year, and I doubt very much that many will foresee a collapse if it happens again,” says Whipple, a Certified Wealth Strategist, Certified Estate Planner and CEO of C. Curtis Financial Group.

“Regardless, there are eight indicators that you can focus on that will help you identify whether or not you’re taking too much risk in your portfolio and if your retirement plan is in danger.”

Whipple, who recently published “Retiree Lifeline! How to Get Government Out of Your Pocket,” (www.ccurtisfinancial.com), a retirement planning guide, reviews the six danger signs from 2008 to watch out for in 2014.

• You either looked at your accounts every day OR you wouldn’t look at them at all. In 2008, people couldn’t believe what was happening to their portfolios. They looked at their account every day – an exercise in masochism – as their advisors told them either, “just hang in there,” or reminded them that the market is a long-term investment that cyclically rises and falls. That advice led them to stop looking at their accounts, which was as bad as looking at them every day, as their advisor told them to just hold on.

• You lost more than 15 to 20 percent of your investments’ value in 2008. That indicates you had too many risky investments. It’s important to know what level of risk you’re comfortable with – generally speaking, the younger you are, the riskier you can be. However, risk is also a personal decision. Make sure you and your advisor are on the same page regarding risk tolerance. That will require your advisor taking the time to explain your investments and how they’re diversified.

• Your broker or financial advisor fails to call you regularly. You should get a call every quarter from your advisor to review and discuss your account. The only time this should not be the case is if you specifically request to be contacted less frequently.

• Your portfolio is tied mostly to Wall Street or stocks, bonds and mutual funds. If each investment you have is one or all of the above, then your investments are not truly diversified. In addition to those investments, you should consider alternative investments like Real Estate Trusts (REITS), and your accounts should feature some kind of guarantee.

• You depend on your bond portfolio to protect you in hard times. We are living in a new financial era; bonds now have an inverse relationship to interest rates, which are so low now that they will invariably increase in the future. As interest rates rise, bonds will decline in value. That’s why using bonds as your only alternative to a falling market is a dangerous idea.

• You excessively worry about money. Your fear may be based in reality if you have a number of risky investments; if you really don’t understand what you are invested in; or if you don’t have a clear plan to achieve your financial objectives.

About Curt Whipple, CWS, CEP

Curt Whipple is the author of “Retiree Lifeline! How to Get Government Out of Your Pocket,” (www.ccurtisfinancial.com). A Certified Wealth Strategist (CWS) and Certified Estate Planner (CEP), he is Chief Managing Partner at the C. Curtis Financial Group, which he formed in 1986. Since then, Curtis Financial Group has counseled and advised individuals and corporations on their financial goals and decisions. Whipple is a nationally recognized speaker.