What Is Your EvE Ratio?

What is your EvE Ratio (a term coined by Tom Murphy)? Simply put, it is how much you spend on Education and personal development Vs Entertainment each month? Sadly, the typical person spends about 100 times as much time and money on entertainment as they do improving themselves.

Human nature drives us to predominantly move towards pleasure and away from pain. Obviously, entertainment and recreation bring great pleasure. This is why we are naturally drawn towards tension relieving instead of goal achieving activities.

The EvE ratio helps you quickly and easily create a measurable value that can be used to gauge your progress in personal development. And if we can measure something, we can manage it!

To determine your own EvE ratio you must do a quick analysis of all the things and activities you spend your time and money on for Entertainment. They may be:

• Television (cable or satellite costs)
• Movies
• Sporting events (live or on TV)
• Vacation
• Internet surfing (non-work related)
• Night life (happy hours, dance clubs, etc.)
• Hobbies
• Etc. (expand or contract this list as it applies to your life)

Now add up the average amount of money you spend on these activities each month (just guesstimate). Then do the same for the amount of hours you spend.

Once you have your numbers for Entertainment, determine the Education and Personal Development values. These things and activities may include:

• Non-fiction books
• Seminars/Training Classes
• Professional development (skill building for your primary job)
• Educational CDs, DVDs, or MP3s
• Online Learning (distance learning programs, iLearningGlobal.tv, Success University, etc.)
• Magazines like SUCCESS, Inc., Fast Company, Business Week, etc.
• Formal classroom education
• Etc. (expand or contract this list as it applies to your life)

Do the same exercise with your Education as you did with Entertainment; add up the average amount of money and average amount of time you spend each month.

The final step is to compare the numbers. Ideally these numbers will almost match; meaning you spend nearly equal amounts of time and money on your personal development as your recreation. In reality, most will find that the entertainment numbers far exceed education.

Once you know what your EvE ratio is, you have to ask yourself a very serious question:

Is that OK?

This is a personal choice. If you are happy with the ratio and with your current place in the world, then that is great. There is no need to change.

However, if you feel something is missing in your life and that you are not achieving all that you are capable of, then you must take action to change your EvE ratio.

The easiest way to do this is to start small. Begin allocating a percentage of the money you spend on entertainment to be spent on educational materials. Plan a specific amount of time each day or week to devote to your personal development. If you devote just 1% of your time, you will only need to spend 15 minutes each day investing in your mind (and your future!). Gradually increase these amounts over weeks or months until you reach your desired EvE ratio.

The purpose is not to give up entertainment and tension relieving activities, it is to find balance. I personally place a very high value on recreation (evidenced by my passion for mountain biking, kayaking, and other outdoor recreation). But, I also make sure I learn something new every day and I focus on continuous learning and personal development as part of my daily routine by watching videos on iLearningGlobal.tv, listening to inspiring and educational CDs in my car, and loading my MP3 player with audio from Jim Rohn, Chris Widener, Brian Tracy, Bob Proctor, and many, many more. By doing this I am able to turn education into entertainment and boost my EvE ratio at the same time!

Did you ever notice that LEARN contains the word EARN? Coincidence?

Remember, it's your time, your money, and your choice...CHOOSE WISELY!!

Scott Thomas

P.S. The most effective way to boost your EvE ratio is to join iLearningGlobal and get high quality, high impact training from the best teachers in the world delivered to you instantly 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The best investment you will ever make is investing in yourself. Discover the future of learning and personal development at http://www.ilgachievers.com. You're worth it!

How To Win In Today's Economy (And Tomorrow's)

In competitive sports, defense is important but offense wins the game! You can have the best defense in the world, but if the offense can't score any points you will never win.

The popular media continues to provide daily reminders of the economic woes, job losses, home foreclosures, stock crashes, etc., etc., etc. If you only listen to these stories, it's easy to fall into a defense mode. You scale back and hunker down for the inevitable crash. By doing this, you are essentially inviting failure and loss into your life. You lose focus on the opportunities and see only the problems. You have no momentum. You stagnate. You begin to feel helpless. Your perception shifts to continually seeing the evidence that supports the bad things that seem to be surrounding you. You no longer see the good and abundance that is everywhere.

How do you push past this? How can you switch to offense?

You need to change your mindset and change the input (what information you let in). You can't control the economy, but you can control how you view it. The following list provides tips that can help you move forward:

• Search for positive messages and examples of people who are thriving right now (or who have thrived in past economic downturns). Focus on opportunity, not problems. SUCCESS Magazine is a great place to read positive stories (online or in print).
• Quit listening to the mainstream media and start focusing on positive stories of success and achievement. Don't watch TV news and be careful what you read online or in newspapers.
• Don't cower and wait for things to get better; take positive action to find ways to make it better for you right now! Don't fall in the trap of thinking "I'll do it when..." or "As soon as xyz happens, then I'll ...".
• Be creative. If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got. You need to change things. Start mixing up your routine to get out of a rut and start blazing a new trail. This will lead to new thinking and new ideas.
• If something you perceive as negative happens, say "that's good" and then write down all the reasons why. For example, if you lose your job think about the potential benefits...you didn't like the job, there was no advancement, it's an opportunity to learn new skills, you may be able to change careers to something you've always wanted to do, you can spend more time with your family, you have time to exercise and get in shape while you search for a new opportunity, etc. Yes, losing your job is typically not a great thing but focusing on the potential good will keep your in a better mindset to move forward.
• Realize that money is just a tool. Don't focus on a lack of money or a need for money. Focus on what you do that provides value. You are compensated for the value and service that you provide; therefore you should focus on what you can DO, not what you can GET.
• Forget about all the things you can't do and instead think about what you can do! Don't waste time making excuses.
• Learn new skills to make yourself more valuable in the marketplace. Be willing to do those things that other people avoid. Build a reputation as a "can do, will do, go to" person.
• Take full accountability and responsibility for everything that happens in your life. This will give you control over any situation and prevents wasting time and energy playing the blame game.

Information is free; but not applying what you learn can be very costly! Don't let fear stand in your way. You already know what you need to do to ensure a great future. Start playing offense today and guarantee yourself a winning life!

Scott Thomas

The best investment you will ever make is investing in yourself. Discover the future of learning and personal development at iLearningGlobal.tv. You're worth it!