A few years back when I began my Personal Development Journey one of the main reasons I did so was because I was frustrated that life wasn’t turning out how I thought it should. Mainly in the area of wealth.

I went to school, got a good job, found my partner in life, bought a house and we had two kids! Sound familiar?

So why did we always seem to struggle with our finances? Mostly, the reason I found which attributed to this was because in school, we are not taught to create wealth, rather, we are taught to finish school, work hard at a good job and then retire.

Today, schools do not offer to teach us about investing in property or the stock market or even building a profitable business. In fact, most of the CEO’s of large corporations today were high-school drop-outs.

One who comes to mind is Larry Ellison, the CEO of The Oracle. Larry, who at that time was the second richest man on the planet, was invited to give a speech to the graduating class of 2000 at Yale University. Basically, he told them that Diplomas are for Losers. A transcript of his speech is a must read.

Hopefully, the archaic 19th Century school system will change. In the meantime, using wealth strategies to create a passive financial income, from people who already have a PhD in results is easier than you think.

Attracting Wealth

How I went about attracting wealth was to hunt around and find some books. There was no shortage of information in the personal development and wealth creation section at the bookshops and I found that it was difficult to choose one teacher. Over time, I came to realise that all the proclaimed Self Help teachers were teaching the same concept from their own experiences. There was only one message and that is:

You create your reality; what you think about comes about.

This relates to every aspect of your life including:

1. Health,
2. Wealth,
3. Relationships,
4. Family Lifestyle,
5. Where you live,
6. Where you work, and
7. Your circle of friends.

One thing that I found very, very useful to help with my thoughts was a routine which I learned while attending some Master Mind meetings. A group of like minded people having regular meetings to support one another with any challenges we had in reaching our desired goals. It went something like this.

Daily Operating Procedures

First thing every morning I follow this routine set out below and read my “I” affirmations.

Prioritise my to-do list – based on my goals.

• I commit to doing my A’s (most important) regardless of the time it takes to do them. Huge tasks get allocated no more than an hour.
• I touch tasks one time and then complete them.I don’t let distractions take me off what I am doing.
• I make all decisions swiftly, either yes, no or more information required.
• I am the cause of my day and whatever enters my mind is by my own doing.
• I choose to put into my mind only those things which will further me to reaching my goals.
• I do not get entangled in small games and worthless arguments that rob me of money, time or attention.

Next, read my goals, maybe while walking around, rebounding etc.

Right before reading my goals, I will concentrate my thoughts for at least 5 minutes on making $10,000 a month and to achieve it by following this plan:

1.       Educating myself daily by:

• Cultivating my goals daily
• Daily Self-Improvement

2.       Promoting my business daily by:

• Networking
• Offering my services to help others

3.       Being effective by:

• Connecting with people
• Setting appointments
• Daily training
• Promoting

Use these efforts to produce the following results.

1. All expenditure is to get me to $10,000 a month.
2. No toys or hobbies.
3. Buy only assets that build the business and assets that produce a passive income.
4. I will attract to myself the business partners that will make my goals a reality because of my willingness to contribute to others.

This is only the beginning. Once this goal is reached, then it’s doubled and so on by duplicating what you have already done and the results achieved.

What are some of the things you include in your daily routine? Do you follow a similar one to this or is there something else which has helped you to achieve your goals?

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Tamara’s Mind Movie

This Mind Movie was created by one of my lovely friends Tamara.

She’s gorgeous and vibrant and it shows in this wonderful video.

Enjoy and be inspired as I have in watching this awesome visual display accompanied by the song, Leave Me Breathless which I have been.

There are no clear reports as to what caused her death, only that she felt dizzy one day into the trek and then passed away. I heard something about dehydration  too. We can’t speculate and until there is further news, there is no point.

The Nine MSN source says that Sam was on the trek with her father aged 62, her brother and a family friend. They were trekking Kokoda to honour her grandfather who had fought for Australia during the one of the toughest WWII battles.

Trekking Kokoda

The preparation involved before taking on the trek is arduous and then actually being there is even more so. I was completely out of my comfort zone. It was my greatest personal challenge to choose to do this. I’ve said it before that mud and me just don’t mix.

The article I read said that Sam trained every morning for 12 months. My hat goes off to her. I wasn’t that diligent. My training only started 4 months before the due time. It was a sudden decision that I chose to go.  However, I did train with my personal trainer and he was the one who arranged the trek for a group of 12 of us. We also had two nurses and our guide David, a fireman in his day job, who had already trekked Kokoda 7 times before leading our group. There was so much experience in medical and first aid which I was tres happy about. Even with all the training, nothing can prepare you for the actual track itself.

Besides the fact that I had to be medivac’d out because I slipped and broke my wrist (and needed surgery) 6 days in, missing the last day and a half of the trek, another member of our group had rolled his ankle on the first day into the trek and managed to walk 4 days on it before he was also medivac’d out, our group were quite fit and made the trek in record times (according to our guide).

Hype about Trekking Kokoda

The thing that upsets me the most is when there is so much hype about trekking Kokoda. Seriously folks. Get a grip on L-I-F-E!

We live in a fast paced world. Crossing the street can cause death. Driving a car can cause death. Stress can cause death. We are born, and one day, we die. Where and when that happens is not up to us. There are incidences where people die in their sleep even and sometimes, not just elderly people. Like Kurek Ashley says, If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

Trekking Kokoda is perhaps perceived to be more dangerous than crossing the street in your local shopping centre. I slipped and fell many times while on the trek. I climbed the rugged edge of the mountain with only enough room for one at a time. Was I scared? Yes, in fact. Every time I lost concentration and thought about my kids and WHAT WAS I THINKING TREKKING KOKODA, I became weak and filled with emotion. Couldn’t this happen in any circumstance in our everyday lives? While we’re driving our cars maybe?

Life is a Challenge

The point I want to get across is that if we don’t challenge ourselves in life, when it’s time to go, we could be filled with regret at not having taken risks or enough risks while we had the chance to. Hearing people say that no-one should trek Kokoda and leave the local villagers to be invaded by mining company’s in my humble opinion is BS. It’s way too beautiful a landscape and also very historic to be dredged up by mines. When I am asked about the trek, I encourage everyone to do it. If not Kokoda, then another challenge which they will be proud of achieving.

Rest in Peace Samantha Killen and may your children grow to be proud of their mum who chose to take a risk and challenge herself to go and trek Kokoda.

God Bless

I will list them in categories for you so feel free to poke around and refresh yourselves with some favourites, some of my personal successes and some of my personal failures. They are all here.  Have fun and I will keep you updated with how the site is coming along. BTW, if you right click the links to open in a new tab, you can keep this list open

Personal Development

Personal Development and Wealth Creation

What Does Sex Have To Do With Success

Personal Development Can Turn Around An Idea Problem

Do You Think Too Much

My Greatest Personal Challenge To Date

Your Guide to Happiness 101

Falling In and Out of Love

Free Hugs/Humanity

Free Hugs Day in Melbourne

Free Hugs Day Melbourne Video

Humanitarian Initiative

Personal/Kokoda

I am an Adrenalin Junkie

My Excellent Kokoda Adventure:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Your Favourites

Of course if there is something I haven’t listed here that you really liked, please add the post url in your comment so that I can add it to this list.

Enjoy your reading and I’d like to hear your thoughts. I’m really looking forward to a new look Buzzing with Ange and will keep you posted on the progress.

This young boy had a dying wish which was to help feed the homeless. With this wish, he inspired countless numbers of people in various states of America to make an effort and collect food for the homeless because he was too weak to do it himself.

Brenden was described as a young boy with an old soul. He was once the kid who ran the fastest, climbed the highest and dreamed of becoming a marine photographer. Leukemia took away all those things, but not his dying wish to help others.

I think we can all learn from Brenden.  This moving video was taken just before he passed away in his mother’s arms.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Rest in Peace beautiful boy.

I met Kurek a little over 18 months ago and listened as he told his story of how he went from acting the bad guy in Hollywood movies to becoming one of the most sort after speakers around the globe in his role as a Peak Performance Life Success Coach.

My good friend and mentor Sean Rasmussen met with Kurek for an interview where they discuss some very valid points in how to manage your thoughts and change some habits that could be holding you back from achieving your goals.

Here is part 1 of that interview.

Peak Perfomance Motivational Legend

Kurek also holds the record for the longest fire walk which took 4 minutes walking over 81 metres of hot coals! This is not to impress you, but to impress upon you that anything is achievable and I am taking Kurek’s words with me over the next 10 days while I trek the Kokoda Trail. Mindset is what will get me through each day. It’s about Personal Development and where I want to go with my life.

Where do you want to go with your life? Kurek Ashley’s book may be just the thing that helps you decide.

A few months back when I was looking into the history of the track, I found that there were many video’s and sites with information regarding Kokoda. It is not something that I had specifically wanted to do although I knew that a personal challenge such as this was on the cards in so far as my own personal development went and when my friend and personal trainer Marc Stafford was organising a team to go and asked me, I said “yes.” To continue to grow in mind and spirit, challenges or goals which seem out of reach must be set in order to step up to the next level.

photo credit-pomfotos

Now I am not saying that you all have to go and trek Kokoda to step up to the next level. You yourself know what might be out of your reach and going for it may be the ticket that opens your mind and helps you along your own journey of personal development.

One of my goals for this year is to Coach, as in a Life Coach so this trek is fitting to help me discover parts about me which I need to develop and also to increase my mental toughness. My mental toughness (or lack of) will surely show while on the trek and it will be around 60 – 70 percent of that which gets me to the end of the 8 days. I have affirmations which I repeat out loud to myself to get into the right headspace for now. I’m sure once I am on the track, they will come in very handy to get me from one village to another. One foot in front of the other… one step at a time.

This trek, along with my NLP training and my own personal coaching with a very tough coach is what will bring me closer to this goal of being in a position to empower others to achieve the goals and dreams they set for themselves.

So this is part 1 of 8 of the video’s which I watched embedded here with the links to the rest of the series. It is worth the 30 minutes to sit through them all and see this band of Australian personalities to get an all round vision of what the trek is like and how they cope along the way. As well as getting a look at some of the most pristine rain forest in the world. Share your thoughts with me on this once you have been through them.

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Thank You for watching.

Aside from that, we, that is my family, have recently found out that my dad needs to have open heart surgery and as I type this, he has been hospitalised due to a series of recurring minor heart attacks and we are waiting to hear when he will be able to have the procedure done. Needless to say, it has put us all on standby wondering what the outcome will be.

Through all this, I have learned something about myself and that is that I am not the super emotionally strong person I thought I was. Does this mean that I have failed? No, not at all! In fact, what is has done is made me aware of the vulnerabilities that we as humans all have and that is that when someone close to us that we love faces a life threatening challenge, we start asking the questions why. After all, my dad is a very fit man and at the age of 78, he walks 60 kms per week!

The thing is to not ask why, but rather, how do we adapt to make this experience go as smoothly as possible while maintaining a positive outlook so as to keep my dad’s spirits up and help him as best we can through this challenge?


This Is How We Grow

While being empathic to his reality, I think the best thing I can do is spend time with him and ask questions so that I can learn as much as I can about him… I’m sure there are many things that I do not know about my dad and at the same time, tell him how I feel about him. Use the time to really bond and I think I am sounding like this is the end for him, and I’m sure it isn’t, but what an opportunity to get even closer than I was before! My point is that sometimes we leave things unsaid and then have regrets that we shoulda coulda woulda done this that and the other. I have heard it too many times before and I would rather not be left in that situation so speak now before it is too late.

This way of thinking can apply to anyone in our lives who we may be needing to discuss things with. What I mean is to not let emotions hold you back from speaking up about something or clearing the air if need be. I’m thinking in particular about forgiveness and emotional intelligence which goes a long way towards your personal development. Being consciously aware of our reactions to particular people or circumstances and coming to an agreement with ourselves or others, helps us keep things in perspective and not make up stories about it… after all, your reality will differ from the next person’s reality. We all have a different view of life and whatever your beliefs, it is the right one for you. Remember though that holding onto negative thoughts you have without either writing them down or talking about them with someone, will only make you the victim so please, if you have something to say then say it.

I know I am not the first person to be faced with this situation and I won’t be the last. So, I am not looking for sympathy here, rather, I would like to ask what are some of the things you may have tried in a similar situation which worked for you and your family to get you through a time like this?

For Australians, this is the setting of an extremely difficult time during World War II where we lost the most number of diggers – 6000, in the shortest space of time – 7 months. The Aussie soldiers held the Japanese back from taking Port Moresby by land, retreating many times and firing back to exhaust the Japanese soldiers into re-thinking their strategy which saw them file back to the Northern part of the Island.

The Kokoda Trail is a single file footpath that stretches for 96 kilometres (about 60 miles) in a north/south direction, straight across the Owen Stanley ranges in Papua New Guinea. My good Aussie mate Allan and I will be combining our efforts to bring you some history of the Kokoda Trail, along with the training I am undertaking and most importantly, the mindset behind taking on such a feat.

Choosing to Trek Kokoda Trail

This is not a decision I made lightly and for those that know me on a personal level would know that I am not the kind of girl to get my hands dirty, camping and hiking in the outback is not something I do on a regular basis as I am a creature of comforts and I really, really like hot showers, clean toilets, meals cooked in a clean kitchen and a comfy bed with a cozy doona/comforter to snuggle into. So, do you think I am going to have to have a paradigm shift in order to get through this challenge and change my mindset around creature comforts? I think it will open up new possibilities for me in the way I perceive things, and I will definitely be in need of a Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel on this trip.


Kokoda Memorial 1000 Steps

Saturday just gone was our first official training day as a group and I was whisked off to the Dandenong Ranges here in Melbourne to climb the 1000 steps which are part of the Kokoda memorial. I didn’t count them as I was too busy trying to catch my breath. I have plenty of work to do on my fitness level in preparation for this adventure so stick with me and I will give updates on my progress.

I will leave you with a sample of what I am to expect once we land in Port Moresby… tell me your thoughts and if someone here has already taken this challenge on, please share your experience. There are many expeditions organised on regular basis through various companies.

Kokoda Adventure Video

Click here to view the embedded video.

EDIT: Thought I would add the links to my story as this post does get a bit of traffic.

My Excellent Kokoda Adventure Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.