Dirk de Bruin (perhaps better known on the internet as Diggy) has released his Confidence Black Book, a complete 30-day guide to becoming a more confident person in all areas of life.

I had initially assumed that it was about dating, but it really has a much broader scope, covering diet, exercise, relationships, career, and other things. In short, it’s about conquering limiting beliefs that stand in the way of increased happiness, success, and goal achievement.

I appreciate that he based the book on his own personal experiences, as he spent seven years learning how to build confidence and the kind of life he wants to live. That’s how he can say for certain that his stuff works, because he used it all himself.

While I thought he had a lot of good insights in the book, I cheated by skipping the 30 daily tasks he gives. (Tip: don’t do this!) I also skipped over the bonuses (12 motivational videos and an NLP visualization method video, so there’s even more value than meets the eye.

He’s set up an opt-in page to a series of free videos with tips and insight into becoming more confident. I haven’t seen them, but if you want the secret to indestructible confidence, you know what to do.

It’s been about five months since I last wrote about Alex Fayle, the “Someday Syndrome” guy. For those who don’t know him, he specializes in helping people uncover hidden patterns so they can break their procrastination habit and start living the life they desire.

He’s taken his previous ebook off the market to update and expand it. But he’s also just released his new one: I’ll Get Around To It Someday: A Practical Guide To Getting Things Done.

In this new ebook, he gives us more insight into how to end the procrastination that makes us put our somedays off to, well, “someday.” When you learn how to kill the disinterest, inertia, and fear at the roots of procrastination, you can start making serious progress on what’s important to you.

If you ever find day after day going by, without taking steps towards your dreams, definitely check it out.

Super Bowl XLIII hasn’t started yet, so I don’t know what’s going to happen. It remains to be seen whether the Arizona Cardinals will beat the odds to win their first Super Bowl, while stopping the Pittsburgh Steelers from their record sixth Super Bowl win.

Regardless, nobody expected the Cardinals to make it this far. Although they’re the oldest team in the NFL, they’d never made it to the Super Bowl. Before the season started, oddmakers listed their odds of making it to the Super Bowl at 50 to 1. But they did, becoming only the second team to ever do so with 7 losses.

They might win the Super Bowl tonight, and they might not. But even if they don’t, their strategy will eventually work. That’s because it’s the only way to do anything:

1. Set your goal.
2. Make a plan.
3. Execute your plan.
4a. If successful, proceed to step 5.
4b. If not successful, go back to step 2. Repeat as many times as necessary.
5. Achieve your goal.

This plan might not get you to your goal quickly, but it’s better than the alternative:

1. Set your goal.
2. Do whatever.
3. Give up on your goal.

Of course, other things factor into this, like desire, knowledge, and skill. But if you’re not willing to keep trying, the rest doesn’t matter.

Recently I reviewed Napoleon Hill’s classic success book Think and Grow Rich. And I said that I’d later revisit the hidden secret that he hints at, but never reveals.

He says he got the secret from Andrew Carnegie, and it’s the key to all great financial success (for that matter, all great success of any kind). He drops many hints, saying that it will jump from the page when you’re ready for it, that if you’re ready for the secret then you already possess half of it, that you’ll recognize it at least once in every chapter, and so forth.

But out of all the millions of people who read Think and Grow Rich, I doubt many of them actually discovered the hidden secret. I thought that the secret might be, well, “The Secret!” That is, the law of attraction. But no, it’s not the law of attraction, and it’s not desire, and it’s not persistence. Basically, if you’re just making a guess, that’s not it.

Brian Kim has discovered the Carnegie secret, and reveals it in his ebook The Hidden Secret in Think and Grow Rich.

Many of you have read Think and Grow Rich, and you’ve probably been wondering what the hidden secret is. You have some idea, but you haven’t quite put your finger on it. Brian’s ebook is a very natural follow-up to Think and Grow Rich, because you need to know the hidden secret to get the full benefit from it.

I was actually disappointed at first when Brian revealed the hidden secret in the first chapter. I thought, “That’s it? That’s Andrew Carnegie’s magical secret to all great success?” But then I realized that my first impression was not consistent with what I knew about Brian. I figured there must be way more to it than that. And there was. That’s why the ebook is 122 pages!

As I kept reading, I saw that the value in his ebook is not just that he reveals the hidden secret, but that he goes into great detail about why it works, and how to execute it. Words are just words, and they don’t mean anything until you truly grasp the real meaning. Unless you understand why the secret is what it is, why it works, and exactly how to use it, you couldn’t put it into practice even if you knew what it was.

Now, is this really the secret that Napoleon Hill was referring to? Brian does an excellent job of showing how the secret he discovered meets all the criteria that Napoleon Hill described (such as appearing in every chapter). The consensus I’ve seen from other people who’ve read it is that Brian has correctly identified the hidden secret.

As for me, I fully accept Brian’s reasoning where he shows why the secret he uncovered is in fact the hidden secret. Still, I’m not certain that there’s not another possible answer that meets the same criteria. But I have no complaints about Brian’s answer, and he has a very revealing story about his process of discovering it.

Brian said that after he discovered the hidden secret, everything he had ever learned about self improvement clicked, and he saw how all the pieces fit together into a big picture. I wouldn’t quite say that, but I agree that the hidden secret ties together all the pieces of self improvement related to achieving a goal. (Self improvement is really huge and consists of more than achieving goals, in my opinion.)

His secret also ties together Napoleon Hill’s 13 steps and shows how they all work together. And perhaps the best thing is that with all the pieces in place, everything happens naturally. It becomes less about remembering specific steps to execute, and more about letting things flow. Of course, that doesn’t make everything easy, but it leads to achieving your goal naturally.

The only thing I wasn’t too keen on is that I found it a little repetitive. In one place, Brian says “I’ll say it again and again and again.” I would have preferred just one or two “agains.” But this was a choice Brian made deliberately, because he’s found that people often don’t internalize something the first or second or even the third time they hear it. Actually, doing this makes his language more consistent with Napoleon Hill’s writing!

You really need to read Think and Grow Rich first, because he references many specific details in it. He conveniently includes a copy in the download. You also need to be prepared to do some exercises that require writing things down. Avoid the temptation to do them in your head. We’re talking about achieving your one major definite purpose – take the time to write things down!

Brian’s making a special offer to my readers, including these bonuses:

• A copy of Think and Grow Rich in PDF format
• His special report The Three Biggest Mistakes People Make With The Hidden Secret, so you can avoid these mistakes
• A copy of The Hidden Secret Workbook, to help you apply the hidden secret consistently, as well as providing useful notes and summaries from the ebook

He even backs it with an 8 week money back guarantee. So go ahead, discover The Hidden Secret in Think and Grow Rich, and use it to naturally achieve your one major definite purpose.