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Personal Development Blueprint

100+ of the most powerful personal development concepts of all time.

Principles, concepts, strategies, and techniques essential for building an extraordinary How to bust your top 20
limiting beliefs. 120+
life. mins

The following ideas are distilled from $100,000-worth of the best personal development
books, courses, and seminars, and further re!ned with personal experience. My goal is
Download MP3s and
to !nd the biggest leverage points for changing the quality of one's life. This is it!
listen on your mobile
device!
If you're unhappy with any area of your life, we can trace it down to one of these root
causes. email address

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Tips & Warnings:

Each of these concepts is multi-layered and unbelievably deep. Fully integrating
just one concept can take months or even years of active work. Each concept needs Search Videos
to be individually studied, contemplated, and applied. Reading them won't produce
signi!cant results.
Not all of these concepts will be equally bene!cial to you. Some will be much more
meaningful than others based on your particular life experiences and current level
of personal development. Work on the concepts that resonate most.
There is no single right way. There are many ways to do personal development.
This is not a comprehensive list, although it's pretty damn extensive.
This is a live document, undergoing frequent and major revisions as I do more
research.

The 100 Most Powerful Personal Development Concepts of All Time

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 Click the headings for videos and in-depth discussion of each concept.

1. Life Purpose
Have a Life Purpose — Commit to a life calling. Immerse yourself in deeply
meaningful work that channels your creative energy and gives you a sense of
contribution.

2. Strategic Thinking
Live Strategically — Make methodical, long-term plans for your life. Analyze your life
and have your actions lead to some ultimate objective. A quality life is designed, it
doesn't happen spontaneously.

3. Mastery
Understand the Process of Mastery — Understand what it takes to master any area
of life. Choose what you're going to master, embrace the mastery process, learn to
love the plateau, and practice for practice-sake.

4. Just Do It
Just Do It — Action is essential to all results and trumps thinking, talking, or
planning. Shortcut a lot of mental-masturbation, debate, and self-help theory by
simply taking consistent action. Action tends to self-correct.

5. Mission Statement
Have a Personal Mission Statement — Write out your personal mission statement
and spend 5 minutes reading it every morning, no matter what. Live your mission
statement every day.

6. Resistance
Be Prepared for Resistance — Your brain creates resistance to change and growth.
Be prepared to encounter serious resistance when you undertake any creative
project that taps into your highest self. Be ready to wrestle and negotiate.

7. Happiness
Understand How Happiness Works — Most of us don't understand what will truly
make us happy. Happiness is living with integrity. It's living your top strengths and
values every day, consistently. Happiness is not about acquiring tangible or even
spiritual "things".

8. Top 5 Feelings
Articulate How You Want to Feel — Identify which feelings are most important to
you and make them your ultimate goals. If you're going to chase anything, chase
feelings, not material or spiritual things.

9. Top 10 Values
Articulate Your Top 10 Values — Identify and articulate what's most important and
meaningful to you in life. Keep re!ning and prioritizing your values over time. Align
your actions with your values.

10. Be Patient
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 Be Patient — Be patient with large, ambitious life goals. Lack of patience is often the
only thing that stands between your success and failure. Patience creates a sense of
groundedness and peace.

11. Motivation
Use Vision to Generate Motivation — Motivation can be consciously created and
sustained by using your imagination to come up with a compelling vision of the
future. The best kind of motivation is positive and internally grounded.

12. Self-Actualization
Know Your Potential as a Human Being — Your actualized self is your ideal self, the
greatest possible you. Get inspired by just how much personal growth is possible
for you. Commit to self-actualization as a life-long pursuit.

13. Inner/Outer World Distinction

Master Your Inner World — We live simultaneously in two worlds: the inner world of
thoughts and feelings, and the outer world of physical things. Take control of your
inner world to create the outer world you want.

14. Charged Life

Commit to Living a Charged Life — You will live one of three types of life: a caged
life, a comfortable life, or a charged life. You only have one life. Commit to living a
charged life. Commit to being all that you can be despite the challenges.

15. Deliberate Practice

Practice Deliberately — Design concentrated practice sessions that train you faster.
Apply deliberate practice to important areas of life that you've committed to
mastering.

16. Failure is Good

See Failure as Good— Acknowledge that failure is an essential part of the learning
process. Train yourself to think about failure in an empowering way. The most
successful people are the ones that failed the most. Adopt an explorer mindset.

17. The Waking Daze

Raise Your Level of Consciousness — You are a puppet pulled by strings. You are far
less conscious than you think. Start to notice just how many of your actions are
actually unconscious, automatic reactions; take back control.

18. Positive Thinking

Be a Positive Thinker — Develop the habit of thinking constructively. Stop thinking
about the things that distress you. Think about the things you want to create in
your life and teach yourself to let go of the rest.

19. The Gremlin

Tame Your Gremlin — You are constantly limiting yourself with automatic negative
thoughts. Develop a habit of spotting your inner negative self-critic, and learn
strategies for managing this negative self-talk.
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 20. Emotional Awareness
Develop Emotional Awareness and Range — Emotions have various levels of
meaning that must be understood. Learn to identify and manage your emotions so
they don't control you. Expand the range of emotions you feel.

21. Be Principle-Centered
Be Principle-Centered — Live your life according to deliberately-chosen principles.
Ground your happiness and success in your ideal values, not external
circumstances. Do not ground yourself in family, work, church, material
possessions, or pursuit of pleasure.

22. Be a Creator
Be a Creator — See yourself as someone who creates. In whatever you do, be a
creator and artist. Take your work personally. Seek to contribute something new to
the world.

23. Be Proactive
Be Proactive — Take control your circumstances and show initiative. Make decisions
that increase your agency over your external environment. Do not be passive. Do
not be a victim.

24. Power of Honesty

Be Honest — Be honest with yourself and others even when it's costly. Honesty is
powerful, attractive, and creates an unshakeable foundation for success in your
business and personal life.

25. Top 5 Strengths

Live Your Top 5 Strengths — Identify and align your life with your top 5 strengths,
especially the top two. Live your top strengths ever day at work and at home.

26. Zone of Genius

Live Your Zone of Genius — Identify your zones of genius, excellence, competence,
and incompetence. Commit to living in your zone of genius even though you are
comfortable in your zone of excellence.

27. Eliminate Addictions

Eliminate Addictions — Toxic, addictive behaviors keep you from living a charged
life. Eliminate negative addictions like: TV, food, alcohol, shopping, internet, porn,
drugs, gossip, worry, and negative thinking.

28. Take Responsibility

Take Full Responsibility for Your Life — Take full responsibility for everything in your
life, even those things that are seemingly outside your control. Own every aspect of
your life and believe that you have the power to change it all.

29. Flow
Create More Flow Experiences — Design your life so that you're "in the zone" more
often. Do not multitask. Focus on one task at a time and develop technical mastery
so you can easily become absorbed in the moment.
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 30. Normalize Expectations
Set Reasonable Expectations — Set reasonable expectations for yourself by
studying the process and results of others. Know what you're getting into and how
much time and e"ort it will take. When you feel down, check back with your
expectations.

31. Be World Class

Commit to Being World Class — Strive to be world class in your career or business.
If you're not going to be world class, why even bother? You're leaving the peak
experiences o" the table! Dedicate yourself to excellence.

32. 10,000 Hours

Commit to Investing 10,000 Hours — Realize that it takes 10,000 hours to become
world class at anything. Prepare yourself for the long-haul. Commit to and focus on
mastering 1 or 2 things. Then, practice, practice, practice!

33. Eat Healthy

Eat Healthy Food — Take control of your nutrition. Stop feeding yourself low-grade,
processed garbage. Eat whole foods that makes you feel clean, keep your body
healthy, and optimize your brain function.

34. Exercise
Exercise 5 Days Per Week — Take control of your body. Exercise daily to keep your
body and mind strong, keep your energy up, and stay attractive for the opposite
sex. Join the gym and do a combination for cardio and strength-training.

35. Principle of Right Action

Always Take Right Action — Do what is necessary even when you don't happen to
feel like it. Be religious about this. Imagine how great your life would be if you
followed through on everything you know you need to do every day.

36. Kaizen
Commit to Constant Improvement — Baby-step your success. Build your life up
with steady, incremental improvements. Stop trying to sustain knee-jerk, dramatic
changes.

37. Sleep
Get Quality Sleep — Take sleep seriously. Get 7-8 hours of sleep every day no
matter what. Your body and mind need high-quality sleep to function at their peak.
Design your life to give you su#cient sleep.

38. Read
Read Every Week — Read high-quality, non-!ction books every week, and take
notes and implement ideas. The life-changing potential contained in a good $12
paperback is mind-blowing! The answer to any problem can be found in some
book.

39. Extrinsic Motivation

Eliminate Extrinsic Motivation — Don't do things for the sake of others. If it's truly
important, make it a part of you. Either ground it intrinsic or shed it entirely.
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 Extrinsic motivation is not strong enough to make you truly happy or competitive.

40. Information Intake

Monitor Your Information Intake — Cut out all sources of low-grade, mindless,
negative information. Feed your brain with information that raises, rather than
reduces, your level of consciousness.

41. Mind Power

Practice Mind Power — Create a daily habit of training your mind and programming
your subconscious with techniques like visualization, seeding, a#rmations,
contemplation, and acknowledging. Your mind needs daily training.

42. Growth Friends

Have 5-7 High-Quality Friendships — Build 5-7 high-quality friendships that you
intend to sustain for the rest of your life. Invest time in enjoying and maintaining
your growth friends. Shallow friendships don't count.

43. 80/20 Rule

Focus on the Top 20% — Identify the 20% of your e"ort that's responsible for 80%
of your results. Amplify that 20% by giving it more time and energy. Ruthlessly cut
out the rest. Learn to say "No!" to the other 80%.

44. Goal-Setting
Set E"ective Goals — Develop a habit of setting, writing down, and constantly
re!ning your goals. Have short-term, medium-term, and very long-term goals. Set
goals that are speci!c, compelling, and aligned with your highest values.

45. Habit-Building
Build Positive Habits — Invest your willpower strategically in building positive
habits. Lock down your results. Routines are powerful because they free you up to
focus conscious attention on your biggest goals and challenges.

46. Momentum
Build Momentum — Realize that you will have to slowly ramp up your e"ort to hit
peak performance and that this ramp-up process can be di#cult, requiring
patience.

47. Emotional Buttons

Dismantle Your Buttons — Identify which situations and behaviors trigger negative
emotional reactions in you and eliminate them. With introspection, visualization,
and journaling, dismantle your buttons so other people cannot control you.

48. Invest in Yourself

Invest In Yourself — View yourself as your greatest asset. Actively invest in skill
development, learning, and personal improvements that will make you more
e"ective and valuable to others. Prioritize investment in yourself over investment in
external things.

49. States vs Stages

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 Turn State Experiences into Stage Experiences — Don't beat yourself up for not
being able to lock down state experiences, but do strategize and work toward
turning your favorite states into permanents stages of being.

50. Learning = Behavior Change

Raise the Bar for What it Means to Learn — Raise your standard for what it means
to "learn" something. True learning only occurs when your behavior has changed.
Merely intellectual knowledge is not enough.

51. Provide Value

Provide Value to Others — Seek to provide massive value to others in everything
that you do, from business to relationships. Take satisfaction in making people feel
like they got the better part of the bargain. Don't be a value leech.

52. Sedona Method

Learn and Use Sedona Method — Learn to release negative emotions like worry,
anger, and fear, so you can act from a position of good feeling. Develop emotional
awareness and imperturbability.

53. Shadow Work

Invest in Shadow Work — Spend time introspecting and journaling about your past
to release repressed emotions and get closure for past traumatic events. Integrate
marginalized aspects of your psyche so you aren't held back by the past.

54. Limiting Beliefs

Eliminate Limiting Beliefs — Identify your greatest limiting beliefs and eliminate
them one by one with techniques like visualization, seeding, a#rmations,
contemplation, shadow work, and journaling.

55. Meditation
Meditate Daily — Develop a habit of meditating consistently, every day, for at least
20 minutes. Meditation calms the monkey chatter in your head, puts you in $ow,
raises your consciousness, and unhooks you from stimulation.

56. Law of Attraction

Only Focus on the Things You Want — Build a habit of only thinking about the
things you want. Stop worrying. Stop thinking about what you don't want. Stop
planning for worst-case scenarios. Think constructively.

57. Relationship Abundance

Create Relationship Abundance — Design your life to have relationship abundance.
You should be able to !nd another mate quickly if you wanted to, otherwise your
intimate relationships will be unhealthy because you will feel and demonstrate
scarcity.

58. Journaling
Journal Consistently — Develop a habit of journaling consistently. Have an easily
accessible journal and use it to vent feelings and organize your thoughts. Journaling
creates deep self-awareness.
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 59. Subconscious Mind
Leverage Your Subconscious — Your subconscious mind plays a big role in your
performance and happiness in all areas of life. Program your subconscious to align
it with your conscious intentions.

60. Commonplace Book

Keep a Commonplace Book — Great Enlightenment-era thinkers like Voltaire and
Da Vinci kept scrapbooks for collecting their greatest ideas. Have a commonplace
book to organize all the information you're processing as a life-long learner.

61. Willpower
Use Your Willpower Strategically — Willpower is your most precious resource and
wanes from morning to night. Invest your willpower wisely each day. Use your
willpower to create positive habits.

62. Identity-Level Change

Change Your Identity, Not Your Behavior — Focus on changing your beliefs, values,
and ways of thinking rather than brute-forcing behavior. This is much more
sustainable. Right behavior $ows naturally from proper inner game.

63. Force Your Mood

Force Your Mood — Don't be a victim of your mood. Mood can and should be
dictated. Choose 3 adjectives to de!ne the mood you want to feel every day and
commit to feeling this way regardless of circumstances.

64. Embrace Paradox

Embrace Paradox — Learn to tolerate paradox, contradiction, and simply not
knowing. Be $exible, open-minded, and intellectually humble.

65. Be Your Own Cheerleader

Be Your Own Cheerleader — Acknowledge and champion yourself even for the
tiniest, most insigni!cant achievements. Reduce your reliance on external
validation. Validate yourself. Your own validation should be the most rewarding.

66. Nominalized Identity

Don't Be Attached to Your "Who" — Stop labeling yourself as being this or that type
of person. You are not a !xed and static "who". Your identity is plastic. Don't be
stubborn about who you are and how you're supposed to be.

67. Money
Think Properly About Money — Learn to think about money properly. There is a set
of beliefs about making and managing money that you need to put in place or you
will always be poor.

68. Quadrant 2 Activities

Prioritize Quadrant 2 Activities — Make important, non-urgent activities the core for
you schedule. Minimize time spent on putting out urgent !res or dilly-dallying with
unimportant activities.
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 69. Contemplate Death
Contemplate Death — Contemplate the shortness of your life and the !nality of
death. Have a sense of urgency and scarcity about life. Use this to focus your
attention on the things that really matter.

70. Top 5 People

Surround Yourself With Great People — Surround yourself strategically with people
who are successful, positive, intelligent, and support what you're doing. Cut toxic,
unsupportive people out of your life.

71. Meaning of Life

Contemplate the Meaning of Life — Recognize that life is entirely neutral to your
purposes. Meaning doesn't exist in the external world. Meaning is whatever you
make it out to be. Choose to live a meaningful life.

72. Block Time

Work in Block Time — Work in focused, uninterrupted 1-2 hour blocks of time. Work
less hours but with more focus. High productivity comes from focused e"ort, not
pure time.

73. Theory vs Practice Ratio

Balance Your Intake of Theory to Practice — Strike a balance between the amount
of theory you're learning and its implementation. Each concept requires hours of
practice to internalize. You are probably not practicing enough.

74. Enlightenment
Understand What Enlightenment Is — Know what enlightenment is, and that it's an
option for you to go down this road at any time. Your identity is largely illusory.
Your true nature is not your thoughts or your feelings or your beliefs, but your
awareness of it all.

75. Outcome-Independence
Be Outcome-Independent — Stop obsessing over the result you're trying to get. You
don't have control over the result. Instead, focus on the process. Be happy to do the
work even if you fail to get the result.

76. Write Manifestos

Write Manifestos for Major Projects — For every major project you undertake, write
a one page document outlining its purpose, costs, most likely causes of failure, and
points of consolation. Read the manifesto when you feel like quitting.

77. Marketing
Learn the Principles of Marketing — You have to understand basic marketing
principles to be successful in business, career, and even relationships. Learn the
psychology of selling and persuasion. Marketing is more universal than it seems.

78. Reading Self-Help

Do the Exercises When Reading Self-Help — It's too easy to read-help and not get
the promised results. Realize that 95% of the results from reading a self-help book
come from doing the exercises. You must absolutely do the exercises.
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 79. Career
Build Your Career Strategically — Make your job into a passionate, life-long career.
A desirable career is built by committing to being really good at what you do and
testing the waters to !nd your ideal niche. Build career capital.

80. Be More Authentic

Be More Authentic — Strive to be more of your authentic self at work, at home, in
relationships, and in social situations. Accept who you are and give yourself the
freedom to express your uniqueness. Trust that people will accept the real you.

81. Stop Judging

Stop Judging Things and People —Judging things and people is toxic. It will poison
your mental wellbeing and distract you from what you want to create. Let things
and people be as they are. Stop trying to !t them into your mold.

82. Emotional Labor

Lean Into Emotional Labor — Don't shy away from situations that feel emotionally
di#cult. In fact, seize this opportunity to separate yourself from your competition.
All valuable work nowadays involves emotional labor.

83. Challenge Yourself

Challenge Yourself — Design challenges to keep yourself sharp. Too much comfort,
counter-intuitively, leads to dissatisfaction and poor performance.

84. Life-Long Learning

Commit to Life-Long Learning — Read, listen to CDs, attend seminars, talk to smart
people, study, subscribe to magazines, follow bloggers, etc. The more
knowledgeable you are, the more options and opportunities you'll have.

85. Male/Female Psychology

Understand How the Opposite Sex Thinks — The male and female brain work in
very di"erent ways, leading to asymmetrical interactions. Learn and respect the
di"erences or su"er the consequences.

86. Delayed Grati!cation

Avoid Short-Term Grati!cation — Good things come when you resist short-term for
long-term rewards. Train yourself to resist short-term grati!cation, which usually
comes at a high cost to your health and happiness.

87. Social Conditioning

Free Yourself of Limiting Social Conditioning — Identify areas in which social
conditioning has limited you and consciously challenge it. Free yourself from the
shackles of government, society, media, friends, employers, and family.

88. Epistemology
Have an Accurate Knowledge Framework — Develop a respect for truth and
appreciate its importance in manipulating the world around you. Learn how to
reason and beware of valid versus invalid sources for truth.
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 89. Accept Sel!shness
Accept That We Are All Biologically Sel!sh — We are all biologically wired for
sel!shness. Accept this and don't try to !ght it. Instead, take care of your needs so
you can move beyond yourself and get to the point of being able to help others.

90. Hero's Journey

Understand the Hero's Journey — Your life is the hero's journey: you will be forced
to start a journey, you will encounter threshold guardians, you will face your
greatest fears, you will falter, and you will share your knowledge with others.

91. Victim Energy

Eliminate All Forms of Victim-Thinking — You are either operating from a place of
victim energy or creator energy. Get control over areas of your life where you feel
like a victim. You do not have to keep being a victim.

92. Life Balance

Balance Your Life — Live a well-rounded life, with attention put into career, intimate
relationship, health, friends, hobbies, and personal improvement. Do not make the
mistake of over-focusing on any one part of your life, like work.

93. Perfectionism
Stop Being a Perfectionist — Stop trying to make your work perfect. Accept that the
path to mastery is full of screw-ups, big and small. Embrace kaizen. Your work will
become good naturally, over a long period of practice.

94. Reframing
Develop a Habit of Reframing — Get good at reframing negative situations into
positive ones. Use the power of your focus to pick out the good within the bad.

95. Alignment
Align Your Life With Your Values — The over-arching strategy of your life should be
alignment. Identify what's most important to you and commit to changing your life
to match that ideal. When you see a misalignment, resolve it.

96. Bloodwork & Supplementation

Get Regular Bloodwork; Take Essential Supplements — Get blood work done every
year even if you're feeling !ne and take essential supplements like vitamin D,
omega-3, vitamin A, vitamin C, iodine, magnesium, etc.

97. Relationship Types

Build Independent Relationships — Understand the 3 relationships types: co-
dependent, independent, inter-dependent. Identify and eliminate co-dependencies
in your intimate relationships.

98. 5 Love Languages

Learn How to Communicate Love — People express and feel love in 5 di"erent
ways: words of a#rmation, physical touch, gifts, acts of service, and quality time.
Learn exactly which behaviors make your lover feel loved and practice them often.
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 99. Be Present
Be Present — Live in the now. Most pain and su"ering comes from dwelling on the
past or worrying about the future. The happiest and most e"ective you can be is
when your attention is fully in the present.

100. Visualization
Practice Visualization Every Day — Develop a habit of visualizing, every day, what
you want your life to be like. You can use visualization to mock-practice, change
your self-image, or program your subconscious mind to help you achieve big goals.

101. A"rmations
Practice A#rmations Every Day — Develop a habit of doing a#rmations, every day,
to program your mind with empowering thought patterns and beliefs. Consistent
a#rmations will permanently reshape your self-image.

102. Acknowledgment
Acknowledge Your Successes — Develop a weekly habit of acknowledging yourself
for the many successes you already have in your life right now. When you give
yourself credit you create a vibration of success that empowering you to achieve
even more.

103. Contemplation
Dedicate Time for Contemplation — Spend time alone in thought, thinking about a
topic with absolute focus. Contemplation peels back the surface layers of an idea,
giving you more awareness, understanding, and options.

104. External Validation

Eliminate Reliance on External Validation — Stop chasing after the approval of
others, whether it's friends, family, co-workers, or neighbors. Identify all the
external sources of validation that you enjoy and re-ground them in yourself.

105. Know Yourself

Get to Know Your True Self — Develop a deep understanding of who you are. What
do you like? What don't you like? What do you value? Who are you? What are you
good at? What are you bad at? What must you have in life to be happy?

106. Creative Process

Follow the Creative Process — Understand that the creative process is driven by a
vision: the thing you want to create. Use vision to generate creative tension, which
generates the motivation for making your vision a reality.

107. False Choices

Learn to Spot False Choices — Avoid getting stuck in either, or thinking: either A or
B. No, it can usually be both. Your life is long. Permanent tradeo"s are very rare. If
you really want both, go for both. The question should be, Which one !rst?
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 24 Comments Sort by Oldest

Add a comment...

Luis Diego León Barquero

Good list. Thanks
Like · Reply · 2 · 4y

Josh Vasquez
You can totally write a whole book with all these topics :) .
Like · Reply · 3 · 4y

Jen Jen
Leo I use you in my group therapy sessions. Thank you so much for helping me with both
professional and personal growth.
Like · Reply · 1 · 4y

Rohit Chaudhary
Recently I started watching and reading your materia..it's really full with wisdom.... I have
experienced some development in my thinking....... Thanks for all this.... Good luck for the
future projects
Like · Reply · 1 · 4y

Michael Negron
I'm so happy I found Actualized.org and videos! I want to create the me I've always wanted to
be. Got some serious work to do, but ready and excited for the work and the changes!
Thanks Leo! �
Like · Reply · 3 · 4y

Tony Tremenda
Amazing Overview
Like · Reply · 4y

Anirban Saren
Leo You Are Our Hope In This Toxic World!! THANK YOU!!!
Like · Reply · 4y

Michał Zwierz
Thanks Leo :)
Like · Reply · 1 · 4y

Roll Ands
Wow.. and that is just a beginning. Thank You.
Like · Reply · 1 · 4y

AK Khalid
That's a lot of goals to work on, well I am happy I am still 17 years old I get to understand this
amazing stuff early and I am really glad that I Am Going to do it now!! Thank you very much
leo.. And please do videos on mind power or a Playlist if you already did!
Like · Reply · 1 · 3y

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