The reality was, he owned practically nothing of major value. He owned one red paperclip but what he really wanted was to own a house. He had big dreams. How was he going to get from where he was to exactly where he wanted to be?

On July 12, 2005, Kyle MacDonald initiated a trading game. He had a dream and he had bills to pay, he seriously needed a job, but rather … He placed an ad on Craigslist aiming to trade in his paperclip for something considerably better. He traded it for a ballpoint pen in the shape of a fish that initiated a sequence of bartering that captured the curiosity of many people who followed his cross-continental trading journey. He continued trading and went from the pen, to a camping stove, to a power generator, to a neon sign, to a snowmobile, to a trip, to a snow globe.

On July 7, 2006, he accomplished his last trade for the house he always intended to have. Then he threw a housewarming party, where he proposed to his girlfriend with a wedding ring made from the actual red paperclip which was generously returned from his first trader.

Had I told you that you could buy a house with a single red paperclip - you'd probably have thought I had lost my mind and come from another planet. You would've said that I was in la la land and absolutely unrealistic. But, the reality is this… those people who live with their eyes firmly planted on what is realistic keep themselves in a world of limited possibilities. Those people who keep their eyes firmly planted on the vision of their dreams create possibilities that are close to mystical in nature.

It seems like a giant leap, however, to go from paperclip to homeowner. How do you bridge such a big gap? By trading up. That is exactly what MacDonald did.

What if we could trade up our thoughts in the same exact way? What would happen? What if we could go from a sense of hopelessness to a world of abundance in a few simple trades?

If we take a look at people who live stratospheric lives we would learn that the single greatest distinction between them and everybody else is only the way they think. They are conscious of the thoughts that they have that limit their possibilities and trade them up for thoughts of slightly higher value.

Our thoughts are the single most vital factor in achieving our dreams. Our thoughts become our beliefs, our beliefs lead to the expectations we have and our expectations drive the results we get. Just as MacDonald started with a simple paperclip and continued trading up, we can also trade up our thoughts to better thoughts and even better, greater ones until we reach our ultimate dreams.

Three key ideas to trade up to success:

1. MacDonald had a dream and a vision. He knew just what he wanted at the end of the trade, and he pondered, maneuvered and orchestrated each trade to achieve maximum benefit. His trades stimulated his interest in some way, they were instinctual and he could see a better picture within them. They made sense to him. You can’t know how to go about achieving your dreams till you have defined your dream. When you see your dream clearly, your thoughts and actions are aligned correctly, working in harmony to achieve your vision.


2. Our unique experience. We are given with a unique set of gifts and abilities that are given only to us to help us navigate through journeys with our own brand of ingenuity. In MacDonald’s case, he was a jack of all trades with a restless nature. He really did not want a conventional job; he is a geography buff, a writer who drew upon circumstance, chance meetings and the quirky irrelevant stuff of life as fuel for the stories on his blog, and wanderlust with a keen savvy for celebrity. He compiled each of his gifts in his quest to trade up to a house, using in fact, the red paperclip that held together his resume. The red paperclip symbolically and factually saved him from conventional wisdom. Follow your heart; do what you’re good at.

3. Live with passion. What did he really trade? From door knob to cube van, these items absolutely had little value. They had sentiment perhaps, or the cute factor, or made a good comment on society, or were kitsch so they were cool, arbitrary and unusual, fun and spontaneous, but mostly monetarily mediocre (except of course the house, and the snow globe which Corbin Benson seriously wanted to add to his collection).But they have something very specific and altruistic about them. They are certainly more than objects, they are stories. They have a culture, they represent the journey, the dream, and they inspire, set fire to the imagination and generate excitement. The paperclip started a vibe, it was contagious, it became an obsession and a passion, and it became the stuff films are made of - actually. One Paperclip is a book and a film produced by Dreamworks. Seems only fitting.


Kim Ades, MBA, President of Frame of Mind Coaching, is one of North America’s foremost experts on performance through thought management. By using her unique process of coaching through journaling, she works with clients to unveil and switch their thought patterns to ignite significant change and life transformation. She is now teaching this process to coaches all over the world for use with their clients. Visit www.frameofmindcoaching to sign up for your own free, secure, online journal.

I coach lots of people who have kids who don’t appear to be living up to their parent’s expectations.

Here are some of the things I hear:

“I have an 8 year-old son and when things do not go his way, he pouts. It drives me nuts. I tried talking to him regarding it but it doesn’t help.”

“My kid shouts and screams until finally he gets his way.”

“My son is really a good volleyball player. After his games, all he does is concentrate on how he screwed up. He beats himself up over it. I am concerned that his negative thoughts will affect him in the future. When he’s playing and he messes up, I can tell in advance what our conversation will be like.”

“My daughter is just like her father. It’s often doom and gloom and I don’t know how to change it. She expects things not to work out.”

“My son is very lazy. He doesn’t work very hard. He has everything handed to him on a silver platter. I am concerned that he’s going to grow up and not know how to earn a living.”

“My daughter is often so concerned about how she looks. She usually spends hours in front of the mirror every day. And she's on the phone quite frequently. She is so quickly influenced by her friends. I am worried that she might end up on the wrong side of the tracks and get into trouble.”

They turn to me for advice on how to deal with their children. The truth is… absolutely nothing is wrong with their children. What they have to fix is their own thinking.

Here is how it works:

What you focus on grows. What you see before you is exactly what keeps materializing. What you concentrate on becomes your reality. And this applies to your children.

When you focus on your child’s pouting and have a ‘talk’ with your child relating to this behavior, it becomes a focal point and it expands. The pouting becomes worse as a result. When you pay attention to how your daughter is always negative, her negative thoughts do not lift; they just have a bigger bite. When you notice and worry about your son’s tendency to beat himself up over a mistake or a failure, that tendency doesn't slow down, it simply runs deeper. The real issue is not what your kids are doing or not doing. The issue is what YOU are focusing on.

So here is the magical secret about parenting: focus on the qualities of your kids that you really want to see - and your focus will help them to develop. Focus on the times when your child is demonstrating all the behaviours, abilities, talents, values, and traits that you want her or him to have and make a big deal out of those moments. That is the time to have a ‘talk’ with your child to tell him how wonderful he is. When he feels great, his wonderful characteristics just naturally develop.

The key is to see what you want to see in your kids and see what they want you to see in them. Fixing your children is actually a function of fixing you. Start thinking about them in a different way and the results will be astronomical.

Kim Ades, MBA, President of Frame of Mind Coaching, is one of North America’s foremost experts on performance through thought management. By using her unique process of coaching through journaling, she works with clients to unveil and switch their thought patterns to ignite significant change and life transformation. She is now teaching this process to coaches all over the world for use with their clients. Visit www.frameofmindcoaching to sign up for your own free, secure, online journal.

I had back-to-back group coaching calls all day. I was coaching people on emotional resilience and the way to change their thinking habits and it was not until 4:30 p.m. that I was able to pick up my messages.

“Kim, my name is Daniel and I'm calling from the City of Vaughan Tax Department. I am calling you about the taxes for your house. I will be at the office until 3:30 p.m. today. Here is my number; can you please call me back today or tomorrow?”

The tax department? What did I do wrong? Did I owe them money? Did I forget a bill? Did my taxes increase? It was too late to call him back on that day. I left myself a note next to my computer to call him up the next morning. That night I went home and got swept up in the frantic pace of normal life: dinner, curriculum night, homework, journal reading, tuck-ins, and bed. I forgot about the tax man.

The following morning, within two minutes of arriving at the workplace, the phone rang.

“Oh hi, I’m glad you called.” I responded when I recognized that it was Daniel following up.

“You are? Why?”

“You were on my list of people to call today and you just called me instead. Thank you.” I think he was surprised.

“I am calling regarding the taxes for your house.”

“Okay, what’s up?”

“You gave us instructions to proceed with pre-authorized payment…”

“Yes, I did, is there a problem with my credit card?”

“No absolutely not. In July you sent us a cheque and now we have this extra $2,100. What would you like us to do with it?”

“Are you saying that the tax department owes me some money???”

“Yes Ma’am.”

I was floored. It was like winning the lottery. The sky had suddenly opened up and dropped a gift on my head.

“How would you like us to take care of that for you Ma’am?”

“Would it help if you sent me a cheque?” I asked, still in shock.

“Yes, that’s what I’ll do; I’ll send you a cheque.”

In all my life, I had never heard of the tax department calling anyone to send them money. Talk about needing to shift my thinking! All day long, every single day I tell people that what you focus on grows. In fact, I even published a book with that title! Here was a classic example of my very own coaching strategies coming to life in my world - and I was still blown away!

Here’s how it works… whenever you imagine positive things happening, they actually do. When you welcome incredible gifts, they show up. When you glow with gratitude for every little thing, more things that are really easy to appreciate quickly show up. What’s it all about? Your Frame of Mind. There is no other more powerful tool for creating wonderful things in your life.

Kim Ades, MBA, President of Frame of Mind Coaching, is one of North America’s foremost experts on performance through thought management. By using her unique process of coaching through journaling, she works with clients to unveil and switch their thought patterns to ignite significant change and life transformation. She is now teaching this process to coaches all over the world for use with their clients. Visit www.frameofmindcoaching to sign up for your own free, secure, online journal.

What would happen at work if…

1. You frequently showed up late.
2. You consistently neglected your responsibilities.
3. You overlooked your major tasks because you attempted to do everything yourself.

If you committed these infractions at work, your employer would certainly have cause for termination.

In my coaching sessions I usually ask the question: what exactly is your responsibility?
Quite often, women answer the question with a never ending list, stating the numerous details, commitments, problems, schedules and bits and pieces that they're responsible for doing for their children, partners, parents, friends, organizations, and not anywhere in the list do I hear about how they care for themselves. Nowhere - it is astounding. If you abdicated all your duties at work you would be terminated, and yet, again and again women place themselves last on the ‘to do’ list, failing to manage their personal business at hand. Why is it acceptable to do this in your life? This is grounds for the pink slip.

Your # 1 responsibility is to look after yourself. The more that you put your own needs aside to take of everyone else’s, not only do you erode your self confidence, but you systematically deprive yourself of the opportunities to reach your potential and to take advantage of the things that are important to you. In essence, while you believe you're creating happiness by taking good care of everything for everyone, you are allowing substantial feelings of worthlessness and unhappiness into your own life. When your wants and needs are always in last place, when there never seems to be enough hours in the day, when you're micromanaging everybody’s lives, honestly you aren't dealing with your life in an appropriate manor at all. It is not effective in any way, not even for the people whose lives you believe you're helping.

Your top responsibility in your life is to look after yourself first. As you do this, your relationships will flourish and be abundant instead of difficult and diminished. Whenever you put yourself in a position of priority, you are clearly making a statement that you have value and worth. That's very attractive, and it is human nature to be drawn to success.

Kim Ades, MBA, President of Frame of Mind Coaching, is one of North America’s foremost experts on performance through thought management. By using her unique process of coaching through journaling, she works with clients to unveil and switch their thought patterns to ignite significant change and life transformation. She is now teaching this process to coaches all over the world for use with their clients. Visit www.frameofmindcoaching to sign up for your own free, secure, online journal.

Yesterday, I went to Best Buy to shop for a TV. I rarely watch television, but I decided that I wanted one for my room so that I could watch movies snuggled up in bed with my children. I didn’t need a fancy one - simply a basic, 20 in.TV with a DVD player. In making my choice, I had several things to consider - it must easily fit in the car and I must be able to take it up the stairs to my bedroom.

The Best Buy staff helped me put it into the front passenger seat of my car and demonstrated how to take it out when I got home. When I arrived, I backed up into my driveway and stopped with half of the car inside the garage so that it would be much easier to carry into the house. I opened up the door wide and took it out just like they showed me. I was fine - I had a good hold and even though box was extra-large, the weight felt manageable. As I moved towards the house, my foot got caught and I tripped, falling flat onto my knees with the TV. OUCH! The pain was sharp and I was in severe agony. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get up. After a minute I not only got up but proceeded to move the TV into the house.

For a few brief moments, the pain felt like it vanished. And it was not until I sat down that my knees started to throb and swell. I called the people close to me to talk about my story and warn them about the huge bruising that was bound to show up in the morning. I told them I was sure to be black and blue in no time and that considering the fall and the pain, it wasn't going to be a pretty sight. I was given all kinds of suggestions: put ice on it, take anti-inflammatory medication, have a drink. I had a drink and I hit my bed early, raising my knees to an elevated position with a group of pillows.

I got up in the morning to discover that the sharp pain had changed to a frequent, dull ache with high sensitivity to touch. I braced myself as I lifted my pant leg to check the bruising.

No bruising.

No bruising?!!! What do you mean no bruising?!!!I'm in pain! I had a very hard fall! I have to have bruising! Otherwise I do not have proof - proof of injury, proof of pain.

That’s what we do - we hold on to our injuries and embellish our pain. We convert it into a story, a drama, even a full soap opera. We feed the agony, we water it, we grow it, and then make it a big deal so that we can have proof. Proof that will elicit concern from others. Proof that will cause them to take interest in us and be kind, and gentle, and understanding. Proof that will allow us to connect with people on an emotional level and enable us to feel fulfilled. It is a quick fix simply because the truth is that people get tired of hearing about pain and agony over the long run - it is truly not a solid strategy for long term connectivity.

I laughed at myself when I became aware how silly I was being. My thoughts quickly turned to gratitude that I would not be showing any bruising next week in Florida as I strut my stuff by the pool. I decided that a unique form of proof was in order - proof of joy, proof of fun, proof of relaxation, proof of peace and happiness. This, I decided, is a far better approach to connect, one that will last a lifetime.

Kim Ades, MBA, President of Frame of Mind Coaching, is one of North America’s foremost experts on performance through thought management. By using her unique process of coaching through journaling, she works with clients to unveil and switch their thought patterns to ignite significant change and life transformation. She is now teaching this process to coaches all over the world for use with their clients. Visit www.frameofmindcoaching to sign up for your own free, secure, online journal.