Turning a Liability into an Asset

Have you ever been in a room when someone walked in that totally dominated everyone’s attention?  Someone who stood out so much that you could only stop and direct all your attention to that person? That is exactly what you get when Mark Eaton walks into any room. Why would you take immediate notice of him? Well, for one, he’s hard to miss standing 7 foot 4 inches tall! But that’s not all. If you are fortunate enough to hear one of his lectures, he’s even more of a standout as a speaker with a great message.

If you followed basketball a few years ago you know Mark Eaton played for the Utah Jazz, ending up as an all American and breaking the all-time NBA record for the most blocked shots. You might assume he had an easy trip to the top, but that’s very far from the truth.

Recently I was privileged to hear him speak–his wonderful wife Teri talked me into it–and from the lecture he so eloquently delivered to the audience I learned some great lessons and concepts. His spoke primarily about corporate team building but the thing that hit me so very hard was his words about how a person can turn a liability in life into an asset.

You see, for all of his younger life his height was a huge liability–he was teased constantly and called names. Yes he was on his high school basketball team but he sat on the bench virtually the entire season as he watched the little speedster guys rip up and down the court. He actually really hated basketball.

So what did he do? He studied to be an auto mechanic. But thanks to a great mentor he met when he was in his 20’s he was directed, coached and shown how he could turn what he perceived and thought of as a huge liability into a gigantic asset. His mentor showed him what he needed to do to play great basketball and Mark worked hard and long before he got to where his mentor wanted him to be. He went on to set records in the NBA and helped the Utah Jazz move from the very bottom of the league to the top. Now he’s doing it again as an all-star lecturer, speaking from coast to coast.

After hearing his story, I couldn’t help but think of a very dear high school friend, Richard Harvey, who played with me on our basketball team in the faraway country of Turkey. About 12 years ago I got a phone call from Rich telling me his son Kyle who was just 14 years old had bone cancer. Wow, what a shocker.

Kyle had a very tough battle. He fought it with all he had and eventually defeated cancer. However, the cancer had left its mark, stunting Kyle’s growth. Today, at age 26, he’s just barely over 5 feet tall and he looks like a little kid. Big time liability, right? For most people it would be and it was for Kyle for a while as well. But Kyle eventually turned that perceived liability into a huge asset.

He made a move from the mid-west to Los Angeles and got a job as an intern at Paramount Studios. But that only lasted a short time. He floundered around the city, trying to find an affordable place to live and another job. He finally caught a break, auditioning at a comedy club with jokes about his short body and very young looks. They loved him and he’s gone on to do very well there. He even got big kudo’s and congratulations from big time comic and actor Sinbad. He bravely turned what had seemed to be a liability into a huge asset.

And that, my friends, is really the long and short of it all. I think we should all take a look at ourselves and those around us who we may be able to help and see if we can take what we think is a weakness or liability and come up with a way that we might be able to turn it into a big asset.

Practice, Practice, Practice

If you want to super charge and shorten your path to big success, you will need to apply the forth rule I talked about—leveraging your success through other people’s money.  But before you attempt to bring partners into you financial plan you had better get out there and do some small deals so you will know how they work and so if you make some mistakes it’ll be with your own small deals and not with a partner’s money. Think of this as your practice phase.

This kind of phase will allow you to better judge what it will take to make a viable deal. What sounds easy to you on paper is usually such a different thing when you get out there and do it. I can tell you all about my own experiences but until you actually start making deals yourself, what I tell you will really only be theoretical to you. It’s going through all those steps—the  tiny ones as well as the big ones—that will really drive home the lessons I am telling you about here.

And doing some deals with your own money will give you a chance to build a portfolio of investments which you can bring to potential partners. Investing in your own projects with your own money also shows that you have full faith in what you are doing, enough to risk your own funds. This will add to the confidence people will have in you and will make it easier to convince them to invest with you.

The other thing in this phase to remember is that you will make some mistakes. It doesn’t mean this kind of investing isn’t for you, it just means you’re learning. And at least you will be learning and risking just your own dime.

So set yourself up to start making deals. Put money aside to make those first couple of investments. It’s that first big step that will make everything else you have to do that much easier.

Learning From My Journey

Recently I met a young man who had some very big, big dreams for the future. I was quite impressed and fascinated by what he told me he was going to do with his life and, yes, I could easily see myself in him. Well, I had to go back 40 plus years in time to see myself in him but even back then, I too had huge dreams of success. As I listened to him, many sweet memories came back. Those years were such fun and exciting times. I gained both fame and fortune (even though the fame only lasted the traditional 15 minutes but it was great!)

This young man wanted me to give him some advice and help on a plan and formula that may have worked for me and might work for him. So basically I told him my road to riches story, about how I started with nothing but eventually found my fortune, far exceeding my wildest dreams. Back then my dream was to be a millionaire but I ended up with ‘multi’ in front of the word millionaire.

However, being a millionaire wasn’t my first goal. I had initially dreamed of being a NBA basketball star. I had led my American High School team from Ankara, Turkey to a come-from-behind finals victory in the Olympic stadium in Rome. I was on top of the mountain then and thought I could do anything but when I got to Utah State University on a scholarship and found myself sitting on the bench I realized I needed to alter my goals a bit. I went on to tell this young man that I quickly changed my thinking from basketball and broads to books on goal setting and fortune building. I became fixated on making a million dollars and wrote the goal down with a drop dead date—my 30th birthday. And I not only met that goal, I beat it.

So my advice to this kid was this–set a big goal or goals, write those goals down and then be sure to put a time deadline on those goals. I added that it’s also better to set goals around things that you love, like to do, and know you have some talent in.

The next thing I told him was about  the habit I had formed when I was only 19 years old, the habit of keeping a journal of my life and more importantly of my inner most thoughts, or as my dear friend of 50 plus years from my basketball days in Ankara says, “Journal your Journey”. I told this young man that those many journal entries over the years lead me to write a book that not only enhanced my own life but also pushed me to do more. That book gave me virtually instant fame and even added to my fortune. I was so blessed and lucky to eventually sell more than 2 million copies of my first book How to Wake Up the Financial Genius Inside You and that was just the beginning.

I will tell you next week, exactly what I told this young man to do. I’ll explain the ways to super charge and speed up one’s success path and even why he or you or most everyone who really wants to make a big impact on this thing called “human existence” should write a book. And, no, you don’t even have to have a literary agent or a publisher. Have you ever wanted to end up on the front page of the Wall Street Journal or be on the Today Show? Well, I did both and what I talk about next week can help you get there as well.

The Super Brain at 70

Finally, I’ve past the 70 year mark so now I can stop being so focused on my ‘age’.  But I am thinking and acting on maintaining and improving my “Super Health”!  Why, oh why, would I want to do that?  Oh, I don’t know, maybe because great health and longevity are more than a little important to me as it is for most people, especially as we age.

With that in mind, I found myself reading, for the third time, Super Brain by Deepak Chopra, M.D. and Rudolph E. Tanzi, Ph.D. I do so love their subtitle Unleashing the Explosive Power of Your Mind to Maximize Health, Happiness, and Spiritual Well-Being. What a great book!

Even though I was having such a fantastic time, I even thought about this book at my huge 70th birthday bash. My wife Kimberly put together the most amazing party with over 200 people including family and a ton of great friends. We had professional Brazilian dancers and a drum team (my daughter Cammy is on the dance team) plus three talented fire dancers that put on a fantastic show that reflected off our pool with the night lights of the city as a back drop.  And the party went on until 3 a.m.!

That night Chopra’s book popped into my head as I talked to an old tennis friend, Galen Young, who is just short of turning 90 years old. The thing is, Galen is still playing a mean game of tennis (he is currently ranked 10th in doubles and 5th in singles in his age group in the U.S.) He has even set another goal firmly in his super brain–he has decided that he is going to win another gold medal at the Huntsman World Senior Games–and I sure wouldn’t bet against him.

You see, the book Super Brain really does reveal some super secrets and methods to train or program your brain to give you pretty much anything you want.  The authors give some great brain plans for super health and super longevity and good ol’ Galen Young is out there doing it so you know what … anyone of us can do the same thing!

The day after the party I jumped back into the book to re-read and re-dedicate myself to applying the concepts and the methods that Super Brain reveals. Here they are …

Ok, I am teasing you now because we will wait until next week to share those details. If you can’t wait for my blog, by all means, go ahead and buy the book! You’ll want to eventually anyways.

Improve From Your Own Teachings

As I was doing my daily walk, I was struck big time by a profound thought! The thought has huge life enhancing potential for everyone on the planet. It has already been changing and helping my life because I have been using it for a long time only I have never really identified it enough to put into words until now.

I’m going to share this with you but, please, think deeply and intently about this and then put it into practice. See if it doesn’t profoundly enhance any part of your life that you choose to drastically improve. Whether you want to get in super great shape or become a much better parent or partner, or even make a few million dollars, you can do it if you follow these ideas.

Any goal, habit, human quality or desire that I start preaching, teaching or pontificating about automatically and almost without effort pushes me to do more of it myself. Those spoken and written pontifications are like a truth drug for my mind which pushes me to do what I have encouraged and taught others to do.  I am totally convinced it will and does work that way for everyone.

If you have been reading my past blogs you might remember me setting some pretty tough and overly ambitious work out, weight loss, and healthy eating goals for myself as I count down to my big 70th birthday.  As of the blog posting this week, I am only 4 days away from 70. As I look back on the last 86 days I’ve been doing this, I must say that not one day has passed without my mind fixating on those self-promises and the advice I gave to myself as well as to all my readers. I can now see that it’s been my inner brain keeping me on track rather silently and automatically.

I guess you could say that my brain pushed me to remain “true to myself” and to my readers.  You see, if you teach and preach to others what they could and should do for self-improvement, or just about any subject, your inner self gives you the message that you must live up to what you put out there.  We all know the saying “practice what you preach” and our inner most brain and soul does not want us to be a hypocrite, therefore our subconscious pushes us to be true to our words.  I am pretty darn convinced that is how we automatically become better at whatever subject, goal or life enhancing ideal we talk about and teach to others.

I challenge you to start teaching a preaching something that you want to improve in your life (be sure to write down you goals and objectives so you can stay on track) and then in a few months take a look back and see what it has done for you and how it has improved other people’s lives.

Next week I will give you a few great ideas to “jump start” your preaching and teaching plan.  Get ready to make things happen!

Revisiting the Super Brain

The last couple days I followed my own advice and re-read a great book that I hadn’t picked up for about a year. The book is by the brilliant Deepak Chopra and Rudolph E. Tanzi and is titled Super Brain. I saw the book on my bedside shelf and it grabbed my attention–probably because my experience the night before.

Kimberly and I attended a gala fund raiser for the National Ability Center and listened to a short speech by Anna Beninati where she talked about her experience as a skier. She’s very talented and has Olympic gold medal dreams. But what makes her story so special and unusual is the stupid decision she made as a teenager. She was running alongside a moving train trying to jump on it only she didn’t quite make it. She fell beneath the train cutting off both her legs. However, she considers herself very lucky. Wow!

Why does she consider herself lucky? Well, first of all she is grateful to be alive but it doesn’t stop there. She’s lucky because that terrible accident changed her brain. Accepting that she had no legs, she decided she would make her life count for something and I don’t think if she wins gold at the winter Para Olympics in Korea in a few years that she will stop at that point. That will probably just be the beginning of using her “Super Brain”. I think she already deserves a gold medal for using her brain to push it to that level.

Our brains, as Chopra’s book explains can make us or break us. It all depends on how we use them. We have a choice to either control and program our brains to serve us or we can sit back, do nothing and let our brains control us.

On that note, let me share some of my “margin notes” from Super Brain.

P. 40 Whatever you pay attention to grows.

P. 42 Expect past memories, as well as the things we’ve learned, to come to us and they almost always do.

P. 16 You train your brain to do what you want it to and it will do it.

P. 31 You can choose to follow the upward learning curve no matter how old you are! (Creates new dendrites, synapses and neural pathways.)

P. 63 If you actively act as the leader of your brain you can reprogram your own neurochemistry.

P. 70 Inertia is depression’s best friend.

P. 71 Depression creates an illusion that all my power is stripped away.

P. 72 The brain is transformed by meditation.

P. 40 Don’t ever say to yourself or others “my memory is going”. If you say that your inner brain will prove you right.

P. 230 You need to motivate self –especially as you age.

And as an overall summary of this great book –the theme could simply be….Use Your Brain–Don’t Let It Use You!!

A Great Evening with Richard Paul Evans

My good friend and fellow author Richard Paul Evans (who, having sold over 17 million of his 31 great books, is a bit more successful as an author than I am) invited me to join him as he made a great presentation to about 150 people last week.  His subject was based on his book The 5 Lessons a Millionaire Taught Me.  My wife Kimberly and I very much enjoyed both Rick’s motivating and informative remarks and the wonderful people we met afterwards.  I totally agreed with Rick’s view on money, on what it is and what it is not.

Among other things he said, “Life isn’t about money.”  He explained that life is about love and family but without money “life is thrown out of balance. To the financially enslaved, life becomes all about money; too many are missing the opportunities and abundance life has to offer”.

Of Ricks’ 5 Lessons, the first two I find to be so very important: that you must decide that you are going to become wealthy and that wealth is about saving money through either earning more or spending less.   I certainly agreed with those two first lessons, in part because that’s exactly what I’ve been preaching for many years and it certainly has served me well. It transformed a poor, struggling guy into a multi-millionaire. And my path didn’t come from being brilliant, as my C- grade average can attest.

Many years ago I noticed that most people’s spending rises at the same rate as their income when it increases. Too often it rises even faster, creating a debt loaded and stressed out person.  So if that sounds familiar and you want to be wealthy, or at least be way ahead in the money game, set a goal right now to start spending less than you are earning. Without any savings it will obviously be hard to proceed with the next step of investing wisely.

It really is up to you to either allow yourself to be controlled by money or be the one in control of it.  But always remember, life isn’t about money but with enough of it your life can be filled with abundance and opportunity.

Spending the winters in Kauai and being able to do things like take my kids and grand-kids to Europe for a Disney cruise to celebrate my 70th birthday certainly doesn’t make my life perfect. However, giving others those types of grand experiences that stick with them for life certainly does incredible and wondrous things to my brain and my level of satisfaction, and without money I couldn’t do these things.  So I encourage you to set the goals, follow the formulas for wealth and use that wealth wisely to enhance your life and those around you. You won’t be sorry that you did it.

If you need more information on a good financial formula go to my book, The Next Step of Waking the Financial Genius Inside You. I also strongly urge you to go to Rick’s website and sign up for his notices, giveaways and special offers atwww.richardpaulevans.com.

 

Small Risks Take on Big Fears

 

Fear. It’s something we all deal with on some level. Some fears are good for you and can save your life such as the fear of falling off a cliff so that we keep a safe distance from the edge or the fear that pushes us to panic a bit, to hide, run or climb a tree depending on what dangerous animal or person we suddenly run into.

But there are those illogical fears that really don’t help or protect us; in fact many fears keep us from enjoying a much more rewarding life. Probably the biggest fear that holds us back is the fear of trying something totally new. It could be anything from giving a speech to a large group of people, playing a brand new sport or traveling to a faraway foreign country for the first time.

Why do we have such life constraining fears and what can we do about it?

I think the “why” is because we think we may fail and/or make a fool of ourselves or, in the case of flying to a foreign country, we fear all the unknowns, like whether the people are mean and dangerous or whether we might get lost or if the plane may crash. (By the way, the fear of flying is one of the biggest yet more illogical fears people have. I read sometime ago that if you were to fly on a commercial jet every single day, statistically you would fly for 29,000 years before you got on a plane that crashed.)

So what does a person do to overcome the fear of doing or trying something new? Susan Jeffers suggests in her book Feel the Fear and Beyond that you try “expanding your comfort zone”. And if you set about doing what she suggests on a regular basis you will gain a ton of confidence and greatly reduce your fears.

She says “one way to easily expand your comfort zone is to take a little risk each day.” When she’s talking about taking risks she’s not talking about physical risks but rather the risk of facing your fears and trying something new. The first step, as she advises, is to come up with thirty risks you could do in a month and write them down. Then each night, pick one to take on the following day and add it to your schedule by placing it on your calendar or daily planner just as you would a doctor’s appointment. As you do this, you will begin to slowly expand the size of your comfort zone and your world and then will be much more likely to face and conquer much larger fears.

So why don’t you sit down right now and see if you can list thirty risks or fears that you want to overcome in the next month? Like I advise with anything, break it down into small manageable steps and you will be able to take on anything.

 

We All Age but We Don’t Have to Get Old

On January 8th I launched what I call my “90 Day Super Quest”. That quest is my ambitious goal to get myself into the best possible physical and mental shape of my entire life!  My birthday lands on the 90th day of this quest–and I turn the big 70 this year!

I am a week into my “super quest” and I’m right on schedule with my workouts which include tennis, weight lifting, sit-ups, push-ups and stretching.  As for the mental side of my quest, I’ve been doing pretty good keeping up with reading, writing, making new friends and spending lots of time with old friends as well as my family, of course.  But, I’ve noticed a problem.  It’s that old demon … that negative inner self-talk.  Since I’ve set the 90 day goal I’ve been way too focused on my age and the fact that I am getting older. That number 70 has dominated the chatterbox inside my head and not in a positive way.

However, today, I just happened to pick up a book that I’ve read and written about many times and it flopped open to page 55 where the word “aging” jumped out at me.  It’s the book that Susan Jeffers wrote entitled Feel the Fear and Beyond. This is the follow up book to Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. Here’s what she says about aging and what your inner voice should NOT be saying about the subject:

“I am getting older now.  Aging is horrible. I wish my body were young again.  Look at those wrinkles.  Who could love a face that’s old? I hate it. Pretty soon no one will want to be around me.  When I was young, I could dance all night.  Now I don’t have the energy.  Why do people have to age?  I wish I could be young forever.”

And here is what she says we should be saying to ourselves:

“I love aging.  My children are grown and now I’m free to do the thing I put off doing.  I’m glad I joined the gym.  I don’t think I’ve ever been in such great shape.  I’m going to learn all I can about keeping myself in the best of health.  I have so much to look forward to.  I learn and grow every day of my life.  I wouldn’t want to go back one day.  Why would I want to go back?”

With all my focus on hitting 70, that number became set in my head, like a heavy, unmovable, concrete block.  I have now realized that I need to get rid of that and ask myself the question that I used to ask so often, something we all should probably ask ourselves whenever we think about aging: “How old would I say I am if I didn’t know?”.  When I ask myself this question I can honestly say I come up with the answer of 44.  So I guess on April 8th I will be in the best physical and mental shape of my life as a 45 year old. That sounds pretty good to me!

 

The Gift of Journaling

One of the greatest gifts you can give yourself is the gift of a “journal of your life”.  I’m talking about something much more important than just keeping a diary.  Yes a diary is part of it–recording where you go, people you meet and what you experience–but to make it life enhancing and with maximum meaning, you must write and record your inner thoughts, not just what has occurred. Things like your biggest dreams, goals and ambitions will help you define what you were thinking about in prior years. You can find these insights to be extremely valuable when you go back and review those years.  It’s like having your own personal time machine.

 

In the last few days of 2013 and the first few days of 2014, I’ve had such a wonderful time  reviewing my past experiences including my trips, the people I’ve met, my various goals as they changed and re-focused over the years and, most importantly, my inner thoughts along the way. Think about it–what a great thing it is to be able to relive and bask in all that was great this past year and also have the opportunity to learn some valuable lessons from both the good and the bad stuff that happened. Sometimes it’s like reading about a totally different person; in many ways you are a different person now than you were a year ago.

Also try to take the time–usually at the end of a year or the beginning of a new year– to go back and revisit myself when I was a 30, 40, 50 or  60 years old.  In fact, I can even visit myself when I was 18 and 19 years old since that’s when I started my journal.  Believe me, some of my thoughts back then were down right funny and crazy. Sometimes, especially as I visit that 35 year old Mark Haroldsen I am embarrassed and don’t even like that guy.  Wow, was I ever a hyper driven self-centered business and real estate warrior.  That guy was so full of himself and with so much physical and mental energy! (I’d sure like some of the energy now but without the huge ego.)

If you have not kept a journal of your life before now, it’s not too late. No matter what age you are, be sure to write down what you are feeling as well as your inner most thoughts including your relationships, dreams and goals. Record your successes and failures and what it caused your mind to think. Express in detail your positive and negative thoughts, your great fears and your great strengths.   And when you use your own personal time machine and later review your journal, be it months or years later, I promise you will reap great rewards and learn so much about yourself. You will be thrilled that you took the time, even it is done just weekly or monthly or even once a year. I think to know yourself is probably the biggest “gift” that you can give yourself and to journal throughout your life is one of the best ways to do just that.

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