The People Habit

I’ve written a few times about the great power of habits and how forming the right ones can lift your mood, health, financial status, physical strength, and stamina. In past blogs, I have quoted many very smart and helpful ideas from Charles Duhigg’s book, The Power of Habit. That book is a great place to start.

One of the habits that I decided on many years ago was to go out of my way to meet many super successful people as I was sure they could lift my life. I hooked up with quite a few and some became my mentors. Some I got to know by reading about them or reading books they wrote, after which I would attempt to fly to their city and pick their brains. And, wow, was that a great habit that helped me in so many ways!

These super successful people that I met were from all walks of life. I have to admit that much of my success in life—from sports to financial—was from getting to know these people. I kept picking their brains over and over asking them to be my coach or my mentor.

I certainly discovered that many of these super successful people really like to give back by coaching or being a mentor and it’s a great way to give back or pay it forward. Think about how great you feel when you’ve helped someone to become super successful. It’s such a terrific feeling.

I’ll never forget the great compliments I’ve received from the many people who give me credit for their success through reading one of my books. In at least two cases, a couple of billionaires have told me that it was my book, what they learned from it, and the action they then took that made them so rich.

It does take a lot of work, persistence, and determination to meet highly successful people, especially if they are also famous. Some of the ones I tried to hook up with took many, many phone calls, and letters to reach, but I had formed the habit so no matter how many times I got turned down or got no answer to my many attempts, I just kept trying. And, of course, with some I never did get past their secretary or vice president or wife. But because of my solid habit, I met with enough success to make it all well worth my time.

Here is a short list of those super successful people that I’ve met and that have added so much to my life, from financial to motivational, uplifting my mind and spirt: Larry Rosenberg, Bill Nickerson, Ray Kroc, George Romney (Mitt’s father), Lionel Richie, Willian King of the Commodores, Joe Karbo, Curt Carlson, Jon Huntsman and even that guy Joe Biden. (Granted, I just met Joe for a very short interchange!)

Who have you met or chased down that have added so much to your life? Maybe you can make your own list or get working on building it up by reaching out to great and successful people!

 

Duplicating Success

 

As I mentioned last week, I love a good success story and have often tried to get to know these big successful people. In a few cases, they even offered to be my mentor. I really believe that the mentoring was one of the most important contributors to my financial success.

I’m also a huge believer in seeing what other super successful people do and then going out and doing the same thing. I did it with my first book after seeing what Joe Karbo, author of The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches, did to sell his books. I got to know him and then did the same things he did, selling 2 million copies of my first book.

And a long time ago, I read of a guy that converted his apartment units into condos, selling them to existing tenants or new buyers. I took that idea and converted 70 plus apartment units I had in Pennsylvania to condos, quickly selling out to most of the renters who were already in them and, wow, did I make a quick profit of over $7 million! Did that surprise me and please me? Oh yeah… big time!

I also looked to other people when I started fixing up houses. Realizing that the decorating part wasn’t really my thing, I picked other people’s brains to get the ideas I needed. Picking people’s brains is pretty easy since people like to talk about themselves and what they do for a living. I would simply take designers, architects and other professionals to lunch and get ideas for the cost of a meal. I would also look at other nicely fixed up houses. I have gone so far as to exactly copy the look of a neighboring house I was fixing up because I wasn’t sure what to do with it. That little bit of copying got that house sold super-fast!

It’s amazing when I travel to new and different countries too. I see a lot of ways people in other countries are being successful and not just when it comes to making money. For instance, in Europe, people eat much smaller portions, have tiny refrigerators because they buy food fresh so often, and they take time to relax when they eat. We could learn a lot from the way they eat over there that would be healthier for us all.

All of these things are something that anyone can copy and, yes, that means you! Keep your eyes and mind open and you might just see things you can duplicate to make a better life for yourself and maybe even make a fortune.

More Ways to Make Big Bucks with Existing Ideas

There’s no question that fortunes are made every year by people who come up with new products and services. Whereas many of these new products are totally new and different than anything we’ve seen before, there are just as many or even more products that are copies of existing products with some changes, a recombination, or additions that make it virtually brand new.

Take for example, the common product—the suitcase. They have been around for many, many years. It used to be such a tiresome thing to lug our heavy suitcases or trunks through the airport or into a hotel. Of course, there was the ever-present bell boy to help and get a tip for doing so but it was still difficult to get around with those bulky cases.

Another product that most of us, since we were little kids, have seen or had a bit of fun on ourselves are roller skates and skate boards. These had nothing to do with suitcases, not until someone said to themselves, “Hey, wait a minute, why don’t I put some small wheels on my travel bags, suitcases, and heavy trunks? It can’t be that hard to do.” Even if you didn’t have any skill to put those two things together, you certainly could find a mechanical type person to do it for you. And now I can only imagine how much money was made from that simple change.

That was a pretty simple little invention made by putting two known products together in a new way. If we take the time to observe and study familiar inventions and products and then thinks through how to put a couple products together we could, no doubt, come up with a brand new idea.

To help facilitate this, you could gather together 5 or 6 people you know that are creative thinkers. Put them together in a room and give the group a big list of products then ask everyone to brainstorm and throw out ideas on which products might be put together in a new way. Surprising things can come out of such a brainstorming session.

Or if you are a creative thinker, use that same long list of products and brainstorm on your own and see what you come up with. You can do the same thing to come up with a new service, as Uber did, though the taxi industry certainly didn’t like it. However, I don’t think the owners of Uber, a multibillion dollar company, were very bothered by that.

My first venture into mass marketing was done by copying someone else’s formula and it lead to millions of dollars of profits. As a stock broker manager, I discovered that several of my employees had purchased a book from an ad in the newspaper with the headline “The Lazy Mans Way to Riches”.

That got my attention to the point that I called the author, Joe Karbo, repeatedly until he agreed to meet with me in his California office. When I discovered how many thousands of books he’d sold from that simple ad, I burned the midnight oil each night to write my own book and when I finished I sat down and studied the style, sentence length and tone of Joe’s ad and made my ad as much like his as I could without copying his exact words. So yes, in a way I copied, but did it legally and the big money rolled in beyond my expectations!

There are many, many more fortunes to be made by observing what is happening in the markets and what products, ideas and services exist and then by coming up with something different enough to be seen as brand new. And if you do it right, soon enough, you’ll see the money flowing your way.

 

Compounding My Thanks

Continuing with my thank you notes I started last week, I’d like to thank the man I call “Mr. Motivator”. He showed me the importance of goal setting which helps, and almost automatically pushes and pulls you, to achieve things you didn’t think you could do at first. That person was Mr. Paul J. Meyer of Waco, Texas. He started with nothing and went on to make around $500 million by motivating others and showing them how to do the same thing.

Paul started SMI, the Success Motivation Institute, which has spread worldwide, inspiring and motivating millions of people around the globe, including myself. I’ve told you a bit about him and the story of how I came to meet him, right here on this blog, so you probably know he and I became very good friends. I truly owe a huge thanks to Mr. Paul J. Meyer and, of course, also his lovely and wonderful wife, Jane.

Notes of thanks could not be sent out without acknowledging a particularly brilliant writer and marketer that came into my life. This man showed me how to successfully spread my financial message through advertising. My ‘Mr. Mass Marketer’ is otherwise known to me as Joe Karbo of Huntington Beach, California. Because of the brilliant mass advertising methods of his that I followed, I sold over 2 million copies of my first book which helped me launch a very large seminar company. That helped me spread the financial formulas and motivation techniques that Larry Rosenberg and Paul J. Meyer taught me.

What was Joe’s brilliant marketing method? Well, he ran a brilliant full page ad that I saw entitled “The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches” with the enticing subtitle, “Most people are too busy earning a living to make any money.” I saw the ad in the Times Newspaper back on March 2nd, 1979 (I still have the original copy). It took me a lot of phone calls but I finally got to meet and know Joe and we became friends. He coached me through some amazing mass marketing success.

So thanks Joe Karbo. You helped me and you helped the world more than you are your posterity will ever know. This is true for all the great human beings I’ve mentioned in the last few weeks. Where would I be without them? Where would you be without your super motivating people

Wants are not Needs

Ok, let’s talk about money.

A few days ago I was thumbing through a book I wrote back in 1983, The Courage to be Rich, when, in Chapter 4–The Fallacy of Working for a Living, I found a quote from a guy by the name of Joe Karbo (who, sadly, passed away from a heart attack at the young age of 55). The quote was: “Most people are so busy earning a living they never make any money.” What Joe was saying is that most people are ‘wage slaves’ and never figure out that the key to wealth is really not your earnings or wages. Yes, wages have a part to play but only if you do the right things with a portion of your wages. Your wage doesn’t have to be huge but the key, of course, is saving some of it and setting it aside then letting it build up enough for you to make the right investments.

Of course, the problem with most people is they don’t use enough discipline to control their spending. They think there are things that they just have to have now such as a new dress or car, a fancy night out on the town, an extravagant vacation, etc. I find it very interesting that people choose words like ‘need’ rather than the more accurate word ‘want’ when talking about the things they spend their money on. There is a huge difference between our needs and our wants. Most of the things we think we need are really just things we desire. We all need water, food, shelter, clothing and a certain amount of security to survive and have the chance to thrive. If you take time to think it through, you will be able to see the difference and if you really see the difference, you can then choose to set aside those wants that you previously thought were needs. That will get you the money you’ll need to save up in order to invest and get ahead.

What I used to do when I was depriving myself of a lot of extras that I really wanted right then and there was to concentrate on the huge benefits that I would be receiving later on. I would focus on two wonderful words: ‘passive income’. That concept of having income that would come in automatically each month, whether I got out of bed or was vacationing in Europe, would really motivate me to not spend on things that were wants and to keep saving more and more of my wages. And it paid off big time. Now I spend a lot of time traveling the world and doing super fun things without worrying about the money. It comes in every month no matter where I am or what I’m doing.

It’s so funny how often I hear, “Oh Mark, you are so very lucky to have such a great life style.” They probably don’t mean that literally, but I always respond with the same thing, saying, “Believe me, it’s not luck. It was good planning and discipline over a long period of time.”

Friends, pretty much anyone can do what I did. It does take time but it’s so very worth it. If you think you are too old and don’t have enough time to do it at least pass the message on to your kids and grandkids. They will thank you and greatly benefit for many generations to come!