The Difference Between Being Wealthy or Not

Last week I said basically that having a ton of money does not make for a perfect life and I’m pretty sure that most of my readers would agree with that. However there are lots of great things and big benefits that large amounts of money can do for you and those around you.  If that’s the case why don’t more people have more money and why are so few people super wealthy?

I’m pretty darn sure I know the answer to that question and it’s not the answer most people think. It’s not …

1. Having a very high IQ.

2. A college degree from a top school

3. Winning the lottery

4. A stunning new invention

5. Working 100 times harder and longer.

6. A big inheritance

Okay, if it’s not any of those things what the heck is it, you ask? It’s actually several things, but the biggest factor is following or using a proven formula or plan.  And believe it or not, it’s pretty darn simple.  I didn’t say easy–you really have to work hard and it does take time.  Yes, there are a lucky few that make fortunes almost overnight–with an inheritance, new invention or winning the lottery but those cases are very, very rare indeed.  Most fortunes are made over many, many years by following a solid and time tested and proven financial formula.

It’s rather sad that so many people still think and dream of the day they are going to suddenly “strike it rich” and of course that myth is constantly fed by the rare occasions when someone does strike it rich and it’s all over the news.  Those very exceptional cases are magnified and perpetuated by the media and it keeps people keep holding on to “the dream”.

Many years ago after hitting my first million dollar net worth goal, I wrote a book about it. The sub headline that I used in my advertisements was possibly that best and most accurate part of the ad–an actual fact that I’ve proved over and over again: “Millionaires are NOT 10, 50 or 100 smarter than you.” Nor, I might add, do they work 10, 50, or 100 times harder than you but they do know and follow a simple and proven financial formula.

Stop and think about the 10, 50 and 100 times smarter and harder statement. You know that it’s impossible for anyone to be that much smarter or work that much harder than you! And yet, they do have 10, 50 or 100 times more money. That doesn’t seem right, does it?

So exactly what is that “financial formula” and how does it work?

Next week I am going to lay out exactly what that formula is and how you can follow it, step by step, to make millions.  You can use this wealth for yourself and those you love, and for those deserving worthy causes you may want to support.

For many of my readers this formula is already known and is being used. For others, it’s known and it will be a good review and or act as a motivator to begin or continue.  For still others it’s a formula that they’ll want to pass on to their kids and grandkids so they can build their own fortunes in the years to come. It’s an example of that old wise saying, “Give a man a fish and feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime”. Let’s get you feed for life.

Be Sure To Have Joy In The Journey to Being Rich & Famous

Would you agree with me that most of us at one time or another, especially when we were young, had thoughts that of being rich and or famous? And maybe those thoughts were followed by “If I was rich and famous, my life would be perfect or darn near perfect.”

If you were at all like me, you certainly had those thoughts. Most people I’ve talked with over the years had those thoughts run through their minds at some point.  But I’m here to tell you that “a near perfect” life does not necessarily follow fame or wealth.   Yes, wealth can make a lot of things in your life a lot easier, but if you think that tons of money and fame will automatically bring you happiness and contentment, you’re dead wrong.  (In fact, speaking of “dead”, I think you will find a higher early death rate and more addictions in the rich and famous than the middle class. That is saying something about how imperfect a life with wealth and fame can be.)

Riches and fame can give you a lot more choices but you do need to be extremely careful of what choices you make. For example, gifting your wealth to charitable causes can bring far greater and longer lasting satisfaction than feeding a cocaine or alcohol addiction with all that money.

Please don’t misunderstand me; I’m not dissing money and fame or going after great and lofty financial and glory goals. Those are energizing, lots of fun and can be very satisfying but be sure you enjoy each hour and day of your pursuit and be aware that whatever the end results of your journey, it won’t make your life perfect. Nobody’s life is perfect and when you realize that and accept that fact, your satisfaction and contentment can begin to really soar. Trust me on that; I’ve been there and done that and learned it.  I have to remind myself of that on almost a daily basis and concentrate on the big multi-year goals but at the same time “live in the now” and have tons of “joy in the journey”.

After saying all that about what money is not, it doesn’t mean that money is not important. It is and it can do good things for you and your life. So I think next week I am going to talk about how I see the market right now and what you can do about it to make some pretty big financial gains.

No One’s Life is Perfect

I ran into a friend a few days ago and greeted him with the old familiar “Hey, how’s it going?”  He gave the usual response of “I’m doing fine”, but he added two words to the beginning of his greeting: “I guess …”!  Wow. That totally changed the meaning of his greeting and his facial expression matched those two added words. Obviously, he wasn’t doing “fine”. So I dug a little deeper and found out he really was struggling with some big issues.

In today’s world of fast and quickly expanding social media we are given the impression that people out there have near perfect lives.  I mean take a look at virtually anyone’s Facebook and you’ll see all these fun pictures and comments. Much of what we see is the good stuff, and of course there is really nothing wrong with that, but it sure can make a lot of people feel and believe that their own lives, filled with challenges, big ups and downs, and problems are really “messed up”, causing self-pity, depression and, in the worst cases, even suicide.

The fact is, nobody’s life is perfect or even close, but when you’re looking from the outside you might be tricked into thinking that other people are doing tons better than you. If you take time to look and probe on a deeper level you will see that the surface view can be very misleading since most of us don’t announce or display our problems but prefer to show and advertise our successes.

So, if you really want to know the truth and gain insight into a person’s real and complete life,you need to dig deeper.  One easy way to do this is by simply asking the right questions.  For example, pick a friend or relative that seems to be doing well as you see on their Facebook postings or hear them talk about their world travel, huge income or impressive home and lifestyle, and ask questions like these:

1.  What are the biggest challenges you are having in life right now?

2.  In the past, what do you think has been the worst or hardest part of your life?

3.  Who or what makes you sad?

4.  Do you ever get down or depressed? (If they say yes, ask how often and what causes it.)

5.  What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you?

6.  Do you think much about your own mortality?

7.  What in your life scares you the most?

8.  Have you experienced any great tragedy in your life? If so, what happened and when?

9.  Do you worry and think about tragedy striking you in the future?

If you take a little time, you certainly can add your own probing questions to this list.

I’m pretty sure if you question those who you think have “the perfect life” you will find, as I have, that no matter how rich and famous or perfect their lives look from the outside, they too have their problems and challenges and many times much larger problems that you would have ever guessed.

You might ask at this point, “Why go through all of this questioning?”

I personally believe it’s a very good thing to do for at least 2 reasons.  First, it can help you see and understand yourself better and remove any self-pity or feelings of “not as good as other people”. It can even lift you out of a state of depression, so you come up with the thought of “Hey I’m not doing so badly after all.” Because of this, you may see yourself in a much different light and find you have higher self-esteem”.

Second, and most importantly, knowing the challenges and problems of your relatives and friends can put you in the perfect position to step up and help them overcome some of their problems, challenges and obstacles.  This makes it a real Win-Win. And all for just asking a few questions!

BE YOUR OWN PR AGENT–How To Easily Get Free Publicity

On my June 7th blog entitled “Write your way to Credibility” I talk about how writing a simple book and using that book as a business card gives you instant credibility and believe me that has worked wonders for me for many years.  There is another easy “trick” that anyone can use to get tons of free publicity. I learned this lesson from my father, Dr. Edwin O. Haroldsen, who was a great man that came off a farm in Idaho to not only get his PhD but went on to be a big time newspaper man and editor of the national magazine U.S. News and World Report.

I began to learn this “trick” (or lesson) when I was just a kid.  I would go with him to his newspaper office frequently and observe all the hustle and bustle of the writers and editor as they worked away with the noise of the teletype machines in the background.  It was during these times he told me that editors and writers of newspapers, magazines, T.V. and Radio were always on the lookout for good stories and like most people they would like these stories done the quickest and easiest way possible.  He then told me about the “publicity people” that are hired by big companies and celebrities and very wealthy people, but he then said you really don’t need these people because you can do the job yourself.  You do just what they do–you write up a story, your story of success or what’s happening around you that is interesting and unique, and you send it to the media—papers, magazines, TV and radio.  In other words you help out those writers and editors by doing some of their work for them and delivering the story all packaged up and ready to run.  Editors love a good unique, interesting and well written story because it saves them a ton of time.  If it’s a good story they only need to make a few edits to then, bingo, your story appears in print or on the air!

“Really?” you say, “It’s that easy?” Yes, I am saying exactly that!  No, it doesn’t work every time so it’s smart to send to multiple newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations. But, most importantly you better have a good intriguing, well written story. This can take some time as a well written story will take some time and re-writing.  Re-write it over and over until it’s not only exciting and appealing to you but will also be for other people. Find a few people whose opinion you trust and ask them for their honest feedback—if they find it exciting, editors will too.

I’ve used what my dad taught me many times and had my business and personal stories on the front page of local and national newspapers and yes, even on national TV! These stories increased my credibility but also my business and profits by huge numbers and all that for free. You can do the same thing to enhance and increase your business, a new invention or idea of a product you may have or for your family or your favorite charity. Give it a try!

The Final Step to Wealth

We’ve spent the last few weeks building up to this last step in building your wealth—getting on the fast track using leverage.  Yes, I’m talking about leveraging properties including using bank loans but to really supercharge and speed up the process even faster, you will want to use financial partners.

To do this, you just need a few people looking to invest in a safe, reliable project that will give them a regular and consistent return. Get them to collectively fund a down payment of 20% or more on the property you want to purchase and promise a reasonable return–say a 10% APR, an amount that is definitely higher than the best CD can offer. You should also put in some of your own money to makes the investors feel more secure seeing your confidence in the investment’s potential by also putting your money at risk.

Then when you sell or rent those properties, get the best return possible and get the money back to your investors with a higher than expected rate of return. When they see that you not only lived up to but exceeded their return expectations, you will have created an enthusiastic group of investors for future projects as well as getting wonderful word of mouth that could bring even more money flocking to you.

If you have read the revised edition of my first book, now named The Next Step in Waking up the Financial Genius Inside You, then you probably read Dell Loy Hansen’s letter in the Pre-Foreword thanking me for writing the book which he read when he was flat broke and in college. Dell gives me and my book great credit for giving him the financial formula and path to his great fortune. He followed pretty much everything I suggested in the book and his success was supercharged and sped up big time. He simply brought on some very well healed partners and took really great care of them with good, consistent returns on their money.

He now owns more than a billion dollars’ worth of properties and recently paid around 85 million cash for the Salt Lake professional soccer team “Real Salt Lake” RSL.  I love his P.S. of his letter where he says “Thank you a million, or more appropriately “Thanks a Billion”.  So if you or if my young man seeking advice and a formula want to jump on the super-fast track, go find some wealthy partners and be sure to take good care of them–under promise their rate of return on their investment and then over deliver.

 

Write Your Way to Credibility

We’re building up to the final step in building your wealth as I had advised a very motivated young man not too long ago. The key to this is leveraging your success by bringing financial partners into your plan. This will be the fourth and last step which we will get to next week. But right now, let’s talk about what you need in order to put Step #4 into practice.

A real key item to have in order to bring people in who can help you leverage your efforts is to have a great calling card. You need something so you will be remembered and more importantly that you gives you some instant credibility.  Putting things into print is a sure way to show you are serious and this automatically gives credibility.  It could be a magazine or newspaper article or, even better, a book on the subject or a closely related subject.

I’ve found that the best calling card I’ve ever has been in the form of my books.  Anyone really can write a book, even if you can’t seem to find an agent or publisher or even if you don’t feel that you are much of a writer. There are individuals, businesses and plenty of books and websites to get you started in self-publishing. You don’t even have to do it all—you can hire on people to do any of the work you don’t feel you can do well or don’t have time to learn.

I self-published my first book, printing only 1,000 copies in the beginning, but wow … selling or even just giving the book away gave me a giant boost in credibility and even a little fame. It got me on the front page of the Wall Street Journal and even on NBC’s Today Show. That made it terrifically easy to get potential investors interested in my projects.

In today’s computerized world you can write a book of any length and print just a few dozen copies or a few thousand for a rather small investment. Then you can hand these out like calling cards, use them to start a conversation and list the publication as a credit on anything you post or print up, for anything. Everyone will take you seriously with your name on a good publication.

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.

The Success That Comes with Mentoring

Last week I started telling you the story of a young man who asked me for some financial advice. His questions and what I had to tell him was too good not to share.  Supercharging your goals is something we can all benefit from.

As I mentioned last week, you must first firmly set your financial goals and then write them down with a time dead line. After that, you can super charge and speed up your attainment of those goals by following these few easy tips:

1. Go out and find a mentor–Mentors are a must!

2. Get your feet wet and get some experience on a few small financial deals.

3. Go out and make yourself the best calling card possible.

4. Use the “Partner Path” to supercharge and speed toward your goal.

Anyone who has followed my blog over the years knows that I became so financially successful by wisely using leverage to buy real estate. I started with small houses, duplexes and small apartment buildings—usually ones that needed to be fixed up—then I rented them out and or sold them. Look at these numbers and the return on investment and you can see just how a person can make a fortune in a short time by using ten to one leverage and selling property for, let’s say, 10% higher price than the price paid for it. This can give a 40 or 50% return on your money or even more … because of leverage.

So, with this as the basic game plan I advised the young man to follow the tips I just gave him.

1. Find a Mentor: A mentor should be someone that has done what you want to do and has been successful at it. I encouraged this young man to meet with his mentor frequently and to pick his or her brain as often as he could.  He was already doing that with me but with how much I travel he was going to need at least a back-up mentor.

Now, how do you find a mentor and more importantly how can you get them to agree to be the mentor? Well, my advice is to use the Onassis model or method.  The Onassis method, as I call it, follows what Aristotle Onassis, did many years ago when starting out to meet the perfect contact so he could import cigarettes from Greece to South America where he lived then.  This is the method I used to meet the billionaire founder of McDonalds, .

When Onassis was a very young man–long before he made his fortune- he wanted to meet a top guy in the cigarette business that could help launch him into his first business deal of importing cigarettes. So basically Onassis just pestered the guy–he simply stood out in front of his office every morning then by the guys gate at night–not saying anything but just looking like he needed help-finally after about 2 weeks the very influential cigarette executive stopped and said to Onassis. “Who are you and what do you want?” From that simple approach Onassis took a giant leap forward into that business, because this top exec told him to go see the main buyer and use his name as a reference.

From that simple strategy, Onassis began his road to become a billionaire.  I used a similar but easier tactic to meet with Ray Kroc,  the billionaire founder of McDonalds. I called his office almost daily asking his secretary for an appointment and after many, many phone calls she said that Ray would meet with me but for only 10 minutes. I flew to San Diego and met with Ray Kroc walking out of his office 2 hours later. Hey, what can I say?  I just asked him to tell me why and how he became such a great success in life and business and as it turned out he loved talking about himself. Who doesn’t?

There are three more items you will want to implement in order to be super successful but let’s save those for next week. In the meantime, think about who you would want as a mentor. Who is doing what you want to do in a very successful way? And what would it take to get a hold of that person and have them mentor you?

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.

Super Brain Gives You Anything You Want

Last week I ended my blog with a tease, saying I would give you some secrets and methods of how to train your brain to give you anything you want.  The authors of the book Super Brain say that you need a ‘matrix’ to work from to accomplish whatever goal or goals you set for yourself.  They also make the very powerful point that the “secret isn’t exerting more willpower or beating yourself up for not being perfect. The secret is changing without force.” So to achieve goals and objectives in your life without force you need to create a matrix for making better choices.

Obviously if you are trying to lose weight you wouldn’t set up a matrix that lists thing such as:

1. Eat more meals at fast food places.

2. Buy and stock more ice cream and donuts in the house.

3. Watch more T.V.

4. Drink more beer.

5. Hang out with more overweight people.

For your matrix to work with a weight loss objective you would  much list items that were opposite of those listed above and you would be better  served if the list contained 10 or 12, or even more, positive directions that you would follow.

For example, the book Super Brain gives a wonderful matrix for a positive lifestyle:

1. Have good friends.

2. Don’t isolate yourself.

3. Sustain a lifelong companionship with a spouse or partner.

4. Engage socially in worthwhile projects.

5. Be close with people who have a good lifestyle–habits are contagious.

6. Follow a purpose in life.

7. Leave time for play and relaxation.

8. Keep up satisfying sexual activity.

9. Address issues around anger.

10. Practice stress management.

One last word of wisdom from Super Brain–“Success comes when people act together and failure tends to happen alone.” This last quote from the book certainly has been the case with me and my life with everything from making tons of money to losing weight to being in tip top shape.  I’ve been so blessed to be able to hook up and hang around all the right people who have made it so much easier to start and stick with a particular matrix.

Go ahead and start today by creating your own matrix for what you want most at this time in your life!

 

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