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!

 

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.

VEM for Great Sleep and a Great Day

Last week I showed you a great way to get past the worrying that keeps you from falling asleep or wakes you up in the middle of the night. But that trick I taught you is not the only thing you can do to get a great night’s sleep and have a great next day. I’ve also found a Very Effective Method (VEM) that not only helps my sleep but gets me ‘jump started’ the next morning on my to do list and  sets a very positive mood and outlook for the day.  And if I don’t use my so called VEM my mornings can be, and usually are, super negative downers. On those days, it takes me hours to lift my mental attitude.

My VEM process begins shortly after lights out. That’s when I review in my mind (or perhaps on paper before lights out) what I want to accomplish the next day.  Next, and more importantly, I start telling myself I’m going to sleep long and deep or I say similar positive affirmations (PA’s) that give my brain that message. Plus–and this is key–I tell myself I am going to wake up in a very, very positive and upbeat mood  and it’s going to be a beautiful and uplifting morning.  You can choose the positive words that you think fit you and your situation but the important thing is to repeat the words over and over in your head so your inner brain really gets the message loud and clear.

As any of my readers that have followed me very long know, I am a huge believer in PA’s. I learned about PA’s many years ago from my near billionaire friend and mentor Paul J. Meyer and what I learned from him helped me in so many ways that I am indebted to him for the rest of my life.  Like many things we learn, I slowly dropped the use of PA’s over time. But then Susan Jeffer’s book Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway reminded me of the great power of sending positive messages to the subconscious mind.  And, wow …what a difference that made. As I outlined in an older blog post, I used several PA’s to help  with my tennis game and, as quick as that, raised my tennis playing  level big time without any extra practice even!

Bottom line is,  I am definitely a “true believer” in the great power of  PA’s–they really do work and they will work for you on just about any part of your  life from sleep improvement to mental moods to, yes, even your tennis  game.

 

Getting Back Those Sweet Dreams with P.A.s

So how well do you sleep at night these days?  Remember when you were a teenager—no problem sleeping then! You’d usually crash out as soon as your head hit the pillow. There was no waking  up in the middle of the night for unknown reasons, no worries keeping your brain from turning off, no waking up for a trip to the bathroom which also woke your worried mind. There was just deep wonderful uninterrupted sleep!  Boy, those were the days!

99% of my readers are definitely not teenagers so it’s likely that, like me, you have experienced many nights of restless sleep—lots of tossing and  turning and waking up worrying about some problem or unknown outcome. The good news is that you are not alone and there are things you can do to help reduce these disruptive moments.

When I wake up in the middle of the night my mind can so quickly go into a highly negative mode and I just lay there being a big time worry wart.  I have discovered that most of us humans, especially  as we age, have brains that seem to automatically lower our natural  mental defenses and logical mature thinking to a very weak state when we  are tired, hence the worried state of mind. To get  back to sleep one can try some of the old methods such as counting sheep but a much better method is to first work on changing that worried mental state. Once the worry is reduced, sleep will come much more readily. But how do you do that?

It’s actually quite simple. Turn the chatter filled with fear filled questions and negative thoughts into inner talk that is filled with positive, supportive statements. Use your P.A.s! PA’s (positive affirmations) can be repeated in your mind the same way those worries and doubts are being echoed over and over. Keeping your positive thoughts generalized and not at all focused on the situation that is worrying you will keep you from taking a “but what if?” detour. So you put aside thoughts of the things that are worrying you and say something like, “I feel relaxed and very, very sleepy,” over and over in your mind. Don’t let anything else creep back in. Repeat the PA and imagine how it feels to be that relaxed and sleep and pretty soon you will actually feel that way, your mind will agree that this is true and you’ll quickly be back in sleep mode. Try it.  It’s amazingly simple and effective!

There is more you can put into your arsenal to insure a good night’s sleep and a relaxed well-rested state of mind. We will go into another very effective method next week but in the meantime, sweet dreams!

How to Teach to Help Others and Yourself

Last week I talked about the epiphany I had as I was doing my daily walk (a day I put in 10 miles of walking!)  As you may remember my breakthrough epiphany was that when we start teaching and preaching helpful ideas and  life enhancing goals with  other people , our very own progress and development is inevitably pushed faster toward achieving the very goals the ideas support.  It’s a pretty neat deal–as we help others we help ourselves!

At the end of last week’s blog I promised I would give you ideas to “jump start” your preaching and teaching plans. It isn’t necessary that you be a teaching type or that you have experience in helping to lead others toward achieving goals. You simply need the desire to help and see others succeed.

So here you go. Read these, follow the suggested steps and see what happens! When you’ve seen the effect you can have on other’s progress as well as your own, expand your influence to compound your success and the positive changes you’ve helped make in other people’s lives.

1. Pick a part of your life you want to greatly improve upon.

2. Write it down.

3. Make a list of comments and talking points that will help you present the benefits of the particular goal that you are going to share with relatives, friends and maybe even strangers.

4. Make a list of those relatives, friends, business associates and acquaintances you’d like to help. The best place to start is with your spouse or partner, so you may want to put them on the top of your list.

5. Now go out there and start teaching and preaching. It doesn’t matter how you do it. It could be face to face, by phone, or through email or texting. The only real rule is to share what you know with openness and caring. Understand that some people won’t be ready for the ideas you have to share. Don’t push it on them; just let them know you’re there to help when they are ready.

6. When you feel you have had significant experience and success, you can also teach more broadly through a blog, guest posting on other people’s blogs and websites or volunteering through mentoring programs for kids, college students, small businesses or whatever matches the kind of knowledge you have to share.

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!

Beware of the Con

So what would you do if you had a pretty good nest egg saved up but your bank was paying you a lousy 1/2% a year and a good friend just told you about how he is getting an 18% annual return, is getting paid out monthly and was on money invested with a guy he knew and trusted? Your first reaction might be, “Wow! That’s a great return.”  But then you might ask “Tell me more about this friend and the investment, cause it sounds too good to be true.”

What if he gives you an answer like this? “I’ve known this guy for several years and he’s a good guy that I have great confidence in and trust.  I invested some of my cash with him a year ago and since then he hasn’t ever missed a monthly interest payment. I just recently put all the rest of my savings into his deal a couple months ago and I even helped my poor mother out and talked her into putting most of her savings with him. She was getting screwed by the bank’s low interest rate and she desperately needed more income to supplement her social security check just to scrape by.

So, the bottom line of what you would be hearing from this friend is that he’s put virtually all his cash and savings into this “safe investment” and the return is guaranteed because he has so much trust in the deal. For all you know he may even have put a second mortgage on his house at a low interest rate so he could make the difference in the spread. I don’t know what you’d do but I know I would hold onto my wallet and run like hell.

Sadly, this kind of scenario happens almost every day. It has been particularly bad during our recent recession and now in our very slow economic recovery. I personally know 4 people that have lost almost every penny to their name because they bought into situations very similar to the one described above and these people are really quite smart and educated. You wouldn’t think they would be susceptible.

There is a very old saying that goes back to the 16th century: “Tis the part of wise men to keep himself today for tomorrow and not venture all his eggs in one basket.”  The other saying that we’ve all heard that we need to drum into our heads is “If it seems too good to be true it probably is.” One of my policies that has driven my investment life is “If I do choose to put all of my eggs or a substantial part of my eggs in one basket I must have total control over that basket and I must watch that basket very, very closely”.

One last thought.  In the example above and with the four people I know, they all had “confidence and trust” in their friend.  Guess where the origin of the term “con man” comes from?  You see these “con men” always take time to build up your confidence and trust in them before they strike.

This is not to say that there are not very good investments out there but always check them out thoroughly and make sure your investment is backed by solid, verifiable assets. Remember, don’t put all your financial eggs in one basket unless you control those eggs and watch that basket very closely!

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