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!

 

Solving the Mystery of You

As I promised in last week’s post, I’m going to discuss how we solve our own “mystery”, the mystery being what it is we really want out of life.

To help point you in the right direction and solve this mystery, I have compiled the following questions for you to ask yourself. Write or print out the questions along with your answers after contemplating them.

Then, after a bit of time, go back, and reread the questions and your answers, letting them sift through all the corners of your mind. Don’t get impatient with this. This is important “inner-self” work you are doing, laying a fertile foundation for that which is to come.

1. What do you naturally and instinctively like to do? Forget about any financial or time constraints. Let your mind be open and flow and just write down the first things that come to your mind.
2. What did you like to do when you were a kid? What was your passion then?
3. What is it that you do now that really gets your juices flowing?
4. What comes easily to you? Are these your passions?
5. What puts you in such a mental state that you lose all sense of time to the extent that you say to yourself, “please let this moment linger” or “I wish this moment and feeling would never end”?
6. What is it you most want to stand for?
7. What do you want to be remembered for or leave to the world?

 

Now, take time to dig deep!

Make an appointment with yourself and sift through the questions above. Remember, it takes time – sometimes weeks or even months – to discover what’s hidden in the inner regions of your mind and heart.

Take time to seek advice from others. Especially from those you think highly of and those who have done some of the things you are considering doing with your life. Go ahead, call those gurus, those super successful people who you’ve always admired and tell them that you’d like just a few minutes of their time. Sometimes people who seem far above the masses are more available and approachable than you would believe.

I’ll never forget the desire I had when I was young to pick the brain of the founder of McDonald’s, Ray Kroc, who made a billion dollars after the age of 55. I was stunned, shocked, surprised, and pleased when I was told by Mr. Kroc’s secretary that Mr. Kroc has agreed to meet with me and talk face to face! Wow!

Read and research all items and areas you can that deal with the wants on your dream list, the areas that seem to be most relevant to you and your life and how you can reach your dreams and goals.

As you read, research, and talk to the right people, be sure to write down not only what comes from those sources about what may fit your ideal life, but also record on paper or in your computer all of your own thoughts, ideas, and feelings that come up. This, as you will see, will be helpful and insightful to you later on when you re-read your own thoughts and words that passed through your mind.

The Kind of People for You

I picked up a book yesterday written back in 2003 by an old friend. The book has a one-word title: Goals! The subtitle is “How to Get Everything You Want—Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible.” I’ve always felt it a privilege to call its author, Brian Tracy, a friend. He’s not only a warm, friendly person, but he’s also smart and wise. His advice in Goals! is fantastic. I read it back in 2005, and I have reaped huge rewards from following his wonderful and sage advice.

When I picked up the book up yesterday, I took a quick look at the handwritten notes and quotes I pulled that I had scribbled in the front blank pages of the book (with the page number references, of course!) I found myself immediately pulled back into the book to my favorite parts and what I thought was Brian’s best advice and ideas. Thoughts like: “Character is the ability to follow through on a resolution after the enthusiasm with which the resolution was made has passed,” found on page 263.

But what Brian wrote about the concept that gives a person a huge advantage to be successful that really influenced me was written under the subhead, “Get Around the Right People.” Brian goes on to say that we should “make it a point to associate with the kind of people that you like, admire, respect, and want to be like sometime in the future. Associate with the kind of people that you look up to and would be proud to introduce to your friends and associates. The choice of a positive, goal-oriented reference group can do more to supercharge your career than any other factor.”

When I set my goal to be a millionaire, one of the first things I did was to set in motion a plan to meet and get to know wealthy people. On that list were two billionaires who didn’t know me from Adam but who, with persistence and a plan, I was able to meet and get to know as well as get advice and financial formulas from them. My very first “adviser”, and a man who became a good friend, was a multimillionaire by the name of Larry Rosenberg. The two billionaires were Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald’s, and Curt Carlson, founder of the TGIF restaurant chain. Later I was fortunate enough to connect with businessman Paul J. Meyer, who built a half-billion-dollar fortune starting from zero. He shared many ideas and formulas for achieving success at a quick pace.

In the margins of Brian Tracy’s book, I found this note his words inspired me to write: “In order for me to be able to associate with the right kind of people, I must work hard on myself to be that likable and right kind of person. When I think about it I know that for me and most people, we would all much rather do business with people who we really like and we tend to shun people that are unfriendly, grouchy or that are too argumentative. I don’t even like to play tennis with people I don’t like, even if I beat them.” So the bottom line here is to meet the “right” kind of people you must work on yourself to become that same “right” kind of person.

 

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?