How SSS may be Killing Dreams

Whether you want to hit it big financially, physically or just plain want to be famous, SSS may be the cruel “killer” of your dream! What is SSS? It’s simply the perceived notion of instant or overnight success in anything. It stands for “Super Star Syndrome”.

Believe it or not the super quick success of people like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame or the late, great Steve Jobs of Apple Computer can kill your big time dreams. How? Because what you see and read can make it seem like the billionaire ranks were made virtually overnight. So this kind of super-fast success gives too many people the idea that an overnight fortune, instant fame, super quick weight loss or getting into Olympic shape can be accomplished almost overnight. Those thoughts and ideas are stimulated and reinforced through so much clever advertising.

You’ve seen it many times–those promoters that have something to sell can be pretty enticing with their promise that you can lose 25 pounds in 30 days “guaranteed!” or make a fortune in 6 months with their “Sure Fire System”. Of course then they always show you several examples of people who used their method with tremendous success so even though you don’t know if those few testimonials are really true, their suggestion that it could also happen to you is brain washing you into thinking you will have that kind of success. You just have to buy into what they’re selling and it will happen!

The big problem is that some people do really reach super success nearly overnight and, yes, it is possible … for a very few, very select people in the world. Such success is so insanely rare and often more of a fluke of luck or timing—a combination of circumstances with aspects these people had no control over—that made it happen! But for 99.9999% of people it just ain’t gonna happen! And if you keep holding onto the thought that overnight success is just going to drop in your lap, that waiting game will eventually kill your big dream. Your dreams take action, not just more dreaming.

For the vast majority of people super success in virtually all things in life are achieved one step, one deal, and one hour at a time. If we burn that message into our brains we will keep moving forward knowing that success can be and will be ours in the long run. My wealth hero’s that gave me inspiration and motivation were guys like Conrad Hilton, J.W. Marriot, and McDonald’s Ray Kroc or more recently, Warren Buffet. It took these people many, many years and one step at a time to reach the point of “Super Success”.

To me, the real key is fully understanding that it takes lots and lots of baby steps, but those baby steps will eventually take you great distances. If we understand that principal and apply it daily it helps keep us going. So let go of the idea that you will end up with your dreams realized by sheer chance or by some guaranteed system or product. Do the work, one little step at a time and it will happen!

The Answer to Boredom: Work

Yesterday day I had lunch with a very good, longtime friend. He had recently retired from working at the business he owned and we talked a lot about that transition from being a full time worker into a retiree. We talked about some of the big challenges a person faces when they hit retirement. It’s something that most people look forward to their entire working lives, but it’s a huge trap or at least it can be and not a very nice one.

The bottom line of our conversation was summed up in my friend’s comment “I am bored out of my mind!” And believe me, I know exactly what he is feeling! Been there, done that–twice. The first time was when I had made quite a few million dollars and just turned 40 and thought “Wow, I don’t have to work anymore. I think I will retire.” So I did but quickly discovered that I was, yes, bored out of my mind! I found I craved that meaningful purpose that having an occupation gave me so I jumped right back into work and what a relief that was! I instantly felt so much better.

My second retirement was just about 2 years ago when I turned my company over to my kids and decided to play more tennis and travel more. That was great for the first 2 or 3 months but then I started feeling unfulfilled and constantly found myself wandering around the house and driving my wife crazy. I knew something was wrong and my brain kept saying “Ok … you are no longer an entrepreneurial business type guy and as you’re not doing much writing any more you aren’t much of an author, so just what the hell are you?”

I tried to busy myself with more tennis, workouts, mountain hikes and travel and, yes, that helped but it just wasn’t enough. Then quite suddenly something motivated me to pick up an old book that I had read a couple of times before. I did this as part of my philosophy learned from my late great mentor, Paul J Meyer, that philosophy being that you should pick a few dozen or even a hundred of the very best books you’ve ever read then read them multiple times. Since we all forget so much of what we’ve read and learned at any one time, rereading is necessary.

I began reading Harold Kushner’s wonderful book “When All You Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough: The Search for a Life That Matters” It was while reading this that the key to solving my struggles with retirement and boredom hit me full in the face. What was it that Kushner said in his book that was such a breakthrough for me? It was simply uttering that good ole four letter word “WORK”!

Don’t laugh. This really is the answer to boredom and does give one a major power lift to the soul, the mind, and the body as well as a big time enhancement to self-worth. And yet that was the very thing we think we want to leave behind. But that thinking is wrong. We need work. And for more than just a paycheck!

Next week we’ll talk more about this concept of work being so very important to us and why. But for now, whether you are still working or retired, realize that having a purpose each day is what makes life fulfilling and that the idea of retirement should be an opportunity to work as you like, not to stop working altogether.

Your Own Financial Genius

Years ago after writing my first book How to Wake Up the Financial Genius Inside You people started calling me a “financial genius”. My typical response was “Thanks, but I am no genius or a financial genius! I am just an ordinary guy who got through high school with a “C” grade average.” I would then explain that the millions of dollars I made were due to following a simple formula that my multi-million dollar mentor, Larry Rosenberg, shared with me–the same formula that I have shared with you in my book.

Fast forward many, many years and many more millions of dollars. I was recently shocked when, just for fun, I Googled the words “financial genius” and saw my name come up just above Warren Buffett and Albert Einstein (since I first looked at this Google page, I moved from top of the list into second slot and Warren Buffett was replaced by Alan Greenspan.) My name was there as part of Amazon’s website and shows my original 1976 edition of How to Wake Up the Financial Genius Inside You, available for $12 dollars and the revised edition called The Next Step In Waking up the Financial Genius inside You, available for $24.50.

Seeing my name and book listed so predominately on the Google search has motivated me to offer all of my blog readers a REAL DEAL! The timing of this is particularly, serendipitously and financially very, very important. Why? Because right now with today’s much reduced prices combined with the incredibly low interest rates, you would have a tough time finding a better period in modern history to apply my simple but highly effective “million dollar strategy” ,which really is the strategy that wakes up anyone’s financial genius.

Right now is the best opportunity for buying properties you can fix up and flip or just rent with huge rates of return. Go ahead and Google “financial genius” right now and see for yourself the comments on the old book like the one Jason from Colorado sent saying “The numbers are from 1976, so add a zero to most of them and it translates well into modern day.” Or from Dallas, Texas W.E. Wyatt’s comment “Change the numbers and this book could have been written this year. The principals remain the same.” And folks, that’s comments about the 1976 book!

Let me tell you about the revised book The Next Step in Waking up the Financial Genius inside You. It’s bigger and better and if you or someone you know wants help with making a fortune, I will help you out right now.  Email me at moh@reincome.com or call the office at 801-307-2787 and ask for Malinda and I will send you the new edition for only $9.95 with no shipping or handling charges—if you want both the old edition and the new—add 5 bucks.  You need to get started right away since interest rates are beginning to slowly climb as are prices of properties!

 

Get Out to Get Re-Motivated

Most of us get really excited when we project ourselves into the future and see ourselves reaching lofty goals. Whether those goals are huge money goals or super health goals or incredible success in singing, dancing, acting or winning a big golf or tennis tournament, they motivate and energize our lives.

But if you are a normal human being from time to time you do get down and discouraged, sometimes   even hitting a big time depression because you didn’t quite reach a goal that you set for yourself or because of a personal or family problem or challenge.  The good news is there is a very simple and virtually cost free cure, a re-motivation method that takes only an hour or two to get you back on track!

You have most likely have used this method before.  It’s not a huge secret. So in this blog I’m just going to remind you about it and ask that you use this simple routine more often than you have or maybe even on a regularly set basis to get you back, and keep you, in the game. And believe me, you aren’t alone in neglecting this. I’m preaching to myself here too!

Yesterday, after having a nice lunch with a very dear friend of mine, Radd B, I happened to drive by the cemetery where my dear sweet 16 year old daughter Kristin was buried 27 years ago.  I stopped for just a few minutes but those few minutes brought back a rush of memories surrounding her death that pushed me suddenly over the edge into a pit of despair, self-pity, sadness, and depression.

I quickly drove home and told my wife I was a wreck and was going to take a long walk.  I drove up the canyon and began hiking up through the pines with all the sights, sounds and smells of Mother Nature around me.  An hour and half later my brain, attitude and outlook for life and the future were completely transformed.  And that, my friends, is the simple, cost free, cure and re-motivator that we all know works … getting out into the natural world where things are balanced and calm.

With all we have going on in our lives, we too easily forget how powerful and effective Mother Nature can be in bringing us back to a composed and stable baseline. Getting out doesn’t have to be in the mountains or on a beach either. It can simply be a walk around the neighborhood, in a park or out in the more rural areas of where you live. The key is to get out of the house and as close to nature as you can. It really is amazing how a small thing like spending time outdoors away from our hectic world can re-adjust our heads and re-motivate our souls!  Mother Nature always knows best!!

 

Develop Your System, Delegate the Details

Last week I wrote about the mafia guy Sam “Mooney” Giancana and how he used systems to build and manage a huge, albeit illegal and vicious, financial empire. I’m not encouraging you to use his particular systems but it is a wild example of just what can be done when you have good systems in place. So the question now is, what kind of systems will work for you to allow you to dramatically increase your income and at the same time give you more free time to do whatever you like and enhances your life?

Before we can go over what a system is and how you develop it, you must understand this:

Grand Strategies Pay Huge Dollars and Details Drain Your Time.

Look at most people’s lives and you’ll find that they spend the majority of time wrapped up in the details. No, that’s not the way they planned it, but it’s so easy to get sucked into that habit. One big footnote here is you must realize that some people thrive on detail. And that’s okay, it’s just that if you really like the detail then you probably need to accept the fact that your road to huge automatic streams of income will be much harder for you. On the other hand, it’s these kinds of super detail loving people you need to hire to do the details for you.

If you’re a big ideas person, the struggle may be keeping focused. Ever notice how, when you’re away from home and business, usually on vacation, you can come up with some darn good strategies and systems for success? But then, when you get home, the details of your life and business pull you away and you lose focus of those great ideas you came up with when you were away from it all. So the number one strategy needs to be a plan to back away from it all, to get a clear mountaintop view of your business and your investments or potential investments. You must be able to see your own financial big picture.

Once you have that mountain top view and you figured out what your grand strategy is going to be then you need to start getting systems into place. When I started out to dramatically increase my income and net worth, my grand strategy was to build my fortune with income producing properties. To speed up the process I decided to find “dirt bag” properties that I could fix up and sell for a good profit. I found out very quickly how the details can just suck up your time so my first “grand system” was to start delegating these details to other people. Everything from using dozens of real estate agents to look for properties that fit my criteria to very inexpensive workers to do the hard labor required for the face lifts the properties needed.

I clearly remember the first apartment building I bought. It was twelve super dumpy, dirty, rundown units. That’s where I learned my big lesson about systems, especially about details and delegation. In the beginning I thought it would be smart to save a few bucks since I was way short of cash and take over as the resident manager even though I didn’t live on the property. Wow, was that ever stupid! Fortunately, within a few months I realized that the details were not only driving me crazy but, more importantly, they were sucking my time and energy which was destroying my outlook on buying more properties.

So you see, right here is the biggest rub. If you’re handling all the details and you hate it, why would you ever want to buy more properties which will only bring you more frustration and problems? Of course the answer is that you wouldn’t. Always remember, if you want to double or triple or even gather 5 times your income, you will always need to delegate the details!!

It’s all in the System

Ridiculous! Most people won’t believe the next sentence, but it can be absolutely true if you want it to be: The average person can increase their income by 5 times and spend less time working than they do now.

Yes, that’s true, and I can prove it in just a few minutes. Then you can go out and do it.

A few years ago as I lay basking on the beautiful Poipu Beach in the South Pacific, I was reading, Double Cross, the story of Sam “Mooney” Giancana. Sam ran the Chicago Mob for years, involving “the outfit”, as they called it, in prostitution, numbers, vending and protection (a nice word for extortion) of legitimate businesses ranging from garbage collection to barber shops. They also were involved in running drugs, money laundering, motels, restaurants, night clubs and hijacking, to name just a few more.

How did Sam find the time to manage, direct and control such a vast cash generating empire? Sam was not even what you would call an educated man, so how did he do it? He saw the big picture and knew the key to his own personal success was in the “systems”. Nobody has more than 168 hours in a week to get things done–so to expand or clone yourself you must devise “systems” that work automatically, whether you are awake, asleep, working in Washington or playing tennis in Tangiers. And Sam had developed just such systems, systems that, once set up, would run on auto pilot most of the time. When the system slowed down or broke, he would fix it. Granted, his methods to fix the system were more than a little harsh. For us non-criminals when our tenant, broker or employee makes a mistake we might want to put them on some kind of probation or fire them rather than break their leg or rub them out.

Can you see the vision here? If you organize your life and business to run automatically without you–with income constantly coming in, especially from one source, then that gives you free time to work on other ideas, dreams and develop more income sources. Then you can literally increase your income by 2 or 3 times and even by 5 times and work less than you do now!

Personally, one of my initial driving forces was the thought or question of how my family would get along if I died the next day. So I went to work with that somewhat negative motivation and in a very few years I had arranged more than 95% of my income to flow in on auto pilot which gave me lots of time to work on more income streams. How was that done? In a word, Systems.

This week I just wanted you to take away the idea that you can make more money and work less by simply developing systems that can bring in automatic income. Next week I will tell you what kind of systems I used and that you can use to increase your income or just to give you more time to do other fun things.

 

The Big Goal Boost

Anyone that knows me knows that I’m a huge believer in setting goals. Of course that’s the major them of my book How to Ignite Your Passion for Living. Goal setting grabbed my attention in a very big way even back when I was in high school.

As a pole vaulter then and in college my goals were in feet and inches. As soon as I reached a certain height, I would set a new goal a few inches higher–from 10 feet 6 inches to 10 feet 9 inches then 11 feet. After a ton or work, trying over and over again, I finally was consistently clearing 12 feet and eventually I peaked out at 14 feet 1 inch. Back then, in 1962, the world record was just over 16 feet, so I wasn’t doing too badly. But, no, I didn’t set the world record. Still setting those goals kept me completely engaged and excited about life. Such physical, self-competitive goals aren’t the only goals that can do that for you. Just about any goal will do that for you if it’s something you really want.

To get that jazzed feeling every day, be sure to constantly set goals for yourself. It will keep you passionate about your life and living and of course there is a Big Bonus in that you end up accomplishing so many things. So my message this week is push yourself to set more goals, and tough goals, in all parts of your life –physical, mental, family, charitable and, yes, don’t forget financial goals. I promise you as you do this you will enjoy each hour and each day more.

By the way, as you may already know, it helps to tell people that are close to you (as long as they are positive people) what goals you have set for yourself because when you know they are watching, you are more likely to stick with them and they also can act as a cheer leader for you. I myself have been sharing with you my goal of working out every day until I turned 70 and just knowing I told you about that makes even more dedicated. I just can’t let you down.

So you know. I am still on track with that goal which is 46 weeks from now. I was sick one day last week and hurt my back on another day but I still got a work out  in. Yes it hurt physically but, wow, I sure got a huge mental boost from sticking with my goal! That’s 83 out of 84 days that I have kept up my work outs. Pretty good! Now, what goal do you have?

Mentor for Success

Well, did you start doing it? Did you start looking for a house to buy as an investment or a place to live and profit from today’s super low interest rates? If you don’t know what I’m talking about go read my blog post from last week entitled “Money Money Money”. Maybe I should have called it “Low Rates Low Rates Low Rates”.

If you are already in a very comfortable place financially and either don’t need to or don’t want to make some easy money (I probably shouldn’t call it “easy money” it’s more like “simple money” because it does take work!), then may I suggest you talk to your kids or friends that may not be so comfortable but have the drive, desire and energy. You can be a major financial mentor for them and they will love you for doing it and you will get a ton of satisfaction knowing that you directed them and helped them.

I receive so many messages from people coast to coast and even from foreign countries, thanking me for my financial advice, for giving them the motivation to get up and get moving and for making good financial things happen in their lives. There are not many things in the world that give a person more satisfaction and contentment than knowing you’ve helped someone make major improvements in their lives.

And I’m not talking just about money. Just helping people believe in themselves and motivating them to be proactive in any and every part of their lives is what it is really about. Having a solid financial situation is certainly a good thing and can help in a myriad of ways but there is more to life than money. Bottom line … help others to reach their goals with encouragement and constant support. You will get your reward in the happiness it brings you to see them bring about what is important to them into their lives.

MONEY MONEY MONEY

We all want it and we all need it—and some people will do most anything to get it. Right now there are a few things you can do to really cash in big time. I don’t mean to say that money is the most important thing in the world but if you don’t have any, or not very much, it certainly makes life pretty darn rough!

What many, if not most people, don’t fully realize is that there are some critical choices and critical timing of those choices that can make all the difference in the world. It should be obvious that the “choice” of making the most income that you can and at the same time keeping spending lower than your level of income is a very good thing. By doing that you create savings and with enough savings you can make investments that, if you do it right, can give you passive income that makes your life smoother, more pleasant and rather easy. But … what about those investment choices and, maybe even more important, that thing called “timing”.

My advice to most everyone, at least here in the USA, has to do with what you could and should be doing RIGHT NOW!! Recently I said to my adult children, “You know, if you are financially wise and want to make some huge strides in your financial situation right now is the time to act! And, acting right now will pay huge dividends in the near and distant future.” What are those actions that I encouraged them to take and they are doing even as I write this blog?

Ok, here’s the simple advice which could easily be called “Million Dollar Advice”! Go buy a house or maybe 2 houses or a duplex or even more. That’s pretty simple but it’s almost sure to make my children or you a ton of money. You may be saying “Wait a minute. Prices have already bottomed out and have moved up in the last year or so and more in the last few months. You’re right but that’s OK because the big if not the huge reason to buy now is not because the possible continuing rise in values (and it might well slow down a bit) but because of a thing called “Interest Rates” or should I say ”Super Duper Low Interest Rates!” Just take a look at where we are now and where we used to be and very likely will return.

Monthly Payment on a $400,000 Loan for 30 years

Today’s interest rates are:		Rates in past years & probable future years:
3.5%	4.0%	7.0%
Monthly payment
$1796.18	$1909.16	$2661.21

Now at first glance that may not seem like a huge difference but … over the life of the 30 year loan–the difference between the 7% loan and the 3.5% loan is almost a third of a million dollars ($958,035.60 on the 7% loan and $646,624.80 on the 3.5% loan.) The big bonus is that today’s rental rates are going up and up, so you can rent those houses or a duplex’s out for more and more. Just think … 3 properties could make you almost a million bucks over the life of the loan not counting the cash flow that is possible. And what if you had more than that? At the top of my “rental property career” I owned more than 1,000 units! How does that sound to you?

I hope I have inspired you to go out and take advantage of these super low interest rates. They won’t last more than maybe one or two years longer and maybe even shorter than that. In other words, this is not the time to hesitate. It is the time to buy!

The Mistake of Not Making Mistakes

We are all afraid of making mistakes to some extent. Our society has us thinking that mistakes and failure are shameful things. The strange thing is, we learn best by our mistakes yet the fear of making them often keeps us from taking action. So how are we to learn much of anything if we aren’t out there making those mistakes?

When you have big goals, like creating a large personal fortune, starting a business or even starting a family, you may keep yourself from taking the first step because of the fear of making a mistake. The thing is, the real mistake becomes not taking that first step!

You need to not only accept that you will make mistakes but look forward to seeing what you can learn from them. When you have big goals, you will need to become dependent on your ability to overcome and learn from your mistakes. That is the only way you will be able to move forward and accomplish what you are after.

So go ahead, make a mistake or two. Or ten. Or twenty. It’s perfectly normal and it means you are trying something rather than doing nothing!

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