Another Kind of Reward

I certainly have had some very great rewards in my life from writing my books and posting my weekly blog. Now, I’m not talking about rewards of money, although I’ve had great monetary rewards along the way and have ended up with much, much more money than I ever dreamed of making. But there are many more rewards that have nothing to do with money.

So, what are these huge, non-monetary rewards? They are receiving letters, emails, or phone calls from people who have read my writings and, having followed those words, have cashed in big time. For some, the results have been huge.

One of the first notes I received was years ago when a guy who was going to college read my book and start putting some of the strategies, methods, and systems into practice. He soon began to make big bucks. Later this guy wrote me a letter to thank me for writing the book he’d read and for sharing with my readers how to make big bucks by following the formula that had made me a fortune, ensuring readers that anyone can do the same thing.

In the end, this guy made many millions more than I did and he gave me almost all the credit. Dell Loy Hansen is a billionaire now and is still going strong. He has some very huge office buildings and even owned a terrific professional soccer team for a while.

If you have read my book, The Next Step to Waking Up the Financial Genius Inside You, you may have seen that I copied the first letter he sent me in which he thanked me for helping him make a fortune. I love his postscript in the letter. It reads, “Thanks a Million — or more appropriately, ‘Thanks a Billion’.”

Dell is just one of many people that have thanked me and given me so much credit for helping them make tons of money. Helping people and getting lots of thanks and appreciation is a huge reward! It just makes you feel so, so good to know that you changed a person’s life in such a positive way.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I received a great heartwarming text from Scott Keller, another real estate expert and entrepreneur, who had just been interviewed by Jimmy Rex for his podcast. Here’s is what Scott wrote to me:

“I was interviewed by Jimmy Rex on his podcast today. Are you happy and all good? I hope you are well. Thank you for your great influence in my success. I exceeded the $1B mark, which had much to do with your early influence and book, Waking Up the Financial Genius Inside You.”

There was one more thing Scott said on The Jimmy Rex Show podcast that I would like to share. He said that he gave me a shout out. To be precise, he said, “I gave a shout out to you as the best financial book I read out of 12 books.” What a heartwarming shout out and what a great reward.

Enhancing Your Accountability

Some years back, I had a profound thought with huge life enhancing potential for everyone on the planet. Practicing this particular idea has changed and helped my life for a long time, but it was only then, when I really identified it and put it into words, that I was able to share it with others.

It’s a simple concept. Any goal, habit, human quality, or desire that I preach, teach, or otherwise pontificate 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, pushing me to do the things 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 blogs for a while, you might recall that I set some pretty ambitious work out, weight loss, and healthy eating goals for myself. This was particularly true back when I was counting down to my big 70th birthday. 90 days before my 70th birthday, I set some of my toughest health and workout goals ever and in those 3 months, my mind fixed heavily on those self-promises. Yes, it was all advice I gave to myself but I also started to share it here, with my readers, and I believe that practice was one of the reasons I was able to do so well and keep it up.

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. It’s a concept called accountability. Only when you teach it, you’re not only putting yourself in a position to be a shining example of what you preach, but you are deeply reminded of the value of your words.

I challenge you to not just work on self-improvement, but to start teaching others about the things that you want to improve in your life. As always, write down your goals and objectives so you can stay on track, then share and teach what you know. In a few months, take a look back and see what this enhanced accountability has done for you as well as for the others you taught new things to.

I would suggest that you think deeply and intently about this and then put it into practice. See if it doesn’t profoundly enhance the aspects of your life that you aim to drastically improve. Whether you want to get in super great shape or become a much better partner, or even make a few million dollars, you can do it if you follow these ideas with commitment and reinforce it by putting it out into the world to help others.

Finding Joy in the Journey

I don’t really like the saying, “No pain, no gain.” It’s not that I don’t believe the struggle can be worthwhile—the struggle is what makes most gains so very fulfilling—but the idea that in order for us to reach a goal it must be painful seems, to me, to say that enjoying yourself means you’re goofing off and not trying hard enough. Our society glamorizes the painful struggle in popular media and, although it makes great drama, it does not give us a realistic view of how we could, or should, live our lives and achieve our goals.

Chances are you will spend many hours and days, if not weeks, months, or years, working towards the big goals in your life. So, the question becomes, why would you choose to spend so much of your life suffering to reach a future goal? The path you walk to achieve your goal should have some level of enjoyment in it. It might not be a constant joy, but joy should be a consistent enough part of it to keep you going.

For instance, if you are flipping houses to build your wealth but hate every minute you spend searching for the right property, fixing it up, and talking to buyers, why do it? If what you really enjoy is entertaining people, you can work towards amassing wealth by going big in the entertainment world. It might take longer or be harder to build wealth that way (but then again, it might not) but no matter how long it takes or what trials you go through, you will probably enjoy getting your name out and searching for those big gigs. When you’re spending so much time and energy on something that it becomes what your life is about, you really ought to enjoy it!

Our society tends to focus too much on the end goal itself, even to the point of drilling into us that happiness is something that we reach in the future, or even in the next life. But happiness can, and should, be yours now. You can find great enjoyment and satisfaction in pushing yourself and being challenged in almost anything—it’s really up to you and how you look at a situation. But it’s also wise to find something that keeps your interest and makes you jump out of bed every morning, excited to get back into the life you’ve made for yourself.

So, save your “no pain, no gain” moments for those little jobs we must do to continue doing what we love. Like those few hours you need to prepare your taxes correctly or those last few reps at the gym. But don’t let it be about large chunks of your life and what you do every day. Be happy now. Enjoy the whole of your life including the journeys you take, not just what your life will be when you reach your goals.

Never Stop Asking

Here’s a great question that all of us should ask ourselves: What do I really want out of life?

If you seriously want to improve your life, spend some intense time thinking and meditating on what your life has been in the past and what you want it to be in the future. Doing so can, and will, lift your mind and body to a new and higher level. This will raise the success and satisfaction in your life over and above any material success or other success you derive from going after your goals.

Hinduism tells us that every human being wants four things:

1. Pleasure

2. Success.

3. Responsible discharge of duty.

4. Liberation.

It’s up to you to determine what each of these things means in your life, but you do want to ask yourself if you’re achieving some version of these in a way that adds to the happiness and quality of your life.

Regularly examining our life helps us keep on track and reevaluate what we’re presently doing. Here is a great list of questions that we all should all ask ourselves on a regular basis.

1. Do you want your life to be just another life?

2. Do you want to be average?

3. Do you want to make a difference in this world?

4. Does accomplishment mean a lot to you?

5. Do you want to become a better you, a better person?

6. Do you want to be in great physical and mental shape with ideal health your entire life?

7. Do you want to live a very long, active life?

8. Do you want to make a fortune—a million or ten million or even 100 million dollars?

9. Do you want your own fortune so you’d have more choices in your life?

10. Do you want to leave the world a better place than you found it?

11. Do you want to help others as you help yourself?

12. Do you want to travel and experience the entire world and its cultures?

13. Do you want to substantially raise your level of contentment and fulfillment?

Going over this list and thinking of all I could do if I just focused on what I truly wanted raised my mind and feelings to a new high level. I hope that it does the same for you!!

Big Dreams Take Bold Courage

Back in 1983, I wrote a book called The Courage to Be Rich. It really does take a lot of courage to make big time money. Truthfully, it takes courage to accomplish big dreams in almost any field, but being rich was my big dream and I made it happen.

Deciding I wanted to be rich and grabbing what fame I could along the way was a dream of mine from when I was pretty young. It was rarely easy, and I had some big-time struggles. Still, I kept at it and was able to accomplish my goals by staying courageous.

Thinking about this recently, I went back and read through some things I had written back in those days. I can easily see how much I preached to myself and how very hard I pushed myself to make big things happen. I also realized that I helped many people along the way by writing and speaking publicly. I sold millions of books and appeared on tons of national tv shows, including one with Tom Brokaw.

I’ve written so much and many of those words still give me energy and lots of ideas to keep me writing. I also still love to share my thoughts on what works for me, as I have seen how that sharing has helped so many, many other people.

Here are a few words on courage I wrote those many years ago:

“Courage is going against the odds, against popular opinions. It’s doing what most people are unwilling to do because of the criticism and flak they know they will receive from family, friends, or even strangers. Courage is living your life for you. It’s setting you own rules and policies and taking full responsibility when you fail or stumble. It’s resisting other people’s attempted manipulations of you. Courageous people do not accept all traditions, conventional wisdom, or pat answers without close scrutiny and severe questioning.”

Ok, I know this blog was short, but I am in Kauai and having too much fun! Next week I’ll share with you the 13 keys to success!

Surprising Reminders

It had been quite a few days since I’d been to my office, but when I went in recently, I was surprised to find 3 books on my desk from years ago, all signed by the authors. I took them home with me to refresh my memory as to why they were out.

The book that really caught my attention was Leadership Fitness by Homer Rice, so I re-read parts of this great book. I didn’t remember Rice from past years, although I’m pretty sure I did meet him. I was, however, very pleased to see that the foreword was written by my very good friend Paul J. Meyer. Paul was a very smart guy who made a fortune and became my hero and mentor. Sadly, he passed away a few years ago.

Paul really liked Rice’s book. He made this statement about it: “Homer identified, from his comprehensive reading, the significant elements of success: attitude, desire, belief, visualization, spaced repetition, habits, and focus.”

I was super surprised at how much I learned going through Homer Rice’s book. He reminded me of things I knew but had stopped using. Oh yes, he wrote about things that I had been writing about and preaching at my seminars, like how critically important it is to set goals and how super critical it is to write down those goals with a time limit on them. But what I hadn’t done in the past was to set goals in all the many other areas of my life.

Homer Rice writes that a person should set goals in every part of their life, not just in regard to business and money. Goals for family, friends, donations, traveling, and more should be included. For example, travel goals for me would include going to different cities and neighborhoods, as well as different countries, especially since the mind and the body really crave novelty and making lists. Putting a time limit down to accomplish those items helps tons in seeing them get done.

Reading through Rice’s book, I became really motivated to set more goals and go after them with energy and passion. Although I was surprised at how inspired I became re-reading this book, the real surprise came at the end of the book where he listed “Suggested Titles to Read”. In that list of books, I found Financial Genius by Mark Oliver Haroldsen. I was surprised and even a bit shocked to see my name. Remember, I’m not sure I ever met him, but he knew me, or at least knew of me.

I’ll try not to get a fat head over his recognition of my book. I totally love helping people and seeing so many people become super successful or more successful is just as much of a thrill as having that success myself.

So, I do encourage you to pick up Homer Rice’s book, Leadership Fitness. It’s very helpful in many ways that go way beyond just making money. You might also want to look up some of the work by Paul J. Meyer. These are two really smart men who have a lot to teach us.

Daily Joy

Years ago, after successfully building my wealth, I retired so I could enjoy the “good life”, including traveling and having plenty of time to spend with family. That is the kind of life everybody would love to live, right? Well, it did not end up being what I thought it would be. I was shocked at how unhappy and depressed I could get. Sometimes I didn’t even want to get up in the morning. I just didn’t see any joy in my day.

This situation was a mystery to me at first. Why would leisure make me so unhappy? I researched my symptoms and tried various methods to improve my health and my mind. Some techniques I found worked, to an extent, but if I thought back to my earlier years when I had been working really hard to build my wealth, there was no comparison.

The thing was, when I worked long days fixing up homes or, later, negotiating huge real estate purchases, I was happy, regardless of all the toil and pressure of those times. I had goals and a bright future, and I was intensely passionate about what I was doing. It was while pondering the past that I realized, for all the great things I had accomplished, for all the wealth and love I had in my life, life was not worth waking up for without a purpose and a passion.

As it turns out, I enjoy life the most when I am helping others better their own lives and knowing that led me to a solution for what I was feeling. With so many years of experience and knowledge, and having already written books on succeeding financially, writing another book, one that would help people not just become wealthy, but would help them reach any goal they desired, was just a natural choice. Once I decided to write the book, my days came alive again.

It was a long, arduous road, but eventually I published How to Ignite Your Passion for Living in 2008. It wasn’t long after publication that I began to see and hear the stories of people whose lives were changed because of the words and techniques in my book. It turned out, however, that the book would be just the beginning of a new chapter in my life, one where helping people find their passion and better their lives became a focus for my life.

To this day, I continue to work towards spreading these ideas through whatever channels I find, including this blog. I continue to hope that, through these posts, I can further inspire and motivate people. And I always love to hear the stories of struggle and success from my readers, so if you have one or more to share, please do write to me.

My readers are my purpose and passion now, the driving force that gets me jumping out of bed in the morning, looking forward to all the new day has in store. I hope you have found or are looking for that something that brings joy into your life every day as well. Joy really is working towards something you truly believe in.

Quality Living is in the Moment

With age, and the experience of achieving great success, it has become glaringly clear that wealth, power, status, fame, possessions, etc. do not, by themselves, add anything significant to the actual quality of our lives. Yes, I find having wealth is nice and allows me to do many wonderful things like travel a great deal. I do thoroughly enjoy many of my physical possessions, like my house and all the bits and pieces my wife has brought in to make it a home. These things, however, are not how I measure how well I live.

Most of what makes a life worth living cannot be bought or collected. They can only be found in the experiences you have, what you give to others, what you accept, and how you choose to look at the world. It’s those many small steps that make up the journey that determine the true importance of the destination, not the destination itself.

If your ‘destination’ is great wealth, gaining that wealth will only be important if you’ve lived well, struggled often, and celebrated your small successes along the way. This is why lottery winners almost always end up unhappy. There is no journey, no sense of success, and no memories that make up the path to their wealth. The money just becomes a condition of their life, not something that engages their sense of personal achievement.

This idea brings together much of what I’ve been talking about these past few weeks — that your quality of life is made up of what you experience in the great right now. You want to live in the moment and choose to be happy or your life will be made of many disappointing moments, making the whole of your life disappointing as well.

Also, don’t forget to look for joy in the wonderful act of giving to others. Generous, kind acts will infuse your life with the kind of treasures that you could never buy or fabricate — they can only be given. When you give, you’ll often find that even more is given back to you.

Go ahead. Go for the wealth and the status and whatever else you dream of. Just remember to live a quality life along the way, and keep up your passion for living, not just for the future life you’re after.

The Joy in the Journey

Would you agree that most of us, at one time or another, especially when we were young, had thoughts 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 mind 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 an easier, but if you think that tons of money and fame will automatically bring you happiness and contentment, you’re dead wrong. In fact, I think you will find a higher early death rate and more addiction in the rich and famous than in 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 with the 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 saying that money and fame, or going after great and lofty financial glory, are not worthy goals. Those are energizing, lots of fun, and can be very satisfying. Just 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.

The thing is, nobody’s life is perfect and when you realize that and accept that fact, your satisfaction and contentment can really begin to soar. Trust me on that. I’ve been there, done that, and learned it. I have to remind myself that life is never perfect on an almost daily basis, pushing myself to concentrate on the big multi-year goals while, at the same time, remembering to “live in the now” and have tons of joy while on the journey.

Money can do great things for you, your family, and your life, but it is simply not everything. It is not the key to a happy, fulfilled life. Look beyond the wealth to what you can do to make things better for others as well as exploring and enjoying life. You don’t want your life to just be about making money. You want it to be about what that money can do for you and others. That’s where you will find the joy.

Keys to Wealth Building

Most of us want to build our wealth and I have been very fortunate and quite successful in that regard. Friends as well as strangers have asked me many times about the secrets to my success. I wouldn’t call all my methods secrets but I guess if you don’t know them, then they are secrets to you.

So, here’s a few of those so-called secrets that have helped me a ton:

1. Read good books about finance, then think about what you’ve learned, and find someone who has been successfully building wealth to discuss your ideas with.

2. Record your thoughts in a journal as you read. This will help you retain knowledge.

3. Write down your goals along with the time frames for reaching them. As you probably know, writing goals with time frames drives your brain and body to follow through and do it.

I love this quote: “Always have two books—one to read from and one to write in.”

Let me explain a bit more about the first point—the part about finding people that are good at what you want to learn. All my life I’ve looked for mentors—those people that are good at what I wanted to learn and do.

The famous billionaire Warren Buffett said, “I was lucky to have the right heroes. Tell me who your heroes are and I’ll tell you how you’ll turn out to be. The qualities of the one you admire are the traits that you, with a little practice, can make your own, and that, if practiced, will become habit forming.”

I was very fortunate to meet Larry Rosenberg, a very, very rich man, and he was kind enough to mentor me. He not only referred me to the best books to read to lead a person to huge wealth, he also spent lots of time with me over lunches. He gave me great advice, hints, and direction concerning where to look for the best properties and what to do to fix them up to greatly increase value and then sell them. Wow. His advice sure worked wonders for me.

If you want great wealth, or more wealth, start digging. Read the right books and research who you should get to know. Find the right super successful, wealthy people and asked them to mentor you! Yep, if you want it, go do it.

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