In these turbulent financial times, one sees small signs of panic all over.

But Can You Recognize Your Own Symptoms?

While we’re all aware of the “fight or flight” response to panic, and we recognize the symptoms in others, it is not always easy to see them in yourself. We tend to suppress feelings of panic and deny them, get too busy to acknowledge and deal with them, and in the process start to slip down a slippery slope that includes sometimes irreparable damage to our relationships, health, and financial situation.

Men, especially, want to appear “Macho” and in control, so we tend to cloak panic with aggression and bravado.

A Lotto Desperation

Yesterday, Rika and I sat in a restaurant and watched a succession of men feeding a lotto machine. We were amazed at the tension and desperation we saw in these men. They were gambling precious time and money with extremely low odds of winning anything, yet they probably saw this as their only alternative. Sure, some were just having fun, and some were addicted, but my overall impression was men on the brink of panic.

Men vs. Women

This article tells us why unemployment is hitting men harder than women, and this article tells us that “Unemployment Rate Soars for Older Men with Limited Education”. Women are better equipped to handle stress, and they generally panic less than men do, but we are all vulnerable.

Manipulating the Herd

The herd instinct is much more pronounced in our highly connected society than in past years, and politicians and the media are milking it for all its worth. They know how to manipulate with fear, exaggeration, and spin, and this often leads to mass panic in different degrees. Anyone who believes what politicians, mystics, and the media tells them is living in a dangerous fantasy world.

Scam artists are also very busy tacking advantage of desperate people.

Deadly Panic

Many highly publicized cases of deadly panic occur during massive public events.

• The layout of Mecca was extensively redesigned by Saudi authorities in an attempt to eliminate frequent stampedes, which kill an average of 250 pilgrims every year.
• Football stadiums have seen deadly crowd rushes and stampedes, such as at Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield, England, in 1989. This led to controlled entry gates and stricter rules by the end of the 1980s to regulate seating arrangements.

6 Lifesaving Tips to Keep a Cool Head in Times of Panic

I know what it’s like to feel as though you’re on the verge of panic. From my personal experience, having been exposed to high levels of stress at different times in my 56 years of life, including military combat, business and finances, dangerous situations, fire, marital problems, divorce, and many other things, here are some tips on handling panic:

Tip #1 -Realize Stress Effects Your Perception

Perception is reality. Accept that our perception is never accurate, and that the more stressed we are, the less logical our assumptions, choices, and conclusions.

Realize that you don’t see the whole picture, and that you’re missing a lot of vital information as you develop tunnel vision and see everything through a lens of desperation, scarcity, and limitation.

Tip #2 – “YAHOO!”

Shout, “YAHOO!”

You Always Have Other Options.

The fact that we are not aware of our real options doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Your problem is in your mind, and you need a way to see through the eyes of a rational, intelligent, mature, relaxed, and creative person. As I always say, “You don’t have money problems; you have thinking problems.”

Tip #3 -Discriminate the Advice You Accept

Never take advice from someone who doesn’t already have what you want, or from someone who is more screwed up and stressed than you are. They will drag you further down the slippery slope to panic and loss of control. Taking financial advice from a social worker or teacher, for example, is just plain silly.

Question the motives of people giving you advice, and be especially careful of mysticism – this is a dangerous, irrational, and destructive escape route. Choose your mentors very carefully.

Tip #4 -Get Excellent, Level-Headed Support

It’s hard to cope alone, but help is always available from the right people. When you’re blindfolded, you need to be led by someone who sees the obstacles as well as the exits and solutions until your blindfold can be removed. Things are never as bad as they seem.

Finding a good support group usually means that what you currently have doesn’t work. If everyone around you is panicking, you want to remove yourself from that situation. Pessimists are no help to anyone.

Take note of the people in your life. Are they helping you or hurting you?

Tip #5 -Monitor and Improve your Self-talk

I have found the most tool to stave off panic and maintain a level-headed approach is my self-talk. I have always talked with myself, often aloud, and saying things like:

“This is a piece of cake. I can handle this. So what’s the big deal? What are my logical options? This is no problem for me – a mere hiccup to one of my talents…”

Remember, also, that the questions you ask yourself will determine, to a large extent, where you end up.  Find out more about this concept in my book, Break Free!, coming soon to JVWisdom.

Tip #6 -Is Your Philosophy Helping or Hurting You?

Finally, check your philosophy / world view / religion – it, too, is ether helping you or hurting you, and you have many other options. If a shoe doesn’t fit and gives you blisters, replace it.

DollarMakers is designed to provide financial solutions to any people in any circumstances, as long as they are prepared to learn, work, and persist until they are free.

Everything in your life is a trigger of some sort – the things you see, hear, feel, taste, read, and touch, the people you mix with, the places you go, the things you wear, what you eat and drink, your car, your home – everything is affecting you, whether you know it or not.

Peak performers carefully monitor their input, associations, diet, and environment. They control their self-talk, and set high standards for themselves.

Making the Right Adjustments

• You know how you feel if you wear dirty or creased clothes, if you don’t groom yourself well, if you spend time with losers, or if you don’t get enough exercise or sleep.
• And you know how you feel if you associate with winners, wear smart clothes, look your best, and go to top restaurants.

When you feel good about yourself, it’s because you have systematically created that situation, and you will achieve a lot more. Simply making the right adjustments in your life will go a long way to improving your self-esteem, and we earn money in direct proportion to our level of self-esteem.

How We Learn:

• Taste 1%
• Touch 1.5%
• Smell 3.5% (yet it is the most emotional sense)
• Hearing 11%
• SIGHT 85%!

Because visual triggers are so important (ask any advertiser), I designed a few triggers you might want to take advantage of.

Carefully Design Your Environment

My office is very carefully designed to visually trigger motivation, work, belief, optimism, feelings of well being and success, joy, and peace of mind.

I remove anything that has a negative trigger for me. Photographs of people who hurt me get removed and replaced.

Everywhere I look, I see multiple triggers.  I surround myself with:

• Gifts from people I like, respect, and love.
• Reminders of past victories.
• Reminders of future promises.
• Symbols of success and strength.

Our entire home is like that. Rika and I are careful about our triggers, and we’re highly disciplined. Cleanliness, orderliness, and high quality are important to us.

Do Some Spring-Cleaning

Take a good look at the triggers in your life, from people to things, and do some spring-cleaning. After all, it is spring, and every day is the first day of the rest of your life. Create an environment that makes you happy, healthy, and successful.

I am a bit of a Luddite compared to many people.

Friday afternoon I decided to rent a GPS along with a car to get from Calgary Airport to my hotel. I had never used a GPS before, and I was amazed at how it guided me effortlessly and faultlessly on  35 minute trip through Friday afternoon traffic, rain, road construction, etc., in a city that I had never had the dubious pleasure of driving in before. It revealed an analogy to me…

DollarMakers is designed to be your retirement GPS system. Here are some interesting analogies:

#1 – Linking to Current Conditions

The GPS System is linked to satellites, and has up-to-date information on the roads.

Many so-called “Mentors” and “Coaches” are regurgitating outdated ideas that don’t work. DollarMakers is on the cutting edge of Joint Ventures, partnered internationally with very successful mentors and business leaders, and well aware of current conditions, opportunities, and pitfalls.

#2 – You Are Never Alone

The GPS system talks to you and customizes your route. The voice is impersonal, relaxed, objective, and rational. When, on two occasions, I missed the turnoff route, it simply said, “Recalibrating…” and issued an alternative. I was never alone or left hung out to dry. It was very forgiving.

DollarMakers is a successful, 22-year-old company, and our JV partners are successful people. We’re not scraping the barrel for a quick buck or pressuring naïve and unsuspecting victims for their money. Our motive is to help you achieve your goals by reaching your destination, because, as Zig Ziglar said:

“You can get anything you want out of life if you’re prepared to help enough other people to get what they want.”

#3 – Arriving by The Shortest Possible Route

You can rest assured that the GPS will guide you to your destination by the shortest possible route. Learn from our mistakes, avoid the landmines and the rip-off artists, and fast-track your success. I didn’t second-guess the GPS, believe you me. We have realistic expectations and the experience to guide you.

#4 – A Trusted Partner

You have a trusted partner with you on your journey, not some fool who is holding the wrong,  outdated map upside down, can’t find his reading glasses, and expects you to turn after you passed the turnoff ramp, while giving you conflicting instructions and belittling you for wasting gas and time, and ending up parked in the middle of nowhere, out of gas and in a bad temper, where he picks your pocket and then blames you for his poor guidance.

#5 – Adjusting for Conditions

When the traffic was heavy or I missed a turnoff, the GPS would adjust it’s arrival time accordingly. It didn’t tease me or rebuke me for taking longer than expected – it was patient and persistent.

In life and business, things don’t always work out perfectly – one hits traffic lights, construction sites, accidents, wrong turns, and bad weather, but one doesn’t abandon one’s car in the middle of traffic and flounce off down the road, blaming the GPS system for one’s lack of character and intelligence. That’s what losers do, and we have met our share of them. It doesn’t change the fact that the GPS is correct.

#6 – A Customizable System

The GPS took me to MY destination, not the destination of the GPS – it didn’t have some hidden agenda, and it customized my route specially for me. DollarMakers is a customizable system, with flexible options and multiple opportunities.

DollarMakers is Your Retirement GPS

DollarMakers has all you need to succeed, and we are continually innovating and creating new material, tools, support, and connections for our valued Members and Joint Venture partners. We walk our talk.

If I decided to buy a GPS system, I would buy the most expensive one available, and I would commit myself to following its instructions to the letter, resting assured that as long as I did so, I would arrive, eventually, at my destination.

If you want to retire and achieve financial freedom, and you’re prepared to do whatever it takes and follow a proven system without quitting, DollarMakers can be your personal GPS – your own, personalized guidance system.

Think of a specific amount of money that would make a dramatic and exciting difference in your life.

Now imagine that you knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that you and your entire family would be tortured to death in a horrible manner (think of the movie, “Saw”) if you didn’t achieve that specific, exciting financial goal within exactly three months.

What would you do?

Could you achieve that goal?

Imagine your beloved kids having their podgy little paws severed, and you’ll quickly start making new choices. (Did that get your attention?)

More importantly:

• What would you do differently?
• What would you change?
• What would you stop doing?
• What would you start doing?
• Who would you call?
• What would you suddenly be prepared to do under those circumstances that you refuse to do now?

Most of us are too lazy, content, comfortable, and timid to do things outside of our comfort zone, and we allow our low self-esteem and fear of embarrassment to keep us from the wonderful achievements that we could accomplish.

It’s About Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone

Instead of sending you to a shrink (who is usually even more screwed up than we are), putting you through a motivational seminar every morning of your life, or chasing you around with a large, spiky stick, I suggest the easier route is to take the time to imagine the terrible consequences of remaining in your comfortable little molehill of mellow, yellow mediocrity.

When you play this game, you start to see all sorts of real options you might not previously have had the guts to confront.

Is It You Can’t or You Won’t?

You see, our biggest barrier isn’t the fact that we can’t accomplish something, but rather the fact that we won’t, because of our fear of other people’s opinions. Scary, I know, but true. We don’t fear failure per se; we fear the reactions of others if we were to fail. “What would they say? I would feel so embarrassed!”

How much more embarrassed would you feel if you learned that you had six months to live (watch “Breaking Bad”), and you had been too bashful, self-absorbed, and apathetic to provide adequately for your family when you had the opportunity?

Try this one: Imagine you get hit by a heavy truck while meandering across a busy street in the rain, so you’re confined to a wheelchair and can’t speak, and your fifty-something, arthritic wife has to work as a shelf packer at Safeway in the day and a cleaner at MacDonald’s at night to support your pathetic asset? (Problem is, there are so many useless men already living off their wives…)

Consider Your Real Alternatives

Playing head games frees us up to consider our real alternatives, to weigh up our present use of time and resources, and to think outside the box. We need to mentally exceed our pain threshold in order to imagine the unimaginable.

Playing this “torturous consequences” game allows us to peek out from under our moldy old security blanket and realize that we’re using around 4% of our potential, and that the lies we’ve been telling ourselves about what we can’t do are really just self delusion.

Think of Ricky Bobby in “Talladega Nights”, when he convinced himself he was paralyzed – a hilarious hospital scene that has a serious ring of truth to it. We all suffer from self-deception. When he stuck a real knife into his thigh to prove his point to his friends, he had a painful awakening.

Make Your Excuse Irrelevant

Yes, you can achieve magnificent goals, and all the barriers are just in your head. DollarMakers teaches how you can achieve any financial goals with no cost or risk, so all those weak excuses are no longer relevant. If only you can believe it to be so. Hence the dramatic imagination game.

If you have a vivid imagination and take the time to really get yourself into this head game, you might be amazed at what you could accomplish. Suddenly, you would do things that you currently avoid like the proverbial plague, not because you can’t do them, but because you fear the opinions of people who really don’t give a damn, don’t care, don’t notice, and don’t matter.

Get over yourself, get over your mental barriers, and get down to the bank to cash in on your grossly underutilized potential. Some once said. “THINK and grow rich…”

Antoine de Saint-Exupery said:

“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.”

“Congruency” means your life is congruent – you walk your talk – you live according to your deepest core values and beliefs, good or bad.

•    Consistent behavior and choices are usually an indication of congruency – actions speak louder than words.
•    The opposite is passive aggression, hypocrisy, and political correctness.

When choosing a Joint Venture partner, look for congruency, patterns, and proof. Do your own due diligence.

Someone might be consistently irrational or dishonest, displaying a congruency, which reflects their lack of integrity.  You can’t judge a book by its cover, but you can judge people by the company they consistently keep.

Your Partner’s Philosophy Ultimately Affects You

You need to understand the philosophy of people in order to predict their future choices, and the future choices of your JV partners will affect your own future.

Umshini wami, also known as Awuleth’ Umshini Wami (English, Bring me my machine gun), is a popular Zulu language “struggle song” used formerly by members of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the military wing of the African National Congress of Nelson Mandela, during the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa. Most recently, the song is identified with the persona of Jacob Zuma, the new South African Prime Minister, and is often sung at rallies which involve him and his supporters, including the ANC Youth League. Here are the words:

“My machine my machine Gun
Please bring my machine gun
My machine gun my machine gun
Please bring my machine gun
My machine gun my machine gun
Please bring my machine gun
Please bring my machine gun
You’re pulling me back
My machine gun, Please bring my machine gun”

Knowing that, how would you like to JV with this character, regardless of his official status?

How to Choose the Right Joint Venture Partner

•    Don’t base your opinion of someone on his or her station in life, wealth, position, or political power.
•    And never believe what the media tells you.

My best JV partners have always been humble, unassuming, successful, and consistently honest.

•    Test your potential JV partners in small ways before committing to large JV’s – allow them to prove themselves first.
Until then, wear a bulletproof vest.

Jim Rohn once talked on an audio tape about how one could theoretically complete an entire university degree while commuting to and from work, simply by listening to tapes.

Putting “Time Vampires” to the Stake

If you work out how much time we waste watching mindless TV shows and sport, and listening to brain dead DJ’s and media propaganda on the radio, it’s amazing how much time we waste. And time is our most valuable, irreplaceable resource.

Get rid of what Dan Kennedy calls “Time Vampires”. If every minute cost you $100, would you spend it so easily? Yet it is worth far more than that.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” ~ Steve Jobs

Avoiding a Bitter Ending

As we get older, we start to realize the value of time, and how much we have wasted. Kids grow up, we get old and fragile, and time moves inexorably on.

We don’t want to live in regret, like those who wait to enjoy their lives, and when they finally have the time and money, their health is gone. NOW is the time to enjoy your life, because who knows what tomorrow brings?

Before you know it, you’re old and bitter, your strength and vitality is depleted, and your relationships soured. You can avoid that.

Joint Venture Brokers Use Leverage – Not Time!

The big thief of time is working too hard and too long to make too little money. This can be solved by becoming a Joint Venture Broker, where you can leverage other peoples’ time, resources and money in order to become financially free. Work smart, not hard. Instead of selling your time like a paid slave, use your brain and leverage.

“For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned.”

Linking Problems with Solutions

Time well spent is a great investment in your future, and in terms of money, the beauty of being a Joint Venture Broker is that you can work any time of the day or night, using the phone and the Internet, while driving or waiting for things.

There is no more excuse for JV Brokers to say, “I didn’t have time”, because you’re not selling time – you’re linking people and opportunities, delegating, introducing, and managing relationships, like  general in the army, rather than a soldier in the trenches.

The meetings you do have in person can be worth a thousand times what an employee or time salesman can earn in an hour.

Break Free with Your Own Joint Venture Broker Business

I can run my JV Broker business from anywhere in the world, in one hour a day. Sure, it takes time and work to get to that level, but isn’t it worth working hard for one year on your brokerage, and then working one hour a day to maintain your freedom? Better, I think, than working like a slave until you drop dead, which is the future for many people, especially in this new economy and with the direction governments are taking us.

You Only Get Today ONCE

Don’t be a clone and a robot – break free, so that you can spend your own time as you wish, where you wish, with whom you wish. Today is the first day of the rest of your life, and it will never return. Life is not a dress rehearsal – you only get today ONCE. One life. One chance. It’s not too late to change.

Someone once said,

“Everybody’s a self-made man; but only the successful ones are ever willing to admit it.”

Frederick Douglass: A Story of Unbreakable Determination

Frederick Douglass’s life seems to be the prototype of the American rags to riches story. Born as a slave, he was deprived of any favorable circumstances. Yet, through hard work and with the help of an unbreakable determination, he managed to free himself and to become one of the most prominent African Americans of his times. He said:

“Self-made men are the men who owe little or nothing to birth, relationship, friendly surroundings; to wealth inherited or to early approved means of education; who are what they are, without the aid of any of the favoring conditions by which other men usually rise in the world and achieve great results.

My theory of self-made men is, then, simply this; that they are men of work. Whether or not such men have acquired material, moral or intellectual excellence, honest labor faithfully, steadily and persistently pursued, is the best, if not the only, explanation of their success. All human experience proves over and over again, that any success which comes through meanness, trickery, fraud and dishonor, is but emptiness and will only be a torment to its possessor.”

Reconstructing Your Future

Our past choices have brought us to our present circumstances. We have created who we are and what we have.

Excuses about how bad our upbringing was and the amount of times we were cheated carry no weight, when compared with the hardships overcome by people in far more adverse conditions. Was your situation worse than that of a Second World War concentration camp survivor? Once we have the courage to accept responsibility for our past choices, we can start to reconstruct our futures, no matter at what age.

“As A Man Thinketh”

James Allen, in his wonderful book which had a major impact on my life, “As A Man Thinketh” (download it FREE at www.asamanthinketh.com), he said:

“Of all the beautiful truths pertaining to the soul which have been restored and brought to the light in this age, none is more gladdening or fruitful of divine promise and confidence than this – that man is the master of thought, the molder of character, and the maker and shaper of condition, environment, and destiny. As a being of power, intelligence, and love, and the lord of his own thoughts, man holds the key to every situation, and contains within him that transforming and regenerative agency by which he may make of himself what he wills.”

All You Need to Achieve Greatness

Having this attitude and assuming the responsibility is the foundation upon which one can build any future one desires, however two more ingredients are required in order to achieve greatness:

• Access to the right people,
• and guidance along the way.

For this reason, I created DollarMakers. What future will you create?

What is ‘Multiple Streams of Passive Income’?  What are it’s advantages.  Are there any disadvantages?

There are many different paths to creating and earning Multiple Streams of Passive Income.  In the below video I discuss some of them, and I compare them to Joint Ventures as a road to Passive Income.

I believe, that with Joint Ventures, once can create MASSIVE passive income streams from many different directions.  And I believe that ANYONE can do it.

Watch Now.