The most lucrative Joint Venture one can engage in usually involves a Center of Influence.

• This is a person who has the respect, admiration, trust, cooperation, and attention of a large group of people with whom he or she regularly communicates.
• This database of people is strongly inclined to follow the directions, instruction, advice, and suggestions of their leader, and they often do so blindly, as do most sheep.

And herein lies the challenge:

There are some dishonest and psychopathic centers of influence that misuse and abuse their power and their people, selling their loyal followers pigs in pokes, and taking advantage of their position of power to the disadvantage of their flock. One wants to identify and avoid these centers of influence like the plague.

You will be judged by your associations and the company you keep, and aligning yourself with con artists is financially tempting, but is as unwise as eating chocolate cake doused in strychnine.

The Most Valuable Activity of Any JV Broker

Seek out the honest and sincere centers of influence.

I would rather spend $2,000 working on a relationship with one genuine center of influence who has integrity, than reach hundreds of individuals who are not centers of influence. Those who have successfully Joint Ventured with good centers of influence know how valuable those relationships are. This is BY FAR the most valuable activity of any JV Broker: finding and pitching centers of influence.

7 Pointers for Gaining Top Notch Associates

Here are seven pointers that you would do well to be aware of:

#1 – Not everyone who has a large database is a center of influence.

There are characters lurking on the Internet who have plagiarized lots of information and built large opt-in databases under false pretenses – those databases are usually low quality, and your hit rate and conversion rate will be very low, while those you do convert will be low quality, too.

You want a high quality relationship between the center of influence and his or her people, and a high quality person in the database. Quality is more important than quantity.

#2 – Centers of influence can lose their credibility…

…with their flock as the products, services and investments they sold their followers prove to be scams at worst, and empty promises at best. The chickens come home, as it were, to roost.

Be on top of things and be current in your information about your target centers of influence. Things change, and there are a lot of posers and has-beens out there. Some centers of influence are on their way out.

#3 – All centers of influence are busy

…and what we hate more than anything else is an MLM type that sells lotions, potions, swill, and pills, snake oil and weight loss products, magic drinks, and overpriced vitamins and placebo effect products.

Realize that JV’s that involve the aforementioned and start-ups, unproven, miracle investments, gold mines in far-away places, and property/real estate “investments” in volatile, unstable third world countries are not JV’s most intelligent and honest centers of influence will even consider. We hear a lot of hype, and we have “BS Detectors”.

#4 – Don’t be intimidated by a center of influence.

They all want more money, and they all realize they can leverage their database. And they’re all looking for good, solid, lucrative, and viable JV’s that don’t involve cost, risk, or time.

#5 – Your Presentation:

Look, act, groom yourself, dress, and present yourself at least at the same level of professionalism as your prospect.

Showing up badly dressed, unshaven, covered in cat hair, answering your cell phone in the meeting, surreptitiously  glancing at your Blackberry or cell phone every few minutes (usually the sign of a lack of discipline and/or desperation), being unprepared, or smelling of tobacco, will simply irritate your prospect and end the meeting before it begins. And if you’re overdressed (glitzy, embroidered French cuffs, bling, big mouth, loud, ostentatious, aggressive and egotistical), you simply reveal that you’re intimidated, nouveau riche, or stupid. (Or all three.)

Be demure, professional, high quality, self confident, relaxed, and focused.

#6 – Your Offer and Approach:

Your offer has to be sufficiently financially rewarding to get the avid attention of your prospect.

• Get it in writing.  Click here for information about writing up an MOU, otherwise known as Memorandum of Understanding.
• Run it by your lawyer. I use Pre-Paid Legal and save a fortune on lawyers.
• Be very specific.
• Be concise and to the point, and remember that you have little time and only one opportunity to make a good impression. Talk about the bottom line and the time it will take to deliver the profit.
• Also mention who will control the money. This can easily be a deal breaker.
• Do your homework and position yourself.

#7 – This is a JV between equals.

…and you’re not a sales person or employee, so don’t act like one.

Be prepared to walk away from the deal. No center of influence wants to deal with someone who is in financial distress or under pressure to make money.

By seeking out solid, professional, and honest JV partners, you build your financial future on a firm foundation. Be selective, patient, and focused, and the sky’s the limit when dealing with centers of influence. DollarMakers is built on JV’s with good people.

Are You Stuck?

All our problems are essentially thinking problems, since our interpretation and reaction, and all our ensuing choices with their consequences, are based on our philosophy, beliefs, values, and definitions of precepts.

In our world, band-aid solutions are well packaged with shiny bows and sold easily and quickly, being bought by lazy people who want a quick fix.

How about fixing the root cause, instead? Success and failure are driven more by self-esteem, belief, philosophy, and interpretation than by location, location, location, or by access to good systems and tools.

Humans Have to Acquire, Retain, and Integrate Knowledge of Reality

In Ayn Rand’s “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology”, she states,

“Concepts have a hierarchical structure, i.e., . . . the higher, more complex abstractions are derived from the simpler, basic ones (starting with the concepts of perceptually given concretes). Since the definition of a concept is formulated in terms of other concepts, it enables man, not only to identify and retain a concept, but also to establish the relationships, the hierarchy, the integration of all his concepts and thus the integration of his knowledge. Definitions preserve, not the chronological order in which a given man may have learned concepts, but the logical order of their hierarchical interdependence.”

She writes in “The Psycho-Epistemology of Art,” from her book, “The Romantic Manifesto”, that

“[There is a] long conceptual chain that starts from simple, ostensive definitions and rises to higher and still higher concepts, forming a hierarchical structure of knowledge so complex that no electronic computer could approach it. It is by means of such chains that man has to acquire and retain his knowledge of reality.”

Getting Rich Can Be A Positive Experience

When someone believes that getting rich is a sin, no amount of training, motivation, or support will help him or her avoid a mediocre income.

A guilty person who believes they deserve nothing but punishment seldom enjoys fulfilling relationships. And salespeople who are convinced that their products are poor quality will seldom win sales awards, unless they’re sociopaths.

A socialist will make different choices to a capitalist, and reap different rewards. The extent to which we suffer is the extent to which we interpret our circumstances and respond to them.

Reading “Atlas Shrugged” Will Do a Lot for your Business

When I tell entrepreneurs that reading “Atlas Shrugged” will do more for their business than an MBA, they chuckle. But I know people with MBA’s whose personal philosophies and conditioning ensure nothing but deficiency, frustration, and failure in business.

I presented a Joint Venture Bootcamp in Vancouver a few years back. One graduate took a single idea I shared and turned it into a $60,000 per month income at no expense. Another, who had a lot more money, claimed that the systems I teach don’t work. He’s right. They don’t work for HIM, and they WON’T work for him, until he changes his weltanschauung. Sowing pearls before swine has never worked well. Acorns don’t grow into mighty oaks when planted in concrete.

When we have the motivation and courage to

• revisit,
• re-evaluate,
• reinterpret,
• and fix our basic beliefs about
  • who we are,
  • what business is,
  • how money works,
  • what we deserve,
  • how life works,
  • what is right and wrong,
  • and what success is,

- everything changes.

Breaking free from the cruel, calculated, cold conditioning that creates serfs, sacrifices, and the mental, emotional and financial slavery that so many of us have been subjected to is not easy. But it is possible.

Looking in The Mirror Takes Guts

Looking in the mirror, taking responsibility, questioning our basic beliefs, and asking hard questions about the motives of, and messages from our parents, preachers, politicians, and professors takes guts.

But those who seek to remove the scales from their eyes find themselves soaring to new heights of

• fulfillment,
• peace,
• joy,
• success,
• and wealth.

Where to start?

I recommend reading “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand. Beware the “coaches”, “counselors” and “therapists” who might do more harm than good; only take advice from someone who already has what you want. Break free!

I asked a group of life insurance salespeople whom I was training on behalf of a well-known bank if they could possibly double their sales within the next three months.

Naturally, they all replied that it would be impossible. Then I asked them,

“If your family was held captive and (I named a celebrity with a reputation for violence) was to show up with a shotgun and tell you he would kill your entire family if you didn’t double your sales in three months, could you do it now?”

First, they sheepishly (I feel that adverb is most apt) admitted that, given that level of urgency and motivation, they could definitely double their sales, then they reported me to their bosses for being politically incorrect and “upsetting them”.

I fired the bank as a client – I don’t do business with clients who prefer low productivity to honesty.

Being Exposed and Challenged

Why did they immediately attack me?

Why release their pent up, festering, passive aggression?

Why not be grateful to realize that they could, indeed, double their sales? A producer would certainly not have responded in this manner. Here’s why:

1. The slothful sluggards had to immediately divert attention from the fact that their ineptitude and low productivity had been revealed, and that they would now be responsible, having admitted the possibility, for doubling their sales. That new level of production would mean they would have to confront issues in their lives, forego their weak excuses, change their behavior, and do uncomfortable things in order to get better results. And they wanted to avoid that at all costs. Tall trees catch the wind, and when a loser doesn’t like what he sees in the mirror, he smashes the mirror.
2. Anyone exposing a parasite for what he is becomes the enemy of the parasite. In spite of the fact that I was just doing my job, which was getting more production out of these so-called sales professionals, and that I was indeed helping them shift their paradigm in order for them to earn higher commissions, they chose to attack me. I was doing my job too well! They wanted to be motivated and congratulated, not exposed and challenged. I was putting the status quo in jeopardy.
3. Misdirection is used by magicians and politicians alike. Political correctness is the poisoned tip of the spears of socialism, statism, and collectivism. It is the tool of the mystics and the politicians.

The Same Amount of Work Could Be Done With Half the Employees

Years ago, I was a Work Study Officer in a government department, a job I grabbed to put some money in the bank after a nasty divorce.

I was ordered to conduct an organization and methods examination of a large typing pool, and the result of my work was my suggestion that half the bureaucrat typists be summarily fired, and that the same amount of work could be done with half the employees.

I was called into my boss’s office and told to withdraw my report immediately. After all, these people had families to feed – they were the friends and family of many of the people in the Work Study department, and they needed those jobs!

Three months later, I resigned, started my own business and never worked for a boss again. That was nearly twenty-three years ago.

Political correctness is what Ayn Rand refers to as “Collectivized Ethics” in her book, “The Virtue of Selfishness”, written in 1967, and more relevant today than ever before:

“Hence the appalling recklessness with which men propose, discuss and accept ‘humanitarian’ projects. ‘Medicare’ is an example of such a project. ‘Isn’t it desirable that the aged should have medical care in times of illness?’ Considered out of context, the answer would be: yes, it is desirable. And it is at this point that the mental processes of a collectivized brain are cut off; the rest is fog. The fog hides such facts as the enslavement and, therefore, the destruction of medical science, the regimentation and disintegration of all medical practice, and the sacrifice of the professional integrity, the freedom, the careers, the ambitions, the achievements, the happiness, the lives of the very men who are to provide that ‘desirable’ goal – the doctors.”

The 2012 Misdirection

Right now, many people are becoming enthralled with the new movie, “2012 – An epic adventure about a global cataclysm that brings an end to the world”.

The 2012 doomsday belief suggests that the Mayans foretold the end of the world at this time and, since the world is ending, there is no need to continue counting days or making calendars past that point.

Think about it – isn’t it a lot easier to discuss the end of the world than taking responsibility for your daily life? Wouldn’t moochers and looters prefer to focus on something vague in the future, rather than admitting that they are failing miserably in the present? Misdirection.

The Ugly Truth For “Politically Correct”

The most dangerous people are the politically correct. They are the snakes and the back-biters, and they represent the majority of people today. They squirm in their seats when I mention the word, “loser”, because they know they’re losers. They bristle when I state the fact that we’re fat, not because we’re retaining water, not because of hormones or our metabolism, but because we won’t put the fork down.

The smokers seethe when I tell them they stink. And when I say that Obama is a socialist, they tremble with fear and indignation. I tell it like it is, and I don’t give a damn what anyone says or thinks. If they won’t rock the boat, I certainly will. Turkeys pretending to be eagles are no threat to real eagles.

The reason for being “politically correct” is to redistribute wealth from the producers and creators to the parasites and the lazy. It is to deflect responsibility and hide reality, and to allow the looters to steal with impunity. Be aware – Atlas will shrug, and is already doing so.

Here’s a true story and how you can do the same – with all the assistance, guidance, and templates you need – FREE.

No selling, no cost, no risk – it doesn’t get better than this!

Watch the video and download it all here.

First, Let’s Agree That Money Can Buy Time.

• If you can afford to fly instead of drive, you save time.
• If you can afford the money to delegate and subcontract, you can save time.
• If you can hire experts, you can save time. You can pay others to do stuff for you. That saves time.

Money also buys health – the best medical care, diets, exercise, avoidance of financial stress, security, enough rest, peace of mind, holidays, leisure, and so on.

Working Hard to Save Time = Neglecting Your Family & You

So it’s chicken and egg to most people who don’t understand how to create real wealth – they say,

“If I work very hard, lick my boss’s boots, neglect my family, and sell my soul, I’ll have enough money to buy time.”

Not true, as you will find. You’ll lose your health, family, and half your life by the time you learn that the system most people rely on doesn’t work.

I have a far better solution for you.

Free Up Time To Make Money

Now that we agree that money can buy time, in order to make the money, we need to free up some time so that we can put in some very strategic work for about six months to a year, at which time we will be free.

And this isn’t some MLM scam. It took Patrick Giesbrecht 7 months and it took Dick Low five months.

Here’s How You Can Start Saving Time FAST:

1. Analyze your present time expenditure. Write down what you’re doing every fifteen minutes for one week. You will be SHOCKED, I guarantee you. Time is our most valuable, irreplaceable resource, yet we waste it like drunken sailors.
2. Remove unproductive activities from your life. Look at each expenditure, or “Time Investment”, and ask yourself:
   - “Is this activity taking me towards my goal of financial freedom, or not? Is it necessary?”
   - “Is it urgent or important?”
   - “Why am I doing this?”
   If it’s not essential, scrap it right away.

   The parasites and resentful relatives will hate you for it, but you don’t need them. Remove excessive TV, attending events with losers, telephone chats that have no purpose, surfing the Net with no goal, movies, watching sport, and anything else that doesn’t create real results.

3. Discipline yourself – cut the time you allocate to other tasks – wake up earlier, take shorter baths and showers, give yourself less time for normal activities – the activity always stretches to fill the time allocated. Ten minutes here, five minutes there, all adds up fast.
4. Close your Facebook account. Get out of those online Chatrooms and stop e-mailing and texting stupid jokes to friends – NOW.
5. Resign from organizations, clubs, and groups that are filled with wanna-be’s and losers. If there is no measurable return on investment, resign immediately. When you have time and money, you can rejoin if you really want to. You probably won’t – by that time, you will realize what losers those people are.
6. Delegate, subcontract, and go without when you can. Focus on creating time that you can allocate to the creation of Financial Freedom.
7. Stop carrying other people or doing things because you feel sorry for people or obliged. Read this book: “The Virtue of Selfishness” by Ayn Rand. Stop volunteering immediately. You can do that when you have time and money.
8. Unless you’re making serious money from it, or it takes very little time, break your ties with Network Marketing. It will eat your time and money like a hungry cannibal.
9. Stop reading newspapers – if the news is important, you will hear about it. Use Twitter instead, and don’t follow more than 30 people at any given time.
10. Don’t attend any face-to face meeting unless you absolutely have to. And systematically remove all the losers and posers from your life. They are a waste of your time. Only associate with successful winners.

You Can Retire in Less Than a Year

If you do all of the above, you will find you have a lot more time available in which to create more monthly, residual / passive income than you need to live on, if you follow my money-making, Joint Venture instructions.

You will be able to retire in less than a year with all the time and money you want.

The Next Step is to Start Creating Wealth

Anyone can do this, regardless of your age, background, education, or circumstances.

You can do all the following simultaneously, and you can start part-time. While you’re following these steps, read “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand.

NOTE: Before You Start

Set your specific your goals that are:

• Measurable
• Personal
• Exciting

Exactly how much do you need per month in residual income before tax in order to pay your bills and live a comfortable life?

By what date, exactly, have you decided to reach this goal? Commit to this goal. Whatever it takes. No turning back.

Here We Go

• Step 1:
  Take this complimentary online analysis and coaching session.
• Step 2:
  Join DollarMakers or the DollarMakers Women’s Club, or, if you’re a woman, consider joining both. This way, you’re getting involved with the right people and learning to think straight.
• Step 3:
  Take this Online Bootcamp. Apply what you learn, especially the system to earn 1% per month on your bank’s money.
• Step 4:
  Register and start using this powerful, proven system.
• Step 5:
  Attend as many DollarMakers events in person as you can.

Freedom is Worth The Price

Once you have more residual income than you need, you can continue to work just an hour or two a day to make more money and increase your quality of life.

But now you will be living on your own terms, doing what you want, when you want. Freedom is worth the price. The sun, sand, snow, and fun is waiting for you! I’ve done it – join me.

“Your Sense of Scarcity is Showing, Sir!”

It’s been called a “Shrinking Pie” mentality – the doubt and desperation that accompany a feeling of deficiency and shortage.

People with this fearful, often spiteful, suspicious demeanor have a very different approach from those who embrace abundance, expect success, innovate, and generously share.

But those with this debilitating disposition are not simply harmless pessimists – they’re actually dangerous, subtle saboteurs. Why?

An Ounce of Doubt is Like a Drop of Poison

– a portion of rot. Sowing tiny seeds of doubt through a simple facial expression, a few well-chosen words, a hesitant response, a reluctance to proceed, the tendency toward compromise, and greed are all hallmarks of the sharks of scarcity.

These people are bad news for enterprising entrepreneurs. They usually hide secret agendas and fall-back plans, keep back doors open, and easily team up with your enemy behind your back, “just in case”.

Worst of all, they love claiming the unearned and specialize in riding on one’s coat tails.

These are the Parasites of the World

• The looters and moochers who cheer loudly when their Comrade Obama promises (and delivers, I’m sad to say) the redistribution of wealth.
• They’re terrified of being “left out”, even when they have done nothing to earn inclusion, and they are the first to drop their prices and lower their standards to make a quick buck – usually at the expense of someone else’s reputation.
• They want to work less and earn more – hence their adoration on labor unions. They love titles and accolades, though usually unearned, and bask in the glory of the producers and creators, their own impotence and poisonous pessimism carefully hidden.
• They are quick to call the ideas of the champions “Pollyanna”, yet they want the credit when these ideas work. They are the “Wait and See,” “I’ll think about it” people of the world.
• They  are the slothful, aimless, adult children who are just waiting for their Baby Boomer parents to die, so they can inherit easy money. They will squander and lose it, of course, but they don’t know that.
• They are the friends and relatives who show up at family gatherings empty handed, “forget” their wallets when the bills arrive in restaurants, and hide away like cockroaches when they fail to repay their debts to you.
• They are those who promise the world, talk a lot, pose and parade, but produce virtually nothing.
• They are cheap, stupid, and dangerous.

In her wonderful and enlightening book, “Atlas Shrugged”, Ayn Rand’s parasite characters are Wesley Mouch, Lillian Reardon, James Taggart, and Reardon’s mother and brother.

Having Pegged a Parasite, How to Proceed:

There is only one way to protect your baby child from a staving wolf – SHOOT the wolf. And if you can’t shoot the wolf, grab your baby and get out of there.

Do NOT:

1. Sit down to negotiate with the wolf.
2. Discuss your different philosophies over a cup of warm blood.
3. Compromise –

“OK, Mr. Wolf, how about you just bite one of my baby son’s hands off, and then I take him home – does that work for you?”

Sounds like government taxation to me – much like the Mafia.

The politically correct will set up meetings with terrorists, and a parasite is, in fact, a type of terrorist. Invite him in to your home (or country), and he will bring his terrorist friends.

Don’t be polite to pirates – blow them out of the water.

The Good News:

The good news is that if you are a producer and creator of value, you don’t need the parasites – they need you. Hence taxes.

You can move on to greener fields and create your own virtual Galt’s Gulch. If you’re Atlas, carrying the world of parasites, you can shrug. And you should.

1. You will prosper without parasites.
2. Your profits will proliferate.
3. You will have peace of mind and you will think clearly.

Break free from the putrefying, poisonous parasites, and prosper.

If young people feel more comfortable with organizations, trends, and businesses that are “green” or pretend to promote the environment, health, happiness, song and dance, as opposed to conventional businesses, there is a reason.

They are easily conned by the local business owner who dresses like a hippy and pays for the junior soccer club’s uniforms.

They like Stephen Colbert, Conan O’Brien, and Jon Stewart and sink to new depths with losers like Rosie O’Donnell and Whoopi Goldberg.

Perception is Reality

After all, these people “care about people and the environment”, don’t they? They don’t, actually, but perception is reality, right? Christopher Hitchens was right when he said,

“Europeans think Americans are fat, vulgar, greedy, stupid, ambitious and ignorant and so on. And they’ve taken as their own, as their representative American, someone who actually embodies all those qualities [Michael Moore].”

Among most young people, Capitalism has an image of hubris, greed, arrogance, and bullying. Yet, without Capitalism, there would be no iPods, Apple computers…

Idealism is Strong Amongst the Young

I found myself in a coffee shop in Winnipeg recently. There were bookcases stacked with socialist writings, and the hippy kids were wearing the usual anti-establishment uniform.

Next door was a bicycle store. Many young people voted the socialist Obama into office. They will pay for that choice for a long time.

Perhaps it’s time to fix Capitalism’s bad image, to enlighten people. Education can do that, and since most of the educational institutions are heavily liberal, mystical, or both, we have a difficult task ahead of us.

Getting Rich Attacking the Rich

What young people don’t see is the hard-nosed capitalism hidden behind the façade of environmentalism and mysticism.

The people selling the

• marijuana,
• blessings,
• hippy clothes,
• and organic food

- are making serious money.

Michael Moore gets rich attacking rich people. And he’s not sharing his wealth with you.

Money is the Root of All Good

The mission of my business is to help people create financial freedom. But without changing one’s philosophy to one of laissez faire capitalism, it is difficult to create and sustain real wealth.

So I write and speak and Tweet and share the message –

“Money is the root of all good.”

My books are illegally printed and sold in China and India without my permission, and of course I don’t get any royalties, but I don’t care – as long as the message is spread, I’m happy.

In fact, I give my books away as complimentary downloads from my websites, along with my podcasts.

DollarMakers continues to grow internationally, and we proudly promote Capitalism and make money in the process.

Break Free of Collectivism

But there is an easier way to spread the good news about Capitalism: I tell everyone I meet to read Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”.

If someone is truly intelligent and sufficiently open-minded, that book tends to do the trick. If it leads someone to read “The Virtue of Selfishness”, they can break free of collectivism, and hopefully mysticism, too.

If you’re scalping hockey tickets, selling pot, whining about high taxes, or mumbling absentmindedly about the weather and the price of eggs, you probably encounter very little resistance or intransigence.

However, when you offer an alternative to the popular status quo, suggest a substitute to mind-numbing mysticism, or present a different perspective, essentially questioning strongly held beliefs and established conditioning, you suddenly find yourself facing blank stares, passive aggression, or outright conflict.

Controversial, politically incorrect information is not usually well received. This, in spite of the fact that your information can potentially dramatically improve the quality of life of your reluctant target. There’s a reason for this, and it’s not your fault.

We all tend to seek out and select information to support our dominant beliefs and avoid pain. I thought three concepts would help illuminate what we’re up against when we follow that road less traveled and wish to share real treasure with the mediocre masses.

First, Cognitive Dissonance:

“Cognitive Dissonance normally occurs when a person perceives a logical inconsistency among his or her cognitions. This happens when one idea implies the opposite of another. For example, a belief in animal rights could be interpreted as inconsistent with eating meat or wearing fur. Noticing the contradiction would lead to dissonance, which could be experienced as anxiety, guilt, shame, anger, embarrassment, stress, and other negative emotional states.” – Wikipedia

Imagine the fellow who strongly believes, as he was taught, that he should always “Turn the other cheek”, and so he does, and as a result of his passivity, he finds himself continually bullied, so he feels anger at the obvious injustice.

Now he feels guilty because he’s angry. A double bind has resulted from his sacrificial conditioning; he’s damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t.

Or he works hard, makes money, and then feels obliged, because of his conditioning, to submit to the extortion of his loafing relatives. Naturally, he resents this, so he feels guilty…

Final example: He believes money to be the root of all evil, so when he earns it, he feels guilty and self-sabotages to punish himself.

Second, Cognitive Distortion:

From Wikipedia:

“Cognitive distortions are exaggerated and irrational thoughts identified in cognitive therapy and its variants, which supposedly perpetuate certain psychological disorders. Eliminating these distortions and negative thought is said to improve mood and discourage maladies such as depression and chronic anxiety. The process of learning to refute these distortions is called “cognitive restructuring”.

Many cognitive distortions are also logical fallacies.

1. All-or-nothing thinking – Thinking of things in absolute terms, like “always”, “every”, “never”, and “there is no alternative”. Few aspects of human behavior are so absolute. All-or-nothing-thinking can contribute to depression.
2. Overgeneralization – Taking isolated cases and using them to make wide generalizations.
3. Mental filter – Focusing almost exclusively on certain, usually negative or upsetting, aspects of an event while ignoring other positive aspects. For example, focusing on a tiny imperfection in a piece of otherwise useful clothing.
4. Disqualifying the positive – Continually reemphasizing or “shooting down” positive experiences for arbitrary, ad hoc reasons.
5. Jumping to conclusions – Drawing conclusions (usually negative) from little (if any) evidence. Two specific subtypes are also identified:
6. * Mind reading – Assuming special knowledge of the intentions or thoughts of others.
   * Fortune telling – Exaggerating how things will turn out before they happen.
7. Magnification and minimization – Distorting aspects of a memory or situation through magnifying or minimizing them such that they no longer correspond to objective reality. In depressed clients, often the positive characteristics of other people are exaggerated and negative characteristics are understated. There is one subtype of magnification:
   * Catastrophizing – Focusing on the worst possible outcome, however unlikely, or thinking that a situation is unbearable or impossible when it is really just uncomfortable.
8. Emotional reasoning – Making decisions and arguments based on intuitions or personal feeling rather than an objective rationale and evidence.
9. Should statements – Patterns of thought which imply the way things “should” or “ought to be” rather than the actual situation the patient is faced with, or having rigid rules which the patient believes will “always apply” no matter what the circumstances are. Albert Ellis termed this “Musturbation”.
10. Labeling and mislabeling – Explaining behaviors or events, merely by naming them; related to overgeneralization. Rather than describing the specific behavior, a patient assigns a label to someone or themselves that implies absolute and unalterable terms. Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.
11. Personalization – Attribution of personal responsibility (or causal role) for events over which the patient has no control. This pattern is also applied to other in the attribution of blame.”

Where People Are Really Coming From

When you read the above, it makes it easier to see where people are really coming from, instead of taking their “rejection” personally. It explains why otherwise intelligent people join cults, vote for narcissistic socialists while claiming to be capitalists, and invest their money in ridiculous scams.

It reveals why most people prefer to be told what to do and what to think by those who do not have their best interests at heart, and why rational, proven solutions are rejected outright as “to good to be true”, “from the devil”, or “dishonest” – why someone would prefer to lose money in mutual funds and ripoffs instead of getting 12% per year, or buy silly franchises and lose a small fortune when they could make a lot more money with no cost or risk at all.

Cognitive Therapy

Cognitive therapy seeks to help the client overcome difficulties by identifying and changing dysfunctional thinking, behavior, and emotional responses. Depending on your situation and circumstances, unless you’re a psychologist or psychiatrist, you’re not going to make a huge change in the way the majority of people think. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, simply because most people seldom choose to change.

But there is a way to influence and help more people positively in their own best interests: education. Not the junk spewed out by teachers, preachers, politicians, many “financial planners”, banks, and “gurus”, but real, worthwhile education.

The Creation of Wealth

DollarMakers is based on the idea that

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

The information / education we create and disseminate is particularly focused on the creation of wealth, and underpinned by a philosophy of Capitalism, realism, Objectivism, and rationalism.

We believe that continuous exposure to truth, objective thought, personal responsibility, and practical, proven systems eventually gets through to a few people, and that assists us in achieving our goals.

I recommend everyone read “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand, and I use my talks, training, seminars, websites, Twitter, blog, podcasts, videos, conference calls, webinars, and other communication channels to share reality and dispel the myths and lies that keep people chained and in bondage.