Leonard Peikoff said,

“The unphilosophical majority among men are the ones most helplessly dependent on their era’s dominant ideas. In times of crises, these men need the guidance of some kind of theory; but, being unfamiliar with the field of ideas, they do not know that alternatives to the popular theories are possible. They know only what they have always been taught.”

Most of us depend on our own limited, fear-based, scarcity-oriented frame of reference when it comes to our perception, interpretations, and choices. We’re unaware that we are dealing with a miniscule amount of information, and therefore severely limiting our choices.

Explore Fearlessly

My ex father-in-law, Peter, was a brilliant man, a real-life rocket scientist, and a crazy Hollander. He had an amazing brain and could read four books a day. Perhaps this explains my daughter’s high IQ, but I digress.

Peter’s mind eagerly leaped over boundaries and explored the unknown like a young collie dog off the leash in a forest. And because he fearlessly exposed his brain to every possible philosophy and insight, he continually expanded his frame of reference and deliberately questioned his own conclusions and interpretations. One has to have high self-esteem and loads of courage to do that.

Why Everything Looks Yellow

We are all conditioned by our education, environment, culture, past experiences, and families, and we are all locked in to one or another cult, and all this conspires to limit our awareness of the options and alternatives available to us. So we tend to operate and make choices within a very limited sphere of possibilities.

Like a goldfish in a bowl, compared to a fish in the ocean. Like a prisoner in a cell compared to a world traveler. Like the average person. Life and business is a magnificent buffet, with millions of exciting food options laid out before us, but the blinders we wear and the shackles we choose restrict us to a diet of broccoli and green bananas. We’re like people wearing sunglasses with yellow lenses – everything looks yellow.

How to start becoming aware of your limitless options and potential:

1. Read the right books especially books that disagree with and challenge your present philosophy. Free yourself from preconceived ideas and “hardening of the attitudes” by looking at the opposite. If you’re a capitalist, talk with a socialist. If you’re religious, talk with an atheist. If you love meat, talk with a vegetarian. Expand your mind.
2. Mix with the right people. Open-minded libertarians, freethinking rebels, bums, millionaires, artists, and outcasts will teach you more than college professors, mystics, and male schoolteachers (men amongst boys and boys amongst men). Learn from people who have already created what you want, and especially those who disagree with you.
3. Travel widely. It amazes me that people restrict their travel and repeat the same destinations, when there is a great, big, exciting world out there to discover.
4. Ask lots of “What if?” questions. What if everything you believe is wrong? What if the most important person in your life died tomorrow? What if you lost your main income source? What if you were suddenly paralyzed? What if you won millions of dollars? Play with your mind. Climb over the fence of reason and run around with brave and silly explorers in the field of the unknown and forbidden.
5. Challenge your present philosophy. Have the guts to start asking the hard questions. Why do you believe what you believe, and how is it helping you to live a life of joy, fulfillment, and adventure? What cults do you belong to? Start asking, “Why not? By whose authority? How can you prove that?”

It’s YOUR Life.

Freedom is a choice.

• We don’t fear failure per se – we fear the opinions of other people.
• The only one whose opinion counts, is YOU. It’s YOUR life. And you only get one.
• Stop allowing scalawags and parasites to steal your joy.

A free life starts with the attitude that makes it possible. Ayn Rand said,

“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me. Why do they always teach us that it’s easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It’s the hardest thing in the world – to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we REALLY want.”

Decide what you want out of life, discover what beliefs are stopping you, and break free.

In regards to money, wealth, and business, the best system I have found, and that which offers me the greatest potential and freedom, is to broker Joint Ventures.

Why do you employ people? For each of them to produce value, resulting in net profit in excess of the amount you pay them.

Why would you accept less than that? I know some of us are saddled with unions, relatives that work for us, people we’ve inherited and can’t easily get rid of, and many other excuses, however here are a few pointers that I think will help.

Remember, getting the job is the first job of someone who wants to be an employee. After that, every day, they have to prove to you why you should still hire them. and not give them the sack.

1.   Link their income to their production.

Work out what your real net profit is, your incremental profit, and a way to measure the output of every employee. This takes some analysis and a spot of Work Study (Organization and Methods), but it is well worth the exercise.

• Don’t be too generous, and remember you’re not a socialist organization. People should get paid according to what they produce, not what they need.
• Set traps to catch rats. Take a really good look at productivity, shop your own business, record phone calls, restrict Internet use, use Secret Shoppers, send one employee on leave for a week and see if the others cope. If they do, get rid of the worst one.
• Educate your employees about profit and business.
• Look after your champions, and remember that people change.

2.  Increase the production of your salespeople.

Teach your salespeople to sell, make them accountable, don’t accept excuses, have a sales meeting EVERY day, and fire your worst salesperson on a regular basis. Focus on results, not pipe-line, reputation, branding, market share – just the bottom line. Get them all onto a commission-only basis. Beware of  “sales trainers” – they usually can’t sell.

3.    Weed out the leeches and parasites.

Make their job unbearable if necessary; simply give them lots of work that they hate and micro-manage them. They’ll soon leave if you do it right. You’re in business to make a profit, and you don’t owe them anything.

4.   Learn to Delegate.

The best program I ever attended to learn about management was the Dale Carnegie Management Course. I learned a lot of valuable information about delegation, and I highly recommend it. Most “managers” have no idea how to manage, motivate, or discipline people. Your people need to set their own goals, report to you how they’re doing and how they will improve, and be accountable for their commitments. No excuses acceptable.

5.    Understand Joint Ventures.

In my business, everyone I deal with is a JV partners. I run my company with no employees, no risk, no cost, no overhead and little time. So I make a lot more profit and I don’t have to deal with losers and users. Lean and mean. Learn how JV’s work.

6.    Don’t hire socialists, smokers, or people who don’t need a job.

If you need an explanation for this one, you have a problem.

7.   Reward innovation, honesty, loyalty, and ambition.

These qualities are hard to find. Look after your champions and lock them in with residual commissions and long-term incentives.

8.    Familiarity breeds contempt.

Don’t be their “buddy”, maintain your distance, be strict, hold people accountable, and lead by example.

9.    Set up a “Dress and Grooming Code”.

When people look good, they feel good, and they do better work.  Set and maintain high standards in every area of your business.

10.    Train them, train them, train them.

Especially in the Joint Venture mindset.

Imagine an architect who meets with a builder/developer and a town planner. The developer wants to build a magnificent building. He says, “I have this feeling that I should build something – not sure exactly what it should look like, or what it would cost, or where I would find the money, but what do you think?”

To which the town planner replies, “Well, I guess we could find some space somewhere,  after all, it sounds like a noble cause – we’ll come up with a space, I’m sure…”

…and the architect pipes up, “Well, I don’t want to be too rigid, and the front of the building could look more or less like this, but I have a feeling it will just come together – I’ll check with my psychic…”

…Ridiculous, right?

Do You Have an Irrational Approach?

That’s how most people try to build wealth.

• They rely on the wrong people giving them spurious advice.
• They rely on “gut feel.”
• They have no discipline.
• They spend more time planning a party than their old age, and they live in the moment like animals.
• But the worst aspect of this lack of planning or thought is the real underlying motive –refusal to take responsibility or to be held accountable.

That’s why the masses follow the mystics and witchdoctors of our time, why they live vicariously through sports teams and film stars, why they join cults, and why they become “course junkies”, waddling from seminar to seminar and never applying anything they learn. Cults are great for people who don’t want to have to think or make choices. It’s easier to be a sports fan on your couch, clutching a slice of pizza in your chubby paw, than to actually go and play the game.

If You’re Serious about Wealth Building

If we seriously want to build real wealth, we can’t hide behind silly excuses like “fate”, “destiny”, feelings, gods, demons, angels, spirits, and chance; we need to be very specific and logical.

“Feelings come and feelings go, but feelings are deceiving; I build my life on rational choices – naught else is worth believing.”

The architect builds for the future – the archeologist (like an accountant) looks at the past. Winners look to the future and leverage their past experiences, good as well as bad, while losers blame their past for their slothfulness and use the past as an excuse. Like blaming your failure on slavery that happened hundreds of years ago.

Engineer Your Future

Architects, builders, and town planners are very specific, logical, and realistic about what they do. Engineers building a bridge don’t make decisions based on hope, feelings, fortune tellers, psychics, or mystical expectations. When you want to build a bridge from where to are to where you want to be, you had better understand that bridges can collapse if they are not built properly. There is time, cost, responsibility, and accountability  involved. Without work, persistence and perseverance, no building can be built, and nothing of any real value accomplished.

Your Philosophy is Your Foundation

The foundation on which you plan your future is your philosophy. If your wealth philosophy is wrong, you will end up like most other people – poor, frustrated, resentful, jealous, and bitter.

Rika and I rented a boat last week and spent three hours boating in Howe Sound. It was a wonderful experience. The boat was well prepared, maintained, and full of gas. We had life jackets, a whistle, food, water, a map, hats, sunscreen, and a cell phone with us. We took advice from the people who rented us the boat. We were well prepared for the trip, we knew where we wanted to go, and what we wanted to do, we paid for the boat hire and insurance, and it worked out great. We didn’t wander down to the water and try to cut down a tree with a penknife to build a raft to go boating. Success is not random or ethereal.

If you would like to build wealth, travel to your Treasure Island, and be assured that your philosophy will enable you to accomplish that, DollarMakers is here for you.

Few people have guts to tell it the way it is. Robert Kiyosaki, in this incredible video, says things like:

“Four things make 90% of the people poor: taxes, inflation, debt, retirement plans.”

And then he provides solutions.

He says, “America will become a third world nation – rich and poor. That’s it. Tell me something money does not affect. Most guys are just wimps. Pussies. Cowards. They don’t have it, so they should get a job. It takes discipline.

“Most people would like to have a great body like Charles Atlas, but they’re at Burger King wolfing down a Whopper with fries. I don’t know how you can expect to get anything you want without some degree of long-term commitment. Quitting is the easiest thing to do. That’s why most people don’t make it.

“Everybody has doubts and fear of failing. But look at Tiger Woods or any great athlete: when the going gets tough, that’s when they turn into geniuses and most people turn into wimps. Get off your butt. If you want to be a mechanic, you go hang out with mechanics. If you want to get rich, hang out with rich people.”

3 Things to Succeed in Business

When it comes down to it, you need three things to succeed in business:

1. The RIGHT financial education.
2. Connections with the right people.
3. GUTS. The guts never to quit, make excuses, or run away.

Let’s talk about these three.

1.    Financial education:

Kiyosaki points out in his four quadrants that you can be an employee (quadrant 1) or a self-employed salesman / solopreneur (quadrant 2), and never get rich, or you can be in quadrants three and four. Quadrant three is big business (500 employees or more) and quadrant four is having your money work for you.

Most people who don’t have money think it’s impossible to play in quadrants three and four, whereas DollarMakers shows you how to participate in big business through Joint Ventures and to make money from the investments of other people – anyone can do that. We don’t have money problems; we have thinking problems.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Why? Because the rich keep doing the things that made them rich, and the poor keep doing the things that made them poor.

2.    Connections with the right people:

DollarMakers has hundreds of Members, many of whom have a great understanding of Joint Ventures, in 19 countries – all looking to do a deal with you. And we FIRE dishonest people who don’t abide by our Code of Business Ethics. We are constantly weeding the moochers and posers out. Winners will link you with winners, and losers will introduce you to their loser friends. We provide various platforms and options for connecting with the right people. We’re not a networking group full of broke wanna-be’s.

3.    GUTS.

If you are a weak, politically correct, passive-aggressive, excuse-making wimp, don’t join DollarMakers. Our Members have to take full responsibility for their own success – we’re not socialists or quitters, and we don’t carry passengers or pamper parasites. We’re excited, determined, motivated, and disciplined. Our goal is to MAKE MONEY. That’s why we’re called DollarMakers.

If you’re serious about success and you’re tired of watching your wealth go down the drain, join DollarMakers. Right now.

How many times have you said, “I don’t feel like it”, but you go ahead anyway and do it, and you’re very happy you did?

In life and in business, feelings are not always the ideal indicator, especially when they involve a spot of sloth or discomfort on your part.

Dive In & You’ll Find You love It

Recently, my amazing daughter urged me to go for a ride with her on a wild-looking machine at the fairgrounds that whirled people around upside down, high above the ground. The last time I rode on one of those things, I was a teenager. Now I’m 56, but I agreed to accompany her. I didn’t feel like it, but I thoroughly enjoyed it!

My wife persuaded me to go to Disney World for the first time. I certainly didn’t feel like that, but I did it, and I loved it. After that, we visited Disneyland as well!

Yesterday, my two friends suggested we jump off the boat and swim in the cold waters of Howe Sound off Horseshoe Bay. I didn’t feel like it, but I dived in, and it was great.

Quitters Don’t Win Gold Medals

• Do you think athletes feel like training for hours every day, in all kinds of weather, enduring constant pain?
• How about that awful food they eat on their special diets?
• Don’t you thing they feel like gobbling fatty burgers or lining up at the trough for ice cream?
• How often do they feel like quitting?

Those who do quit don’t win the gold medals. The same goes for entrepreneurs. Someone once said:

“The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.”

Note, in the above quote, that the author says, “Reached and KEPT” – it’s OK to win once, but to keep on winning, you have to discipline your feelings and urges.

…And Once You Get There, Keep On the Gas!

Ross Perot said:

“Something in human nature causes us to start slacking off at our moment of greatest accomplishment.

As you become successful, you will need a great deal of self-discipline not to lose your sense of balance, humility, and commitment.”

Beware – pride comes before the fall.

Lee Iacocca said:

“I learned to keep going, even in bad times. I learned not to despair, even when my world was falling apart. I learned that there are no free lunches. And I learned the value of hard work.”

Consciously Cultivate Habits that Get GOOD Results

And Jim Rohn said:

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments. One discipline always leads to another discipline.”

That’s good news – doing the right thing instead of the easy thing becomes a good habit.

Small habits that get good results need to be developed and maintained in order to reap long-term rewards. Those who quit easily and seek the fast buck never get anywhere, and they develop a reputation for excuses and for not being reliable. James Allen said:

“Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound. The man who does not shrink from self-crucifixion can never fail to accomplish the object upon which his heart is set.”

That self-discipline to do the right thing in spite of what you feel, is what separates the men from the boys.

Earmarks of a Winner

Champions don’t make excuses, and they fight on, regardless of their feelings, comfort zone, or the opinions of others. When losers tell them, “Don’t work too hard, take it easy, rest more, dress down, don’t be so aggressive, don’t upset people”, winners simply go deaf. They associate with other winners and hear only their mentors and coaches.

Do the right thing, continuing in good and bad times to do the right thing, in spite of what you feel.

Conquer yourself, and you can reach any goal you wish.

• Do things often, inexplicably, fail for you, while working for other people?
• Do you feel that you’re climbing an impossible, icy mountain, while others seem to skip effortlessly to the top?
• Does everything you touch turn to grime or to gold?

Does Guilt Have It’s Hooks In You?

Do you have relatives that put a “guilt trip” on you when you succeed? “How dare you sail the Caribbean while your family needs money?”

Do you feel guilty when you do well, while others are suffering?

Do you self sabotage to prevent that feeling? “How can you drive that smart car while your brother doesn’t even have a car?” Does this sound familiar? “How can you live in that nice house when millions are homeless?”

Is Wrong Philosophy Robbing You?

We earn money and succeed in life in direct proportion to our self-worth, or self-esteem.

When your philosophy tells you:

• that you are worthless, bad, undeserving, and greedy because you like to enjoy the money you earned,
• or that money is bad, and that you should, in fact, sell what you have and lower your standard of living so that you can give your money to others,

you have a rotten philosophy.

Guilt and the wrong philosophy rob millions of people of success, wealth, and happiness.

It’s ALL How You Look at It

The way you INTERPRET your life, circumstances and opportunities, is what will determine your success or failure in life, and your philosophy or world view is that filter by which you interpret your life.

You have built the life you have brick by brick, whether it is a good or a bad life, by the choices you have made. The same applies to others.

The “Robin Hood” philosophy of robbing the rich to give their hard-earned money to the “poor” parasites out there who made bad choices, is the seed of socialism. Tax the rich to pay for the sloth of the poor.

Are You Letting the Past Undermine the Future?

The bad choices you made in the past don’t have to continually undermine your future. Guilt is a rope that wears thin.

You can Break Free from guilt, self-sabotage, and disappointment by changing your philosophy. When you change your philosophy to one that empowers, one that is based on personal responsibility and objective reality, you will find your life changing dramatically for the better. The anchor of guilt is cut away, and you can soar to unprecedented heights.

What Works Best for Me

Of all the philosophies and options out there, the one that has worked best for me is that of Objectivism.

• It provides me with the tools for freedom, success, happiness, and self-fulfillment.
• It sets me free from false guilt and the attacks of the looters, moochers, and parasites.

Self-discipline and the right philosophy improve your self esteem, you feel you deserve the best and you realize you are entitled to the life that you create. Altruism, collectivism, and mysticism will rip your happiness from your hands, steal your joy, and rob you blind. In fact, those philosophies are designed to blind you to the potential you have for love, success, wealth, and creativity.

Build the Life You Want

• You can build the life you want and be free of guilt and condemnation.
• You can be free and happy, and when your philosophy changes, you will find things falling in to place – fast.
• You can live with virtue and integrity, and make all your dreams come true.

It’s not too late to break free.

Bridges don’t collapse for no reason. And Joint Ventures don’t fail for no reason. A well-constructed bridge lasts a long time and does the job it was meant for, as do good business deals. The main reason why Joint Ventures don’t work are essentially very simple, and DollarMakers is designed to use our 22 years of experience to teach people how to create lucrative, long-term JV’s with no cost or risk, so that if something doesn’t work out, nobody gets hurt and we can all remain friends.

Seth Godin brought up some excellent points about where joint ventures can go wrong in his post “Why Joint Ventures Fail So Often” – however he does not provide any solutions other than to say ‘do something that requires more risk and causes you yourself to have a lot more at stake.’

Here are the 6 Top Reasons why Joint Ventures don’t work and their effective solutions:

1. Wrong premise or expectancy: If we assume things which aren’t true, have unrealistic expectations, or misunderstand certain market shifts or requirements, or if we misjudge buying trends or the choices of consumers, a JV won’t work. If set up correctly, with no cost or risk to either party, we can learn from the mishap and live to fight another day, as friends rather than foes. We’re not fortune tellers, and we can’t predict the future, but we can arrange our JV’s in such a way that we avoid any harm being done.
2. Wrong partners: If you’re dealing with weasels, parasites, losers, or conmen, your JV’s won’t work. Do your due diligence and be prepared to walk away as soon as you see the red flags. Again, if you roll out your JV in a small way before committing to a large launch, you can test your partners and the market before going big. In some cases, the JV partner is honest but incompetent, or he simply can’t handle the volume or demand when we have underestimated the response. A good “What if?” planning session with objective evaluations and checks and balances can help avoid that scenario.
3. Greed and ego: When one of the partners gets his ego in the way or gets greedy, things can go awry. Avoid this with solid agreements and contracts and work with mature, seasoned business owners, not incompetent upstarts who don’t know that pride does, indeed, precede the proverbial fall.
4. Insufficient planning and/or quitting prematurely: Often, we’re so excited and in such a hurry to get going that we neglect to plan the details and specify amounts and quantities, percentages and responsibilities, and things fall part because of that. Miscommunications and misunderstandings come from haste, and inexperience and a sense of entitlement, along with the desire for instant gratification result in quitting too soon, instead of tweaking and fixing what could be a lucrative JV.
5. Inconsistency and a lack of self-discipline break down trust and repel good JV partners. A good reputation attracts a good database and solid JV partners, which results in successful Joint Ventures. Don’t get involved with people who are not consistent – reliability and honesty, along with proficiency and integrity, are the mortar that hold good JV ‘s together. Both parties are responsible for the success of any JV.
6. Finally, communicate regularly and effectively. Losers hide behind excuses and don’t communicate well. Most flaws in any JV can usually be rectified through effective, adult communication and openness.

Joint Ventures are the most sophisticated way to make money, and people who genuinely understand Joint Ventures can make an unlimited amount of money with no cost or risk and little time.  Just keep the above 6 points in mind when executing any JV, and you’ll find yourself breezing through your JV’s.

Invaluable Information in Just 7 Minutes

While a good DISC assessment takes only seven minutes and will reveal remarkable, useful information that will predict choices and show one how to manage, motivate, and discipline an individual, as well as assist in hiring the right people and discovering their strengths and weaknesses, my system takes much longer, but costs nothing, and is infallible.

Ideally, one should use both systems.

My Infallible System: Monitoring Behavior

My system is as old as the hills, and it works inexorably. It is called BEHAVIOR. By allowing people access to many, diverse choices and options, and simply observing their consistent choices and behavior over time, one can predict what they will do in the future.

My business (DollarMakers) is designed like a giant filter. It attracts people and monitors their choices. The cream, as always, rises to the top. It’s like sorting coal from diamonds. Simple.

Just watch them. When they consistently make good choices, we offer them better stuff. They disqualify or qualify themselves. Their behavior tells us whether or not we can trust them, and what they will do in the future.

Other Critical Indicators to Watch

• Obviously, we also like to look at their past – track records help a lot.
• Also, if people CHANGE from good to bad, and many do, cut them loose – fast.

“Little” Things Speak Loudly

Simply observe the little things:

• How they dress, groom themselves, and behave.
• Do they show up on time?
• Do they leave early?
• What verbal clues do they give?
• Do they respond promptly to e-mails and phone calls?
• Do they hide when they are late with payments? That is a form of dishonesty.
• Do they lie? The more they talk, the more they reveal – good and bad.
• Are they cheap? Are the generous?
• Do they offer their help?
• Are they optimists or pessimists? Regardless of what they say, what they DO will tell me if they believe or not.
• Are they in for the long run, or are they quitters? Time will tell.
• Are they saboteurs, backstabbers, and thieves or are they winners, champions, and loyal friends? Their actions will tell you – just watch them closely.

Test Over Time

You can devise simple tests.

“Come hiking in the mountains at 8am Monday morning”, you suggest. Do they show up? Are they on time? How do they behave? Do they return? Do they bring friends?

Put them in a position where they can be dishonest – set a trap. Your loyal friends will report to you on bad behavior. Look for consistency.

The Tortoise and The Hare

Most people start off well, but quit soon. Some will start with a powerful fanfare, huge promises, massive action, and burn out just as fast. Others will start slowly and build over time – the tortoise and the hare.

Why Using Both Systems is Best

If you use DISC to assess people after observing them for a while, you will have even more information, and your choices will be even better, resulting in better business and a real win/win.

Other Helpful Situations to Observe

• Watch how people interact with their families and pets.
• See how they deal with laborers, waiters in restaurants, parking lot attendants, and hotel employees.
• Are they smokers?
• Listen how they speak with their spouses on the phone.
• Discover someone’s world-view / philosophy / religion, and you will know a lot about their future choices.
• Listen for pain, regret, guilt, fear, embarrassment, bias, political views, and you will find valuable clues.
• Look at the books they read, the pictures in their homes, the state of repair in their homes, what cars they drive, their hobbies, and most importantly, their friends.
• Are they gamblers?
• What groups or clubs do they belong to?
• Monitor them on Facebook.
• Say controversial things and watch their response. I love that one.
• Talk with their employees, vendors, and competition.

6 Vital Guidelines for Monitoring Behavior

1. Look for patterns.
2. Ask open-ended questions.
3. Do this due diligence before getting involved in serious business with them.
4. Make them qualify for the privilege of your company.
5. And be aware of who you’re dealing with / who the real decision maker is – is it their spouse or parent, or is it them? Spouses are often the fly in the proverbial ointment – be very careful.
6. Finally, remember that desperate people tend to do desperate things – look for vices and money problems.