“Vertical Thinking” is analytical, focused, left-brain, binary (black or white) and narrow. This is the way most of us in the west have learned to view life and business. Horizontal thinking, on the other hand, is creative, right-brain, lateral, open, inclusive, synergistic, and strategic. Joint Ventures utilize and optimize both these approaches perfectly.

Edward DeBono , author of 62 books on creative thought, said:

“Some people are unhappy about lateral [horizontal] thinking because they feel it threatens the validity of vertical thinking. This is not so at all. The two processes are complementary, not antagonistic. Lateral thinking enhances the effectiveness of vertical thinking by offering it more to select from. Vertical thinking multiplies the effectiveness of lateral thinking by making good use of the ideas generated.”

The Wedding Planner, for example, is good at providing all the services and products related to weddings and the immediate events, even going as far as the honeymoon arrangements, and she gets paid a commission on all referred business within that limited time realm.

A good Joint Venture Broker, on the other hand, will see well beyond that to a strong mailing list that builds an ongoing, long-term relationship and proceeds to mutually benefit both parties over the years; that married couple will breed, buy houses, furniture, cell phones, and holidays, and fifty percent of them will get divorced. All those services can garner serious income for the broker and the service providers, while at the same time providing massive, additional value for the couple. The joint venture broker thinks out of the box.

A Joint Venture Broker is Focused on Back-End Income Sources

The traditional business owner is focused on his own products and services, to the exclusion of multiple additional sales and service opportunities. This myopic approach explains why, in my opinion, the average small and medium-size businesses out there only operate at about 10% of the potential net profit. A lateral thinking, Joint Venture approach can set up numerous back end income sources, all at 100% margin (we like to call them DollarMakers) within hours, days or weeks, thereby turbo-boosting income and differentiating the business from it’s competition, whose blinders keep them working too hard for too little.

Leverage and duplication can be systematically applied to virtually any business when the JV Broker applies this open mindset to the business services, focusing on providing the optimal ease and value for the customer and getting paid on all resulting transactions, much like owning multiple Toll Booths on thousands of bridges across the world.

Best of all, this can be accomplished with no money or risk, and surprisingly little time, since this involves leveraging existing resources. The Joint Venture Broker looks for links and partnership opportunities, and specializes in building a congruent flow of business.

When you think out of the box, you get out of the box, and unlimited opportunities suddenly start appearing all over.

Remember when you were five years old and you felt like you owned the world? You liked yourself, you were proud of your accomplishments, you were strong and courageous, and you loved people. You believed everyone loved you, too. You could dress up like a cowboy and you believed you were one.

When people asked you what you were going to be when you grew up, you answered without any doubt that you would be an astronaut or a beauty queen or a doctor. The world was at your fingertips. You believed in miracles and dreams and you had no limitations.

When You Grow Older, You Let The World Show You Limitations

As you grew older, the world got in the way and disappointments, failures, and painful experiences started to corrode your optimism, discount your self-esteem, and wear down your expectations. You started to become cynical, skepticism crept into your heart and you began compromising.

You found that being politically correct and turning the other cheek made your life easier, and you could avoid confrontation by backing down.

Previously exciting dreams and goals got shelved in favor of mediocrity and concession. Your attempts at improvement became lackluster and half-hearted. You liked yourself less. You put yourself down and lowered your standards. You stated focusing on survival instead of great success.

The Real You is still there, deep down inside. You are a winner who has behaved like a loser. You are an eagle that is living in a chicken run. You are a king or queen, clothed as a beggar, a champion with a loser’s name. You are still that five-year-old hero, and it’s not too late to return to your real self.

You can regain your belief and excitement. You can make all your dreams come true. You are the shiny sports car that simply needs the grime washed off, gas in the tank and a tune up – a “Check-up from the neck up.” The future is not equal to the past. A hundred dollar note may be crumpled, dirty and torn, but it’s still worth a hundred dollars.

You have unlimited potential. You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. You are ready. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. You are powerful, smart, and wonderfully made. You have the opportunity to start over, today, by choice, regardless of your circumstances, IF you believe that. You’re not a has-been; you’re a Gonna-be! All you need is to make the decision that you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired. Nothing can stop you from recreating yourself and your life, starting right now, and repeating it every single day.

You might be down, but you’re not out. You can get back up off the canvas, my friend, and become the champion you were always meant to be. It all starts with the realization of who you really are. The real you wants out – do yourself a favor and be free. Throw the shackles of self-limitation off. Walk out of the prison of doubt and fear. Fearlessly create the life you want and deserve.

Imagine going to a physician and getting yourself examined for an ailment. At the end of his assessment, the good doctor prescribes three green pills at night and two yellow pills when you awake, to be taken every day for one month. You respond, “But, doctor, shouldn’t I take two green pills? How about a few purple ones? And why do I need to take the yellow ones in the morning? You know I might forget…” Any self-respecting GP should kick you right out of his rooms if you were to question his judgment and prescription in that way. After all, you came to him for help, and he’s the physician, right? Do you know better? Is he stupid?

Here’s why people go to experts and then don’t follow their advice: Their self-esteem, self image and belief systems, along with self-sabotage caused by guilt. This is like the governor that was put on the Land Rover that I drove in the army – it prevented the car from exceeding a certain speed.

Our limitations are self-imposed, and that is why we persist in limiting our own progress. We find reasons not to take actions that will set us free. We seek evidence to maintain our dominant beliefs. We develop blind spots so that we don’t see the obvious and we ask questions that will demand answers that support our claims. So we make sure that we mess the recipe up in order to deprive ourselves of the cake, which we insist we want with all our hearts.

We Can Break Free Of Our Self-Delusion and Make All Our Dreams Come True

Is our position then one of hopelessness? Is there a way out of the mental prison that our conditioning has so carefully constructed over the years? Can we bend the bars of cynicism and self-delusion? Can we smash the locks of mysticism, defeatism, pessimism, and apathy, or are we doomed to languish forever in the slough of mediocrity and despair? We can we develop bulletproof determination, rock solid confidence and unlimited expectation, coupled with optimism, self-acceptance, ambition and genuine humility.

We can break free and make all our dreams come true. We need to find experts whom we trust and on whom we can rely, and then buttress ourselves with a support system of friends who are more advanced, evolved, and ambitious than we are. We have to start a kind of mental rehabilitation in order to reverse our negative brainwashing and that takes guts, determination, and perseverance.

I Have Immersed Myself In Teachings for Well Over 20 Years

In my life, it was the Success Motivation International (SMI) self-development programs of Paul J. Meyer that I listened to repeatedly and then taught others that initially set me free from negative conditioning at the age of 34. You learn more when you teach something. Over twenty years, I have immersed myself in teachings that are based on responsibility, freedom, discipline, capitalism, and the Objectivism of Ayn Rand. I surround myself with people who are smarter, more successful, richer, and better than I am. And so I can continue to grow. I have a long way to go yet, but I keep on pressing forward. I no longer question and second-guess experts. I am consciously incompetent. I know that we have to be like trees and grow until we die if we are to truly self-actualize and reach our full potential. The stronger we get, the more we can help those who are weaker.

Paul J. Meyer’s motto is my adopted motto: “Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe, and enthusiastically act upon must inevitably come to pass.”

It is said that duplication and leverage are the two most powerful forces in the world. Think of a virus or compound interest, and you will understand how a mail carrier can earn a million dollars a year through Network Marketing and how a simple Joint Venture that took an hour to set up can turn into tens of thousands of dollars in pure profit. There is a hard way and an easy way to make money, and I think it’s better to go the easy way.

I am thoroughly enjoying Ray Kroc’s book, “Grinding it Out” – written in 1977 about how he built McDonald’s. It’s an inspiring read of courage, vision, risk, sacrifice, and success, as well as a revelation of how dishonest some people are and how Mr. Kroc survived them. It’s very gratifying to me that I can show people a better way to wealth, a path that is not inundated with risk, sacrifice, fear, and chance. This route is the means I have chosen to build wealth – it requires no selling, risk, sacrifice, or sleepless nights.

Mr. Kroc succeeded against all odds, but he chose a business model that is extremely difficult. Joint Venture Brokering allows me the freedom of time and money, and I can operate in many areas, in many industries, and at many levels simultaneously. While franchising is definitely leverage, I choose to leverage multiple resources in many different ways, all at the same time, with no risk, overhead, leases, royalties, inventory, capital investment, or employees, and little time. I can be a creative and as adventurous as I like, without investing a blue cent.

Am I as wealthy as Mr. Kroc was? Of course not, but it is definitely as possible to attain the same level of wealth, faster, with none of the risk or costs involved, using Joint Ventures. Most entrepreneurs work too hard and earn too little. The average business, in my estimation, can easily double and quadruple their profits with no cost or risk using Joint Ventures. One JV that I got into took a profit center in my business from $4,000 per month to $20,000 per month in four days. Leverage: it’s an amazing force that is available to all of us, whether we have a business or not, and regardless of our circumstances or background. Life can be a grind, but I prefer the beach. You don’t have to sacrifice, sweat, and grovel anymore, once you discover the magic of Joint Ventures. Replace fear with fun, sweat with skiing, and risk with reward.

I sat and watched vulnerable, desperate people running - running to the back of the seminar room to waste money they didn’t have on junk that didn’t work and that they would never use.

A woman in front of me burst into tears and told me that she had spent $1,200 the previous day on material that explained how she could buy properties all over North America with no money. She had been whipped up into an emotional frenzy by the smooth taking con-man  that posed as a caring mentor in the front of the room. She couldn’t afford what she had bought, she was in her fifties, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and earned minimum wage as a security guard, and she was a single mother with two dependent children.  Disgusting.

Here’s the worst part: some of these “seminar leaders” actually sell courses on how to manipulate peoples’ minds and emotions and have them spend money on overpriced rubbish, get them running like idiots to buy stuff at the back of the room,  only to regret the purchase for years afterwards.

Intelligent, well grounded people will not rush to be ripped off, so the victims are generally less intelligent and hard-up for money, with poor self-esteem. THINK before you leap into an investment scheme or a tax saving deal. Get solid advice first. Don’t believe the discount stories and the scarcity pitches.

In Business Do You Due Diligence - It’s Worth It.

Ayn Rand said,

“Rationality is the recognition that nothing can alter the truth, that reason is an absolute that permits no compromise - that the alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind. Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgement, that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life - that the vilest form of self-debasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertion as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middleman between your consciousness and your existence.”

Do your due diligence before getting into a Joint Venture. Check peoples’ motives. Read between the lines. Don’t sign ANYTHING before taking the contract to your lawyer. When you DO, i recommend a simple Memorandum of Understanding. Do not buy expensive things without sleeping on it first (Use the 3 Sleeps rule).  Things look different the next day. Instead of crying, “WHAT DID I DO? I must be crazy!” Be glad that you had enough self control to consider the facts. And this manipulation is far more widespread than most people realize. Take control of your mind, be an independent thinker, and demand freedom.

The best way to maintain your rationality and objectivity in an increasingly manipulative world that operates sans conscience and sans consequence, is to pour realism into your mind by reading the right information, immerse yourself in the philosophy of Objectivism, and connect with like-minded people.

Many entrepreneurs and wanna-be entrepreneurs are terrified of competition, and this is evidenced by business networking groups who only allow one representative of each industry to attend their events.

The “Shrinking Pie” mentality posits that there is only so much to go around. This dis-empowering approach is built on a timid philosophy of scant resources and lack, and is usually manifested as aggression. (Fear often incarnates as aggression.) Someone with a Scarcity Mentality focuses on shortage, risk, what can go wrong, and insufficiency.

Whatever you focus on is guaranteed to grow.

Your mind is a magnet. When you are consumed by thoughts of poverty and privation, guess what kind of people you will attract into your life? This victim mindset is programmed for failure and disappointment. We seek evidence to prove our dominant beliefs, and those who mistakenly believe that everyone is out to rip them off and undermine their success will subconsciously sabotage themselves to prove themselves right.

We have to be congruent, and our circumstances will always bend to reflect our self-esteem and beliefs. For example, the person who is genuinely convinced that they can’t make money will show up late for appointments, and when successful people decide to no longer do business with them because of their tardiness, they will whine, “See, I told you!” The Self Fulfilling Prophecy Is not a figment of some author’s imagination.

When a penurious intellect is offered a lucrative business opportunity, its first reaction will be, “What’s the catch?” and it will immediately go on the defense and start making excuses to remain poor, mediocre and passively aggressive. They actively look for reasons why the opportunity is a scam and a hoax, while the winners eagerly grab the opportunity and rush off to make more money. Losers will seek reasons why they will fail. “It’s a holiday – there won’t be any people around to attend the seminar. It’s too expensive – nobody can afford that! (they’re projecting their own lack) I won’t make enough money! I’m being taken advantage of! What if I fail? (you’re already failing, buddy) What can go wrong?”

Drop Kick the Losers to the Curb - Fast!

These people will contaminate your business, undermine your success and bleed you dry. They will discourage you, dissuade you and depress you. And they’re unlikely to change. They are a cancer on capitalism and a danger to your success. They are poison to profits and they will subconsciously do their best to drag you down to their level of despondency. Worst of all, they will attack anyone who is more successful than they are; jealously is a very common attribute of this type of person. The only way to deal with them is to drop kick them to the curb. Fast and decisively. Squish them like cockroaches and replace them with an ambitious, determined and disciplined optimist.

It’s better to have no JV than a JV with a loser. And there are many great JV partners to be had. There is an abundance of money and opportunities out there, just waiting for you.

Look at nature – how many leaves on one tree? How much water in the ocean? How many trees and rocks? Focus on affluence, plentitude and abundance and you will attract it into our life. Self discipline, high standards and self-confidence will result in prosperity and luxury for you.

Expect to succeed in all you do. Associate with winners, not whiners. Set great goals and believe in your dreams. A life of plenty is easily available to you through Joint Ventures, as long as you have the right JV partners. Your generous Abundance Mentality is creating a life of power and prosperity for you, and a plethora of options. Freedom is the result of right thinking.

Your circumstances are a revelation of your thoughts and beliefs. Look at someone’s circumstances, listen to them talk, and decide whether or not they have what it takes to be your JV partner.

Successful Joint Venture Brokers have the ability to remove their own egos, products and services from the picture when they create Joint Ventures. 99% of people that attend my Bootcamps are there to find a way to increase the sales of their own product or service, using JV’s. That’s fine, and it’s easy to double the profits in your own business using JV’s, but it’s not the JV mindset that makes the big money.

By focusing on connecting others, solving their problems, and helping them reach their goals, you insert yourself effectively into their cash flow. You get invited to participate in their profits. You become important in their lives. They like you and they reciprocate if you have set the JV up correctly.

You should remember that other people don’t care about you, your products or services, or ego; they care about themselves first. Give them what they want and you’ll get what you want. You’ll become an integral key to their future success.

Be a good listener: look for clues and Hot Buttons, values, beliefs, and a track record. Decide whether or not you actually WANT to get involved with the person. Is this someone you feel comfortable promoting and associating with, or not? You’re mentally qualifying people for a JV partnership - you’re not a desperate salesperson. A JV Broker who is good at his or her profession is a very valuable asset to any business partner, and you can pick and choose from millions of businesses to work with.

You’re in the pound seats, and it’s your decision whom you choose.

As a JV Broker, I decide whom I will work with, and my attention is on them, not me, because I have access to all the resources they need or want. I evaluate the person and the potential, and it’s always based on my level of comfort and their level of need. I only work with motivated, sincere, and professional people. I can afford to be very selective, and so I am. But I don’t go about talking about myself, simply because nobody gives a damn. Remember that - focus on others, be a catalyst for cash, and a middleman that multiplies the moola, not a self-employed, desperate, broke salesman, urgently touting something that people can buy on any street corner.

Now go forth, as Patrick Giesbrecht is wont to say, and JV!

So I recently talked with a young man named Blake. Blake told me he was looking for a “wonderful job”. So I asked him to describe this most wonderful job to me.

His description included: autonomy, working on his own program, to his own schedule, lots of money, of course, and travel, the ability to use his creativity, bonuses for innovation, etc. He wanted lots of freedom, but he said he works very hard. He also said he was creative, professional, and dedicated. I asked him what kind of boss he wanted. He replied with:

“Someone who really understands me, allows me to play to my strengths, and encourages me”

I told him, “You know what, Blake? You can have a job exactly like that. I know how you can get it. In fact, you can design your own job description, and you can even decide how much you will earn, including rewards for innovation, creativity, and professionalism. What’s more, I have the perfect boss for you - someone who really knows you, and more than that, CARES about you!” He was bouncing off the walls with excitement, begging to hear more.

I said, “The boss is YOU. Your own business. Total freedom, along with total responsibility, no limitations, and the world at your feet.”

At this point he predictably became angry. He said he wanted the “SECURITY” of a paycheck.

I answered…

“You should trust yourself more than anyone else in the world, Blake. Why would you feel more secure handing your life and income to someone else who doesn’t care about you? Is your self-esteem really so low? Here’s the real question, Blake: You know yourself, your abilities, and your work ethic. Would YOU hire YOU? If you would, here’s your perfect opportunity - start your own business - employ yourself!”

Guess what his next objection was - “It’s so risky to start a business.”

I agree completely. That’s why I teach people to start the best business in the world - no overhead, no risk, unlimited potential, flexibility, creativity, income, and freedom: being a Joint Venture Broker. Say no more!