This past week we enjoyed a wonderful Alaskan Cruise. High end, high class, high standards. Ran like clockwork, every detail attended to.

One night, a large section of the crew, including officers, chefs, and people representing every department, showed up on the stage in the theater at the end of one of the performances. They sang, and it was great. The entertainment manager stated at the end of the event,

“We represent many countries and creeds. See how we can all work together in perfect harmony, regardless of our backgrounds, cultures, religions, or education? We have a lot to teach the world.”

They then proceeded to sing, “We are the world.” Very sweet, but not very accurate.

A Principle of HarMONEY

Too many people have jumped aboard the Mediocrity Train and caught the viral Excusiologist Flu that came sweeping in with the recession.

Everything gets blamed on the recession, from halitosis and hiccups to oversleeping and body odor. People make excuses for lethargy, low sales, their dogs’ fleas, and failing to stop at traffic lights.

ENOUGH!

Contrary to what the media is feeding you, not everyone is suffering during this recession. And YOU don’t have to, either.

The purpose of DollarMakers is to teach people how to become financially free. In order to do so, they need to free their minds first.

One of the biggest surprises I received in my life was while I was working on a BA Theology at a Bible College and at the same time doing a BA Psychology at university. To my horror, I discovered that I was involved in a cult. At that time, I still didn’t realize that cults take many forms – they are not only to be found in the realm of religion. The more I studied, the more I saw!

Multi-Level Marketing to Belong

For example, MLM can be described as a cult, which would explain this article that claims that the odds of winning from a single spin of the wheel in a game of roulette in Las Vegas is:

• 286 times as great as the odds of profiting after enrolling as an Amway/Quixtar “distributor”
• 48 times as great as the odds of profiting after enrolling as a Nu Skin “distributor”
• 22 times as great as the odds of profiting after enrolling as a Melaleuca “distributor”

Could that explain why people will spend tens of thousands of dollars and years of their lives with no reward, just to “belong”?

What is a Cult?

Here is a good explanation. Read it and look at your life. You might be very surprised. In fact, once we understand group dynamics and conditioning, we realize that some families operate like cults, and that often, child and senior abuse is contingent on a cult-like relationship. Also, understanding cults explains why otherwise intelligent people will believe and do ridiculous things that make no sense to “outsiders” who can view the situation objectively and rationally.

Margaret Singer, Ph.D.  psychologist author of “Cults in Our Midst”, said:

“Deprogramming – that is, providing members with information about the cult and showing them how their own decision-making power had been taken away from them.”

This site exposes a lot about cults, and this is another excellent website to look at.

Breaking Free

It’s hard to accept and realize that one is involved in a cult, but the price of freedom is acknowledging the bars on our cages and confronting our jailers and conditioning.

Without sufficient motivation and determination to break free, however, we might decide that the pain of escape from our comfortable prison is greater than the pleasure of freedom. People can react violently when they’re faced with the prospect that they might be hoodwinked, that their safety is imaginary, and that what they have believed and paid for for a long time is, in fact, a con job. But a small number do break free, and that’s whom this article is for.

I always recommend the book, “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand, in the hopes that it will free some people in different areas of their lives, as it has me, particularly in the area of our philosophies about business, money, family, responsibility, guilt, altruism, mysticism, and freedom.

“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt.

Winners say, “Talk is cheap. Your past actions predict your future choices. Show me, don’t tell me.” I agree.

If you’re wondering why your efforts and endeavors usually result in frustration, failure, disappointment, and pain, while other people, working on the same things, make pots of money, this is for you.

If you feel like you’re accident prone, all alone, and your chances are blown, don’t moan and groan – I might just have the solution for you.

Does this sound familiar?

You might be as smart as others who get rich while you get into more debt, you might work even harder than they do, you might be more motivated, and yet your attempts seem to be doomed to perpetual failure. You feel like a loser.

Dumb people are making money and you’re floundering. It’s just not fair!

Same products and services, same market, same pricing, same opportunity, yet while they seem to attract success and wealth, you feel like you’re magnetizing perpetual flops. Why?

Well, it’s not as mysterious as it may seem.

There’s no magical, imaginary demon or devil undermining your success and jumping at every opportunity to pull the proverbial rug out from under your feet. It’s not your age, appearance, education, or parents. It is a lot more simple than that.

The good news is that when you know what has been contaminating your progress, undermining your success, causing you stress, and making this mess, you can remove and change it, and put yourself on the road to health, wealth, and happiness.

A Good, Workable “Success Recipe”

Usually, we earn money and succeed in our endeavors in direct proportion to our self worth or self esteem. Guilt, a poor self image, and mixing with the wrong people (losers) is what generally sabotages our efforts, in spite of our hard work and good intentions.

The solution, therefore, must be to improve one’s self esteem.

The way to do that is through rigorous, sustained self discipline, and a good, workable “success recipe”. This, in my opinion, will “oil the wheels” of your programs and activities, and add jet fuel to what you’re doing. Confidence, enthusiasm, and belief are signs of a strong self image, and they attract great results.

Three major areas need to be addressed:

Area #1 – Your Input

…The people you spend time with and the input you’re exposed to. Discipline yourself to cut the losers out of your life and read good books, like Atlas Shrugged. Do not wilt nor hesitate – remember, self discipline increases self worth, and that increases the old bank balance.

Area #2 – Your Appearance

Look your best at all times, buy good clothes and shoes, groom yourself well, look like a million bucks, act and walk and talk like a successful entrepreneur, “Fake it until you make it”, and don’t hang out in crummy places. Only the best for you, my friend.

Treat yourself as a successful person would treat herself. Look the part, and you’ll start to feel the part. Believe and achieve!

Consistent, persistent attention to doing your best in everything you do will make you feel great about yourself. And when you feel good about yourself, you will start attracting winners and money into your life.

Area #3 – Your Self-Talk

…What you tell yourself – your self talk, and the questions you ask yourself will determine how much success you achieve. Never put yourself down – be your own best friend and fan.

Here are some great questions and affirmations I strongly recommend you use at least ten times a day, every day, until they are a habit. Speak out load, with belief, sincerity, enthusiasm, and commitment:

• I am happy, healthy, and successful.
• I am a money magnet – I attract wealth and great people into my life every day.
• What is great about my life? What do I have to be grateful for?
• I am bulletproof, unstoppable, and strong.
• Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better, richer and richer.
• I am a guided missile on my way to my goals.
• People are fortunate to know me and work with me.
• I am a money machine, a dollarmaker, and a wonderful, generous, happy person.
• How can I double my net worth in one year?

Self discipline = self worth  = a self made millionaire.

When the WHY is sufficient, the HOW is automatic.

Slow? Sometimes agonizingly so.

Frustrating? Frequently.

Arduous? Assuredly.

Tiring? Indubitably.

…But inevitable.

Success is a forgone conclusion, a matter of time, when the WHY is in place; the travail is temporary,the discomfort fleeting, and easy to accommodate while bathed in the light of your magnificent obsession, your WHY.

The Promising Power of WHY

Your WHY in life is your Hot Button, your main objective, your raison d’etre, your glorious goal, your absolute ambition. It is what will get you to a meeting an hour early, dressed to the nines, wearing an infectious grin you find it hard to wipe off your scrubbed face.

It is what will obliterate every obstacle, remove every roadblock, and eradicate anything between you an your goal. Nobody and nothing can stop someone whose WHY is large enough. To a man with a grand WHY, reversals are transient, mere bumps along the yellow brick road.

Succumbing to Mediocrity

Most people have succumbed to the prevailing mediocrity that dulls our senses, robs us of ambition, and waters down our expectations with the pervasive and crippling cynicism that the rulers encourage to blind us from the alternatives to mere survival as we plod through the smelly swamp of somnambulism, compromise and dead dreams.

You MUST Find Your Why

Deep down inside you, your WHY is waiting, glittering, and pulsing.

When you pick it up with hands shaking with excited anticipation, wipe off the pessimism and disappointment, and polish it with optimism, hope, and belief, you will discover the genie that grants any and every wish. That Genie loves you more than anyone else has ever loved you, understands you better than anyone, cares deeply about your success, an believes in you. YOU are the Genie you seek.

Your fuel is your WHY. Find your WHY, and you have broken free.

You Attitude Determines Your Altitude

It’s not the techniques or the teaching – it’s the WHY. It’s not your tools or your skills, but your attitude that determines what you will accomplish in life.

If you want something badly enough, NOTHING will prevent your victory. These are the people I seek – people with a WHY that will not be denied.

The following questions, when seriously considered and answered on an individual basis, will reveal some of your deep motivations and beliefs, interpretations and needs, objectives, fears, and dreams, as well as some of the perceived barriers and pain in your life.

I challenge you to take some quiet, uninterrupted time to sincerely and honestly ask yourself these questions and answer them.

1. If I won five million dollars tomorrow and I had to allocate it within five days, what, specifically would I do with it, and why?
2. If I was given five million dollars and I had to distribute that between five people, not including myself or my spouse, who would those people be, and why?
3. If I had to spend three weeks on a desert island with ten people, dead or alive, who would they be, and why?
4. What would be a good reason for me to commit suicide?
5. Why would I not commit suicide?
6. Why do I hold my present religious beliefs? Do they help me or hurt me?
7. If I had to double my income in three months or be shot to death in public, what would I do differently in those three months?
8. If I had only six months to live, what would I do in those six months?
9. If I had ten million dollars in the bank, how would my life change specifically? What would I start doing, what would I stop doing, and whom would I spend time with?
10. If the world was going to be destroyed and I had to pick fifteen people to escape with me in a rocket ship, who would they be, and why?
11. Repeat the same question for FIVE people plus yourself.
12. Repeat the same question for TWO people plus yourself.
13. If I moved, alone, to a new city, far away, where nobody knew me, and I didn’t have to work (enough money to live comfortably) and I had to live there for a year, what would change in my life and my activities? What new things would I do, and what would I stop doing?
14. If there were no consequences or punishment, and nobody would find out, what would I do?
15. What two things do I fear most, and why? What can I do about it?
16. If I could change two things in my life, what would they be?
17. Which five people do I love the most, and why?
18. Which three people do I hate the most, and why? How would I benefit from forgiving and forgetting them?
19. What stops me from succeeding to a greater degree? What excuses am I making for not reaching my full potential?
20. If I could change the way I think about my life and the things I tell myself about my life and my options, I could break free and be happier. How badly do I want my dreams to come true, on a scale of one to ten?

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.