Would you like to know the most valuable lesson I learned from Mr. Arthur Honey? Mr. Honey, who was an ex boxing champion and one of the seconds for Roger Bannister, when he ran the first four-minute mile, owned the Continental Hotel. I was his hotel manager. Mr. Honey was a wonderful hotelier, trained in the old school, and a real gentleman. After I completed my Hotel School Training (city and Guilds directed), I managed a German restaurant for a year and was then employed by Mr. Honey. It was the best management training I ever got.

One morning, he asked me why I had not arranged to have the one kitchen’s extract screens cleaned. I had simply forgotten. Here is the gist of what he taught me:

“Robin, any manager who forgets things is not a manager, but a DAMAGER. You may be wearing your morning suit, but when you forget, you are not managing. You will not build trust, respect, and a good reputation if you don’t deliver on your promises. When you forget, you insult the other person and yourself. When you’re late to do what you promised, you further damage your reputation and the business. Forgetting costs money and loses hotel guests. I carry a paper in my inside jacket pocket, and I write down EVERYTHING I need to remember. Anything you ask me, anything the accountant tells me, anything I notice (he used to use a white glove to search for dust), is written on this list. When I return to my office, I transpose the list onto my desk list. I never forget and I always do what I said I would do. That has made me successful. Do the same, Robin, and you will be successful. In my hotel, you will not forget anything, because you represent me. Understood?”

Mr. Honey taught me many valuable lessons (including how to knot my tie correctly!) but this was the one lesson that has helped me more than most of the things he taught me. I worked for nine straight months without a day off for that man - he was the best manager I ever had the privilege of working for. He was absolutely reliable, never compromised, and always delivered. I modeled him and even joined Rotary when I became successful because Arthur Honey was a Rotarian. In South Africa, you had to be wealthy to become a Rotarian. You had to own a business, as well, in order to even be considered as a Rotarian. My entire business and life revolves around lists, and it works very well.

I recently had a jumped up seminar junkie once again disgorging his unsolicited advice about how to run my business. One flower of success in the midst of a murky myriad of failures has convinced him that he is the business oracle before which mortals such as I should gratefully prostrate ourselves. One swallow does not a summer make, my young friend. Buying overpriced business courses does not make you a Donald Trump - it merely makes you a customer of the Donald. The smartest people I know only offer their advice when asked, and even then they humbly qualify their contribution.

Taking advice from people, as Mr. John Addison says, “who are more screwed up than you are”, is not one of my many failings. I am acutely aware of the limits of my knowledge and experience, but I have never benefited from the advice of someone who is clearly inexperienced, arrogant, and stupid into the bargain.

When I discovered the Average IQ was 100, I was Appalled (and then relieved!)

When I discovered that, on a bell curve, the average person has an IQ of 100, I was at first appalled, then relieved, when I found forgiveness in my icy heart for the average plebe who disguises himself as an entrepreneur and doles out his noxious counsel to other equally inept pretenders - the blind blissfully leading the blind, and laughing all the way to the bankruptcy court.

When Jim Stovall said that we should only take advice from people who already have what we want, he should have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Wisdom. Imagine an entrepreneur taking advice from an academic, a bank manager, or a socialist. Ridiculous, I know. Yet the sheeple continue to be sheeple, and we don’t have to follow them over the edge of the cliff.

Seek out TRULY SUCCESSFUL Mentors and Follow their Advice Carefully

Let us carefully select a good pair of effective earplugs and install them as soon as we are approached by one of these tormentors. Let us not confuse the symbol for the real thing. If I was a detective looking for a psychopathic conman, the first suspects on my list would be religious leaders, seminar presenters, consultants, and coaches, suffering from delusions of grandeur and fed by brainless sycophants who pay too much to join their cults.

I seek out truly successful mentors and follow their advice carefully, all the while retaining my reason and a good dose of skepticism, and cautiously weighing their recommendations before grabbing my wife’s checkbook. Empty barrels do, in fact, make the most noise. And still waters run very deep.

The Buddha said,

“Don’t hurry to believe in anything, even if it has been written in the holy scriptures. Don’t hurry to believe in anything just because a very famous teacher has said it. Don’t believe in anything just because the majority has agreed that it is the truth. You should test anything people say with your own experience before you accept or reject it.”

Let me add this final piece: When you find yourself in any meeting, seminar, or presentation where group dynamics and mass hysteria, group-think and emotional manipulation are at work, do not spend more than $500 or commit yourself to any amount over $500. This will prevent you from waking up with a terrible, haunting question the next morning: “WHAT HAVE I DONE?” The offer will still be there the next day, believe you me, and it might look very different.

The DollarMakers Credited Business Mentor Training Program

• Become a Certified Business Mentor (CBM)
• Learn how to Double the Profits in virtually Any Business
• Earn real money getting real results for business owners

As a Protégé of Robin J. Elliott and Patrick Giesbrecht, get five days of personal, hands-on coaching in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia

For 18 years, I consulted with the owners of small and medium sized businesses to dramatically increase their profits. As I got more involved with the DollarMakers Membership and traveled around the world more frequently, I stopped the consulting. My fees ran from $500 per hour to $1200 per hour and my monthly retainers were $5,000 plus profit sharing, but my heart was in the Bootcamps and my Joint Ventures.

I continually get requests from business owners to help them grow their businesses through my business mentoring, and there is nobody I would recommend to do that. After seeing how many “Coaches” and “Consultants” out there cost a small fortune and do more damage than good, I don’t know one person who can do what we do. OK, I know one person who can do it: Patrick Giesbrecht, the fellow who retired within seven months of attending my Bootcamp, but he doesn’t do mentoring either.

And so we came up with a solution: We would offer personal, intense, hands-on training to a few, carefully selected, qualified Protégés so that we can turn them into Business Mentors who are equipped to go into virtually any business and double or quadruple its profits, and get very well paid to do so. We created a five day, focused program, during which Patrick and I will personally coach and train these few, selected people and duplicate our skills in them. They will learn directly from my 21 years of experience and Patrick Giesbrecht’s business genius.

We will accept only a limited amount of Protégé’s per group, and we will include their accommodation, meals, and a professional city tour of our home, Vancouver, the most beautiful city in the world. Spouses and life partners can attend the training as well, at no cost, and their accommodation and tour will also be included (with the exception of their meals).

If you are interested in applying to be a Protégé, you can complete an application form on this site. We reserve the right to accept or reject applicants without an explanation, and since we will only accommodate a few people over five days, there will be very few slots to fill and we are already inundated with applications. If you’re interested in applying to be personally trained to be a Business Mentor, click here.

Read what you get and what investment is required before completing this Application.

Everything that impacts your mind, perception, choices, or awareness, has only one of two effects: Good or bad. The lukewarm amongst us will jeer at that declaration and allege that there is a “gray area” - losers LOVE that idea. Remember that our limitations are Self-Imposed, and so are our successes.

The fact is that if you are seriously committed to success, everything that you are exposed to will either help or hurt your progress en route to your objective. Winners cannot afford any dilution or distraction. Cyclists shave their bodies. Champions measure their speed in thousandths of seconds. EVERYTHING counts: diet, environment, input, association.

Contrasting Experiences To Learn From

I received an unsolicited phone call today from a fellow who wants me to participate in a public conference call. He asked me what my criteria were to participate or not. My answer was, “When I know whom the other participants in this project are, I will make my decision.” I will judge him by the company he keeps.

I once unexpectedly had to impose on someone with whom I had a business meeting to give me a lift home in his car. Before and during the meeting, he had impressed me with his stories of success and achievement. Until I got into his filthy van, that was. Cigarette butts clogged the ashtrays, papers were spread all over - dirty disarray, a reflection of his real nature - no congruency. End of relationship.

Nourish your success by elevating your standards, expectations, systems, and consciousness through the carefully selected association with people, ideas, input and environment. Exorcise the mundane, the tepid, the feeble, and the inconsistent.

Find mentors and heroes, both dead and alive, who will inspire, uplift, and challenge you.

Adhere to and create environments that are aligned with and congruent with your values, beliefs, aspirations, and expectations. Everything you read and watch, see, hear and perceive, has a consequence. The people in your life either take you towards your goals or away from them.

Nourish your success by paying whatever price is required. Invest in your goals and future. Discover the Real You and regain your old belief and excitement. Read only that which will fuel your ambition and inspire you on your journey. Churchill will trump Stephen King. Associate with those whom you wish to emulate. Practice that which you wish to perfect.

Read the thoughts of the great ones, if you wish to think the thoughts of the great ones, for their words ARE their thoughts. Align your philosophy with that of your heroes. Carefully and diligently remove all obstacles, detractors, and distractions from your path. Fuel your enthusiasm with stories about the accomplishments of winners. Everything counts, and everything matters. Contamination is real. Replace poison with power. You don’t eat donuts if you want to win the marathon.

Many entrepreneurs have a love/hate relationship with their businesses. They love the freedom it gives them, but they hate the fact that it steals all their time and energy. They love the fact that they can earn an unlimited amount of money in their own business, but they hate the fact that they constantly have to slave to create enough cash flow. It’s almost as if they got the new car, but it doesn’t have an engine.

Something is missing in your business, and I know where you can get it.

There’s the old story of the Indian Chief who saved for years to buy a car. When he got his shiny, new automobile, he sat in it and traveled slowly down the main street, waving to all the passers-by, well pleased with himself, and proud of his new toy. He had had six horses pulling the car along, because he didn’t know how to start the car or drive; two hundred horses under the hood that weren’t being used. Sounds like a lot of business owners I have met: they work far too hard and earn a a small percentage of their potential profits.

Why buy an airplane and learn to fly, when you can simply buy a ticket on someone else’s plane? It’s infinitely cheaper and easier, takes no time, and there’s no risk. Oh, you knew that? Then why don’t we do that in our businesses? Instead of buying and leasing and owning and risking, why not simply rent, borrow, or share something that is already paid for? Instead of working for minimum wage in your own business while your kids play ball, why not hire somebody and go watch the game? Do you think Donald Trump cleans the floors in Trump Towers? I was there, and I didn’t see him cleaning…. Oh, you’re not Donald Trump, you say? Well, you certainly won’t get to his level of accomplishment by being a laborer. You can read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, all day, but until you start acting on it and doing what rich people do, you’ll stay poor. I know people who’ve organized more cash flow games than I’ve signed checks, and they still work for a boss.

In order to turn that time vampire you call a business into a DollarMaker that spits out money while you sleep, you need to start learning about five things: Leverage, Duplication, Joint Ventures, Profit, and Value. That means that your dear ego needs to take an extended holiday while you take a good, hard look at the real situation in your business.

I told one of my clients, once, that his employees were stealing from him, and that he should start recording phone calls and set up CCTV. He was appalled. He was disgusted, shocked, and indignant. How dare I imply people would be crazy enough to steal from him? His brother turned to me and said, “We have caught a number of people stealing from him.” His ego was so out of control that this fool lived in denial and kept his brain pickled with alcohol over the weekends. You have to face facts if you want to change things.

Pretend your business is a Monopoly Game, and evaluate exactly where you stand. Look at all your resources, options, risks, costs, profits, ratios, and statistics. Look at the return on investment derived from your advertising. Be objective. You’ll be amazed at how many options you have available to you.

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.

Over at the website ‘Shape Up America‘, they compiled a list of 198!! Self-Improvement articles found around the internet.

Now, I don’t know about you, but 198 articles is ALOT to wade through.  But if you think about it - finding the good articles yourself is even MORE work.  I’d be willing to wager they read 5 to 10 times that amount on the topics they list, that just didn’t cut it as far as their requirements went.

Here is the general categories they have sorted them into:

• Self Improvement
• Productivity
• Health & Fitness
• Food & Diet
• Brain Power & Memory
• Sleep

And inside those topics is SCADS of valuable tips, tricks and advice in regards to genuinely improving yourself in so many areas of your life.

The Most Incredible Ways To Improve Thyself

I’d recommend you bookmark that page and whenever you’re bored and about to browse YouTube or waste time on FaceBook - you instead go read 1 or 2 of those articles and improve yourself immensely!