1.   Take Note of Their Mentors.

I know someone whose mentor had no respect for follow-up, didn’t return calls, was undisciplined, and slack. She is following his lead, of course, and will likely wind up with a scary lawsuit.

2.   Take Note of Their Friends and Associates.

Birds of the feather – similar values, beliefs, networks, standards, and aspirations. Where do they go? With whom do they spend their time?

3.   Their Customers and Vendors.

What is their reputation with people who sell to them or buy from them? How about their competition? How LONG have they known this person? Be especially careful of people who are new in the area and have a gray past. In many cases, they’ve run away from their bad choices in the past.

4.   The Internet.

Google, Bing, Facebook, Twitter, their websites and blogs – take the time to check them out. They will naturally have enemies and detractors if they’re well known, but judge the assault by the quality of their enemies.

5.   Their Philosophy.

What books do they read, what groups and clubs do they belong to, what religious and political affiliations do they have, where do they live, how do they spend their time? One’s philosophy drives ones motives and choices – it is a good predictor.

6.   Test Them in Small Ways.

Test them in small ways before opening up the big JV opportunities. Do they return calls and e-mails promptly, do they pay on time, are they cheap, are they well groomed and punctual, respectful, and professional? Are they loyal and honest? “Faithful in little, faithful in much.”

7.  How Do They Treat Others?

Their spouses, kids, friends, the waiter in a restaurant, animals, receptionists, their employees, and colleagues. Listen and watch – observe – because that’s how they will end up treating YOU.

8.   Take Your Time, There’s No Rush.

And don’t take the word of one person referring them – I now a successful businessman who has very little discernment in judging others. Over time, you will find out a lot more about them, good and bad. Over time, you will see patterns and tendencies – people hiding, making excuses, justifying, lowering standards, cutting corners. You will also be able to identify loser traits, like smoking, greed., ego, drinking too much, gambling, womanizing, and other addictions.

9. Beware of the Too Friendly.

Be careful of the too friendly, smiling, backslapping, always agreeing, politically correct funster. Those who are everyone’s friend and promise the world are usually sociopaths, or at the very least passive aggressive back-stabbers. Watch out for posers and parasites, too – there are many of them out there. If someone agrees with everything you say and has no opinion, he’s weak or dangerous. Either way, watch out.

10. Track Record.

Finally, look at the track record. That is a clear predictor of future behavior. Along with that, listen for EXCUSES and BLAME – the sure sign of a victim mentality. In that case, be aware that your prospect lives in the Victim/Persecutor/Rescuer world that denies personal responsibility.

Better to take the time and make the effort on the front end than to suffer later. The cost of discipline weighs ounces, while the cost of regret weighs tons. I would rather pay a good private detective up front than lose a lot down the road.

Definition of Congruency

In the context of one’s life, congruency means that:

• your beliefs, values, and actions are all in
  • agreement,
  • harmony,
  • conformity,
  • and correspondence.
• all parts and areas of your life are moving in the same direction.
• you walk your talk.

For example, someone who smokes and yet makes a point of eating healthy and getting regular exercise is not making congruent choices. Someone who has one area of his life sabotaging, weakening, or undermining another area of his life does not have a congruent lifestyle.

The reason most people are unconsciously breaking down their own success and limiting themselves is because of three things:

1. First, they don’t have clearly defined, measurable goals for their lives.
2. Second, they fail to measure and notice what they’re doing and what the ripple effects of their choices are,
3. and thirdly, because they’re lazy, addicted, apathetic, or just plain stupid.

But for those of us who are committed to happiness, success, and reaching our full potential, focusing on congruency can skyrocket you to unprecedented heights of success.

Every choice in every area of your life affects every other area – everything in your life is interconnected.

No Involvement, No Commitment.

Stephen Covey said that when we live according to our values, we will be happy. He also said,

“Without involvement, there’s no commitment. Mark it down, circle it, underline it. No involvement, no commitment.”

That makes sense, since you can’t deal with life at arm’s length. Whatever you focus on will grow, and you only have 24 hours a day to attain your success and happiness. Having the intestinal fortitude to define your values, beliefs, and philosophy, and then to arrange your goals in each area of your life so that they all fit and support each other, is indeed a smart thing to do, and very rare.

Perhaps one percent of people do this. You can, too.

It’s a simple choice.

Defining Our Own Philosophy

Defining our own philosophy and world view, and then deciding what we want our lives to look like, taking into account every area of life:

• social,
• mental,
• physical,
• financial,
• family,
• work,
• etc.,is the first step to greatness.

Then, look at your present lifestyle and choices through this lens, and decide what and who needs to be:

• adjusted,
• removed,
• fixed,
• added,
• and tweaked.

That‘s the scary and exciting part, because it will tell you exactly how much you are committed to what you say you believe and want.

Your philosophy of life is like your GPS, or compass. It will guide you to it’s ultimate purpose, be it self-sacrifice and resentment, or greatness and fulfillment.

Align All the Areas of Your Life

Then, it’s time to take action, to align all the areas of your life with your goals and values. This means removin

• certain people,
• groups,
• activities,
• choices,
• and input,
• and adding new stuff.

It’s like

• pulling the thorn out of your foot,
• wiping the dog poo off the bottom of your shoe,
• filling your gas tank,
• joining a health club,
• buying a bicycle,
• and canceling your membership to a club of losers.

It’s a wonderful way to spring clean your life, repaint it, and spruce it up.

It’s weeding the garden and planting new, beautiful flowers.

Having the guts to commit to being real and honest, no matter what the cost, is a wonderful investment in your happiness and self-esteem.

The Midas Touch

People who live congruent lives feel that whatever they touch turns to gold – success starts to “flow” for them. Things start going their way.

1. They breathe easier.
2. They sleep well.
3. They confront issues with courage and confidence.
4. They seem to attract successful people and circumstances.
5. They start liking and respecting themselves more, so others start treating them better, too.
6. They come out of the closet, so to say, into the bright sunlight of energy, purpose, and freedom.

This is scary for losers, who live on excuses, but exciting for winners, who love creating their own dream lives:

“Every thought, word, action, cent, decision, commitment, second, minute, hour, and mouthful of food COUNTS.”

Evaluate Your Life

I encourage you to evaluate your life and decide if it’s congruent or not. Since 97% of our problems, including our most valuable resource – our time, can be solved or significantly alleviated with money, as I have found being a Joint Venture Broker to be the most valuable tool available for facilitating a life of congruency, freedom, and happiness.

Working With the Right People

I know business owners who spend a whole lot of time keeping contact with and fostering relationships with the wrong people. Those people will not help you in hard times – they will run for the hills. That will not produce or improve anything.

We should work hard on our relationships with the right people, but we shouldn’t waste time with the wrong people. Quality is more important that quantity.

When people have proven to you that they have other agendas and hidden agendas, and that they’re only around to ride your coattails and eat off your plate, you might keep them in your database, but don’t expect anything from them.

Two Kinds of People

A very successful businesswoman, Reeva Forman, once told me long ago that there are only two kinds of people in the world:

• Givers and Takers.
• Producers and Consumers.
• Creators and Parasites.
• Rainmakers and passengers.
• Winners and losers.

Don’t fool yourself with quantity. The small percentage of winners will be there for you when you need then, and these are the people to spend your precious time and efforts on. The past is a good indicator of their future choices.

How do you know which ones are the real winners? Test them.

Finding Your Winners

Here’s a simple test to see if you’re trying to build a long-term relationship with a stinker or a star: Ask yourself this:

“What has this person contributed / created / produced without my guidance and help? If I wasn’t around, what would he or she have achieved? Is this someone who is riding on my initiative and reputation, or are they genuinely and consistently improvising, innovating, and initiating? Do I have to initiate communication, motivate, cajole, contact, and threaten, remind or ask them before anything happens? Am I the driver all the time?”

Who Are the High Quality Ones?

It’s better to spend $1,000 on one single relationship than to spend a hundred dollars on each of ten people, hoping one of them turns out to be a winner instead of a weasel.

Most people in your life will come and go, and that’s fine. But you don’t adopt a child just because he washed your car, especially when you paid him to do it.

Watch out for those who need the approval of others, the party animal, hail-fellow-well-met type who is constantly trying to impress others and keep up with the Joneses. There are many posers, but few producers.

Invest in the Producers

You might have a thousand business cards, and that’s great for business. But how many of those people are high quality winners who will be there for you when the chips are down? How many will join you in Galt’s Gulch?

Work on one percent, and you won’t be disappointed.

Don’t cast your pearls before swine. Don’t waste your time and attention on the wrong people. Test them, create filters, and become more selective. You’ll be glad you invested more with the right people.

Strategizing the Target

Shane heard about an entrepreneur who could help him move a large amount of products. This entrepreneur (I’ll call him Dennis) was busy, successful, in demand, and very selective. Many people continually vied for Dennis’s attention, and salespeople spent a lot of time trying to sell him stuff. Shane took a month to do some serious due diligence and information gathering on Dennis –

• his family,
• business,
• employees,
• goals,
• background,
• philosophy,
• hobbies,
• you name it.

Then he paid a detective to gather even more information. When he was properly prepared, he spent a thousand dollars buying and using Dennis’s products and services.

Now Dennis knew who Shane was – a respectful client.

Setting the Bait

Shane knew that Dennis’s family was very important to him, so he paid a photographer to do a professional photo shoot of Dennis’s family. Then he invited Dennis to go deep sea fishing with him and a few carefully chosen friends.

He spent another month working on his relationship with Dennis until Dennis regarded Shane as a friend. This included buying Dennis a new guitar. Up to this point, Shane didn’t try to sell Dennis anything.

Catching the Fish

Three months to the day after Shane targeted Dennis, he closed the deal. Shane’s total investment, he told me, was five thousand dollars, which was tax-deductible. The deal made him forty-thousand dollars NET profit after deducting the five thousand. And Dennis made twenty thousand.

What Shane did was to strategically get the maximum amount of credibility and leverage before introducing his deal.

He told me that, at any time during this three-month process, if he felt the deal wasn’t going to work, he would have cut bait and walked away.

A General, Not a Soldier

That was ten years ago, and Shane and Dennis are still doing business. (I called Shane to make sure.) How different from the desperate posers who push their scruffy little business cards at you without even knowing you. Shane makes a lot of money, because he is a general, not a soldier. He is:

• rational,
• professional,
• unattached,
• reliable,
• respectful,
• and skillful.

He values relationships, and he takes nothing for granted. You would never see him in a “Business Networking Group” or a Chamber of Commerce meeting.

Many Ways to Achieve the Same Results

Of course, it doesn’t always take five thousand dollars to position yourself for a successful deal / Joint Venture. There are many ways to accomplish the same results for pennies on the dollar, and even for nothing but time and effort, but I like this illustration. As Ayn Rand said,

“Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think.”

The emphasis is on THINK – something most so-called entrepreneurs avoid in favor of desperate sales pitches and their blind fumbling for a quick buck.

Which do YOU want to be?

Soldiers will grab a gun and rush out shooting. Generals plan before executing. They use:

• military intelligence,
• spies,
• reconnaissance,
• and input from other people.

They coordinate the activities of others.

Which do YOU want to be? Soldier or general?

To learn more about the Joint Venture Broker approach to wealth, which Shane understood so well, visit www.jvwisdom.com.

I met with someone this morning – a real winner. My objective is to build a long-term relationship with him and do lots of mutually-beneficial business over time.

What did I sell him? We met in a bookstore, and I sold him a copy of “Atlas Shrugged”. At least, he was headed for the cashier with the book in his hand when I waddled out. That’s possibly the biggest favor I will ever do for him. But my strategy for turning that meeting into a goldmine goes beyond recommending a book that will change his life.

Seek to Add to Your “Eagles List”

Having established his credentials, and my due diligence having shown that the man is a winner of the highest caliber, I simply add his name to my “Eagles List”. These are winners (many who assume they’re on that list are not) with whom I intend to build strong, trusting, lucrative relationships /goldmines. They are few and far between, hard to find, and like gold nuggets in tons of dirt, so one should value such a discovery. These people represent less than 1% of the population.

1. The people on my Eagles List receive regular communication and value form me.
2. I regularly introduce them to good people, good deals, and good Joint Ventures, look for overlap with them in my own JVs, and generally seek to add value to their lives.
3. I monitor these relationships carefully, and when evidence reveals that they’re not who I thought they were, or they make bad choices, they are simply removed from my list (and go spiraling forlornly into outer darkness).

Building a Winners-Only Network

Winners understand reciprocity and they think big. If your network creates your net worth, it’s crucial that you avoid losers and parasites at all costs. By carefully and consistently building value and relationships with the right people, you earn the right to their time and advice.

Jim Rohn said, “Asking is the beginning of receiving. Make sure you don’t go to the ocean with a teaspoon. At least take a bucket so the kids won’t laugh at you.”

Winners know other winners, and it’s all about who you know.

Business is a Courtship

Think about a successful Joint Venture as the culmination of a courtship. Proving yourself as being professional, reliable, honest, and able, and creating trust and reciprocity, has to happen before smart entrepreneurs will work with you and introduce you to their friends. And they WILL judge you by the company you keep and your track record.

Jim Rohn again: “Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.”

When you put enough wood on the fire, you can heat your home.

Too many times, we assume that we’re free of negative, limiting conditioning. Watch this video to see how your values determine why one gets rich or not.

Our beliefs about money and value and our self-esteem regulate and control our choices and the results we get. When our philosophy, values, beliefs, and priorities are properly aligned to wealth and success, everything changes.

If we:

• Love what we do,
• Believe in what we do,
• When we are grateful for what we do and have,

we remove limitations from our lives.

Take Inventory

Guilt, resentment, and fear will hobble even the most intelligent, hard-working people. Take inventory. Reassess what you value. Look at your real priorities.

• What do you spend your time and energy on?

Examine what you believe, and you will find out why you’re not getting rich. We always have the energy and time for things that are highest on our values. Money flows to your values.

• Where are you most disciplined, organized, and focused?
• What do you think about and read about most?
• What do you secretly wish for? Why? Why is it a secret?
• What is your internal dialogue?
• Where do you spend your time?
• What do you talk about?
• What do you emotionally react to?
• Those are your highest values – that’s what you are dedicated to. Is it making you rich?

We’ve all been conditioned and continue to be conditioned by the people in our lives and the information we’re exposed to. We all have values hierarchies or priorities, and the good news is that these can be adjusted, reinterpreted, and reprioritized. It’s all about interpretation and perception.

• How do you define “wealth”?
• What do think “rich” means?

Living a Life Congruent with Money

For example, if your highest priority is your kids, you might presently prioritize spending time with your children over working on your business, so you neglect your business or apply less passion to it, than, for example, building kits with your kids.

By understanding that your business can provide you with the passive income, money, and time for a better quality of life for your children, plus their education, security, and peace of mind, you can increase the priority of your business and see more “purpose” in it.

The meaning that we apply to our different options determines how we value them. By linking your priorities to the right activities and discipline, you can effect the changes you want.

Your Feelings About Money

1. How do you actually feel about money?
2. Do you secretly believe that rich people are dishonest, that money is the root of evil, or that money is a “necessary evil”?
3. Do you feel guilty about having money?
4. Do you resent others who have more than you do?
5. Do you feel bad when you have money while others don’t?
6. Does that cause you to subconsciously sabotage your own success?
7. Is your philosophy one of collectivism, or mysticism and superstition, as opposed to capitalism?
8. Do you feel you don’t deserve to be rich because of your past “sins” or bad choices?
9. Do you feel responsible for the choices that others make? Do you have low self-esteem?

Getting in touch with what you really want and believe is sometimes daunting and threatening, however confronting our true values is essential if we want to change our circumstances.

Empowering Your Beliefs

Removing the source or root of bad beliefs, replacing disempowering beliefs with good ones, and taking the time to think through this stuff, is easiest when you surround yourself with the right people and expose your mind to the right information.

In order to break free of these limiting beliefs and arrange a mindset that makes it possible to reinterpret your values priorities, I suggest you read Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”, which I guarantee will change you life if you are serious about financial freedom.

My cleaning lady would rather slave away and sell her time and sweat for $20 an hour than take the time to build a business. An employee who commutes three hours a day and works nine hours for a measly salary and no security would make a lot of money if he devoted twelve hours a day to brokering Joint Ventures.

• Why is it so difficult for people to move from cleaning closets and doing mind-numbing jobs to becoming successful entrepreneurs?
• Why do they need a boss to make sure they work?
• Why would someone spend twelve hours a day, doing what he hates (statistically, most people hate their jobs) to make $5,000 per month, when he can spend twelve hours to create financial freedom and retirement within a year?

It doesn’t make sense. Or does it?

I tested it – I gave my cleaning lady copies of three of my books and a few DVDs. I directed her to my websites. I told her I would be happy to answer any questions she had. She has never mentioned JVs again. She works hard, has a great attitude, and talks about cleaning and her family, and how much they need money.

Why People Are Stuck

Why are people stuck on their financial prisons, when they can free themselves with entrepreneurship?

1. The average IQ in North America is 98. NINETY-EIGHT.
2. And we are conditioned by the liberal media, the sly mystics, and the matronly academia to believe business and money is bad.
3. People pay $35,000 to get an MBA that they can use to get a better JOB. Crazy.

Stupidity, conditioning, fear of the unknown. “Better the devil you know”, “Too good to be true.” Sad, isn’t it? Not really. 98% of people will never become wealthy. That’s just the way it is. Accept it.

Here’s my point:

Entrepreneurs, let’s stop trying to rescue those who prefer to wallow in the waters of quiet desperation. Let’s stop casting pearls before swine.

• Let’s withdraw our generous offers and make people come and ASK for our help.
• Then make them PAY for it, so they recognize its value.

After all, they happily pay for their cigarettes and beer, don’t they? Atlas should shrug more often.

Stop wasting your time with losers, posers, parasites, and wanna-be’s. Make people prove themselves.

If they stop producing, cut them loose. That means FIRE them. Let’s become a lot more selective.

Why are cults so successful? They enforce very strict discipline and rules. They exact massive payment from their members. Perhaps we could learn from them.

Up the Ante

Let’s increase the quality of those with whom we communicate. Let’s up the ante. Let’s throw up more barriers and stop being so generous and altruistic. Make them ask, make them pay, and make them perform, and the eagles will soon reveal themselves.

The cream will rise to the top – it doesn’t need encouraging. The good ones will show up and motivate themselves. You don’t have top motivate a winner, and you can’t motivate a loser. The turkeys will stay away and attack you at every opportunity. DollarMakers has a new policy: we don’t accept Members back once they leave. And as we get more selective, the quality and income increases.

Stop trying to sell yachts to the homeless. Stop expecting idiots to read Shakespeare. You don’t see the price of Rolex going down. Stop begging people to succeed. Don’t give your cleaning lady books – give her a box of donuts.