If you know what you want out of life, you need to create an environment that will nurture your growth and support you through the realization of your dreams. W. Clement Stone said:

“You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective.

Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success – or are they holding you back?”

Napoleon Hill said:

“We begin to see, therefore, the importance of selecting our environment with the greatest of care, because environment is the mental feeding ground out of which the food that goes into our minds is extracted.”

The people in your life, the books you read, and the places you go are all important factors in your environment.

The Koi Principle

Remember that the Japanese carp or koi has the natural ability to grow according to the size of its environment. Thus, in a small tank, it usually grows to no more than five to seven centimeters, but if placed in a lake, it can grow to three times that size.

If you have big, important, exciting dreams, you want to be sure to put big people and big brains and big ideas into your environment, and it’s easier than you think.

Who Will You Be in 5 Years?

Charles Jones said:

“You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.”

Let’s just focus on these two aspects of your environment for now. But, before we do, consider what Alvin Toffler once said:

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

If you’re not ready to learn, unlearn, and relearn, no amount of good books or wise people will have any impact on you.

Meet the Right People

When people who are serious about success approach me for advice, I suggest they meet certain people whom I recommend. Those who do, benefit tremendously.

Your network certainly does determine your net worth.

Great people with great minds can excite, motivate, encourage, challenge, and assist you beyond your greatest expectations. By contributing to their lives first, great people will generously reciprocate, but don’t approach them with your hand out like a beggar.

Read the Right Books

When you have read “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand, you will want to read all of her books. “Atlas Shrugged” will change your life. Also read

• “Never Eat Alone” by Keith Ferrazzi,
• “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill,
• “The E-Myth” by Michael Gerber.

By reading the books of great thinkers, you get to actually think their thoughts. That is a profound revelation for most people.

Engineer Your Environment

Every person, book, Joint Venture, and physical aspect of my personal environment is very carefully selected, and those that no longer work are removed and replaced – fast. I monitor my environment very carefully and consistently. My peace of mind, integrity, and goals are far too important to be compromised.

How about yours? How strict and selective are you about your input, influences, and environment?

Time will tell.

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?

Think of a specific amount of money that would make a dramatic and exciting difference in your life.

Now imagine that you knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that you and your entire family would be tortured to death in a horrible manner (think of the movie, “Saw”) if you didn’t achieve that specific, exciting financial goal within exactly three months.

What would you do?

Could you achieve that goal?

Imagine your beloved kids having their podgy little paws severed, and you’ll quickly start making new choices. (Did that get your attention?)

More importantly:

• What would you do differently?
• What would you change?
• What would you stop doing?
• What would you start doing?
• Who would you call?
• What would you suddenly be prepared to do under those circumstances that you refuse to do now?

Most of us are too lazy, content, comfortable, and timid to do things outside of our comfort zone, and we allow our low self-esteem and fear of embarrassment to keep us from the wonderful achievements that we could accomplish.

It’s About Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone

Instead of sending you to a shrink (who is usually even more screwed up than we are), putting you through a motivational seminar every morning of your life, or chasing you around with a large, spiky stick, I suggest the easier route is to take the time to imagine the terrible consequences of remaining in your comfortable little molehill of mellow, yellow mediocrity.

When you play this game, you start to see all sorts of real options you might not previously have had the guts to confront.

Is It You Can’t or You Won’t?

You see, our biggest barrier isn’t the fact that we can’t accomplish something, but rather the fact that we won’t, because of our fear of other people’s opinions. Scary, I know, but true. We don’t fear failure per se; we fear the reactions of others if we were to fail. “What would they say? I would feel so embarrassed!”

How much more embarrassed would you feel if you learned that you had six months to live (watch “Breaking Bad”), and you had been too bashful, self-absorbed, and apathetic to provide adequately for your family when you had the opportunity?

Try this one: Imagine you get hit by a heavy truck while meandering across a busy street in the rain, so you’re confined to a wheelchair and can’t speak, and your fifty-something, arthritic wife has to work as a shelf packer at Safeway in the day and a cleaner at MacDonald’s at night to support your pathetic asset? (Problem is, there are so many useless men already living off their wives…)

Consider Your Real Alternatives

Playing head games frees us up to consider our real alternatives, to weigh up our present use of time and resources, and to think outside the box. We need to mentally exceed our pain threshold in order to imagine the unimaginable.

Playing this “torturous consequences” game allows us to peek out from under our moldy old security blanket and realize that we’re using around 4% of our potential, and that the lies we’ve been telling ourselves about what we can’t do are really just self delusion.

Think of Ricky Bobby in “Talladega Nights”, when he convinced himself he was paralyzed – a hilarious hospital scene that has a serious ring of truth to it. We all suffer from self-deception. When he stuck a real knife into his thigh to prove his point to his friends, he had a painful awakening.

Make Your Excuse Irrelevant

Yes, you can achieve magnificent goals, and all the barriers are just in your head. DollarMakers teaches how you can achieve any financial goals with no cost or risk, so all those weak excuses are no longer relevant. If only you can believe it to be so. Hence the dramatic imagination game.

If you have a vivid imagination and take the time to really get yourself into this head game, you might be amazed at what you could accomplish. Suddenly, you would do things that you currently avoid like the proverbial plague, not because you can’t do them, but because you fear the opinions of people who really don’t give a damn, don’t care, don’t notice, and don’t matter.

Get over yourself, get over your mental barriers, and get down to the bank to cash in on your grossly underutilized potential. Some once said. “THINK and grow rich…”

Antoine de Saint-Exupery said:

“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.”

Jim Rohn once talked on an audio tape about how one could theoretically complete an entire university degree while commuting to and from work, simply by listening to tapes.

Putting “Time Vampires” to the Stake

If you work out how much time we waste watching mindless TV shows and sport, and listening to brain dead DJ’s and media propaganda on the radio, it’s amazing how much time we waste. And time is our most valuable, irreplaceable resource.

Get rid of what Dan Kennedy calls “Time Vampires”. If every minute cost you $100, would you spend it so easily? Yet it is worth far more than that.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” ~ Steve Jobs

Avoiding a Bitter Ending

As we get older, we start to realize the value of time, and how much we have wasted. Kids grow up, we get old and fragile, and time moves inexorably on.

We don’t want to live in regret, like those who wait to enjoy their lives, and when they finally have the time and money, their health is gone. NOW is the time to enjoy your life, because who knows what tomorrow brings?

Before you know it, you’re old and bitter, your strength and vitality is depleted, and your relationships soured. You can avoid that.

Joint Venture Brokers Use Leverage - Not Time!

The big thief of time is working too hard and too long to make too little money. This can be solved by becoming a Joint Venture Broker, where you can leverage other peoples’ time, resources and money in order to become financially free. Work smart, not hard. Instead of selling your time like a paid slave, use your brain and leverage.

“For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned.”

Linking Problems with Solutions

Time well spent is a great investment in your future, and in terms of money, the beauty of being a Joint Venture Broker is that you can work any time of the day or night, using the phone and the Internet, while driving or waiting for things.

There is no more excuse for JV Brokers to say, “I didn’t have time”, because you’re not selling time – you’re linking people and opportunities, delegating, introducing, and managing relationships, like  general in the army, rather than a soldier in the trenches.

The meetings you do have in person can be worth a thousand times what an employee or time salesman can earn in an hour.

Break Free with Your Own Joint Venture Broker Business

I can run my JV Broker business from anywhere in the world, in one hour a day. Sure, it takes time and work to get to that level, but isn’t it worth working hard for one year on your brokerage, and then working one hour a day to maintain your freedom? Better, I think, than working like a slave until you drop dead, which is the future for many people, especially in this new economy and with the direction governments are taking us.

You Only Get Today ONCE

Don’t be a clone and a robot – break free, so that you can spend your own time as you wish, where you wish, with whom you wish. Today is the first day of the rest of your life, and it will never return. Life is not a dress rehearsal – you only get today ONCE. One life. One chance. It’s not too late to change.

Someone once said,

“Everybody’s a self-made man; but only the successful ones are ever willing to admit it.”

Frederick Douglass: A Story of Unbreakable Determination

Frederick Douglass’s life seems to be the prototype of the American rags to riches story. Born as a slave, he was deprived of any favorable circumstances. Yet, through hard work and with the help of an unbreakable determination, he managed to free himself and to become one of the most prominent African Americans of his times. He said:

“Self-made men are the men who owe little or nothing to birth, relationship, friendly surroundings; to wealth inherited or to early approved means of education; who are what they are, without the aid of any of the favoring conditions by which other men usually rise in the world and achieve great results.

My theory of self-made men is, then, simply this; that they are men of work. Whether or not such men have acquired material, moral or intellectual excellence, honest labor faithfully, steadily and persistently pursued, is the best, if not the only, explanation of their success. All human experience proves over and over again, that any success which comes through meanness, trickery, fraud and dishonor, is but emptiness and will only be a torment to its possessor.”

Reconstructing Your Future

Our past choices have brought us to our present circumstances. We have created who we are and what we have.

Excuses about how bad our upbringing was and the amount of times we were cheated carry no weight, when compared with the hardships overcome by people in far more adverse conditions. Was your situation worse than that of a Second World War concentration camp survivor? Once we have the courage to accept responsibility for our past choices, we can start to reconstruct our futures, no matter at what age.

“As A Man Thinketh”

James Allen, in his wonderful book which had a major impact on my life, “As A Man Thinketh” (download it FREE at www.asamanthinketh.com), he said:

“Of all the beautiful truths pertaining to the soul which have been restored and brought to the light in this age, none is more gladdening or fruitful of divine promise and confidence than this – that man is the master of thought, the molder of character, and the maker and shaper of condition, environment, and destiny. As a being of power, intelligence, and love, and the lord of his own thoughts, man holds the key to every situation, and contains within him that transforming and regenerative agency by which he may make of himself what he wills.”

All You Need to Achieve Greatness

Having this attitude and assuming the responsibility is the foundation upon which one can build any future one desires, however two more ingredients are required in order to achieve greatness:

• Access to the right people,
• and guidance along the way.

For this reason, I created DollarMakers. What future will you create?

A sparkling new week smiles at us, pregnant with exciting new opportunities, unlimited wealth, and wonderful experiences. The future beckons kindly with the offer of beautiful dreams, fun, and growth.

• Will you take up your sword, slay your dragons of fear, and boldly step up onto the stage of life? You can, you know.
• Or you can remain, as Roy Williams suggests, in the small pen of your choosing and compare yourself to littler men.

A New Perspective on “Failure”

Perhaps you fear “Failure”. In fact, you don’t fear failure per se – you fear the opinions of other people.

Tell me, if there were no other people in the world, would you still fear failure? How do you define failure, anyway? Here’s a good way:

“I only fail when I decide to quit, and if I decide to quit, I haven’t failed – I have simply got bored and chosen another goal.”

You can change your plans and your method of achieving your goals, it’s your life, and you can change your mind any time you like.

Getting Boxed In By Goal Setting

Too many people think goals are limited entities, such as “I want to lose twenty pounds.” While it’s important to have measurable, specific, time-sensitive goals, the REAL goal is to lose weight and feel healthier and more energetic, isn’t it?

Ultimately, your goal is freedom, happiness, integrity, health, good relationships, and congruency.

The world is flexible, changing, and dynamic. Don’t get hung up on the details. We have to adjust and ride the waves of life with our own values as our guiding light.

Being the best we can be, without compromising our values and guided by our philosophy, is what it is all about. Enjoy the ride of life. It’s short.

Start Living It Your Way

We create wealth to enjoy freedom, not to create wealth.

We create freedom so that we can live congruent lives.

Living according to our own values is what makes us happy – doing what is important to US, not some boss or witchdoctor or politician. It’s not about a hockey team or a disgruntled, resentful, jealous relative – it’s about YOU. It’s YOUR life, and you only have one, and it’s running out, and it’s time to start living it your way.

Moving Ahead Boldly

Exciting goals make exciting lives.

• Watch the movies, “Yes Man”, and “Patton”.
• Read the book, “The Fountainhead”.
• Face your fears, remove the victims, snakes, and parasites from your life, and move boldly ahead.

This is your time. You don’t have to explain, justify, or pacify anyone. Those who truly love you will support you and encourage you. They will want you to be happy, and we can only be truly happy when we are in charge of our own lives.

Happiness For Me…

Happiness for me is spending time with my loved ones, PG Tips tea with a ginger biscuit, skiing down a mountain, helping others to help themselves to make their dreams come true, and wondering in a forest.

I live according to my own philosophy, not someone else’s agenda.

I achieve my own goals if and when I want to, and I answer to nobody. I am a soldier, not a politically correct, passive aggressive sycophant. I freely, frequently, change my mind.

Freedom is Your Right and Privilege

Don’t deny yourself the joy of emotional and mental independence and freedom – it is your right and privilege.

Rise from the stupor of negative conditioning.

Break the cotton candy bonds of timidity and embarrassment.

Smash out of the fragile bubble of limited thinking and false guilt, take up your shiny sword of purpose, and skip feely down the winding daisy path of self-fulfillment.

You deserve it.

It is true that I tell everyone that attends any of my talks, seminars, or Bootcamps that they should read “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand.  I don’t get a commission on book sales, I assure you. But I benefit when people start thinking correctly - the world improves.

The Second-most Influential Book

In 1991, a survey by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club found that readers rated “Atlas Shrugged” as the second-most influential book in their lives, behind only the bible. I have yet to meet anyone with a decent IQ who doesn’t tell me this book has changed their lives. This video will give you an insight into how vital it is to understand what is going on in the world right now, and how pertinent this amazing book is.

Objectivist Philosophy

DollarMakers is based on the Objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand and the emerging new world order that is following the recession, and we know how valuable it is for our students, friends, and Members to acquire this powerful understanding and insight. Watch these six, short, incredible, sequenced videos, and  you will stand amazed and immediately buy the book.

Open Your Mind

Responsible, ambitious adults need to understand what is going on in the world, and you won’t find that out by believing the lies and propaganda in the media, be it left or right. This book will open your mind reveal the raison d’etre of DollarMakers.

I grew up poor – by the age of seventeen I had lived in eighteen different places, and was drafted into the army. I thought I had a great life, and I did. When I was fourteen, my family lived in two rooms in a residential hotel or boarding house. I had lots of friends and we had great fun. We were poor, but we didn’t really notice it.

Across the road from the “hotel” was a broken down, empty old house, with a circular dam with five foot high, concrete walls, in ramshackle, deserted grounds. The good news was that the water supply had never been turned off!

Turning Poverty into Paradise

I got all my friends together and we decided that we would have a swimming pool. We cleaned and scrubbed that slimy, green dam for five days, drained it, and filled it with sparkling, cool water. It was a dream come true that hot summer. We were so excited, we could hardly contain ourselves.

We cleaned up the “garden” surrounding it, and everyone showed up with swimwear, towels, and suntan lotion.  It was a wonderful summer.

We swam and played and enjoyed ourselves. We could have whined that the rich kids had sparkling, blue, real pools, with pool boys and gazebos, but I think we had more fun.

And we really appreciated what we had, because we had created it ourselves.

You’ll Appreciate What You Earn

Statistically, people who win money or inherit it usually lose it (and many sink into deep depression.) Easy come, easy go. We don’t appreciate what we don’t create and earn.

Instead of whining about what we don’t have, we can turn life’s lemons into lemonade, and create the lives we want.

I know rich kids whose parents worked hard to buy big houses with huge pools, and the kids complained and hardly used the pools.

We’re surrounded by unlimited opportunities, and as far as business goes, the fastest and easiest way to take full advantage of the wonderful gifts lying all around us is through the use of Joint Ventures.