Work for Nobody for Nobody Start working on yourself, So you can start working for yourself.
Edited by Erin Martineau, PhD ISBN 978-0-578-02572-8 First Edition Copyright © 2009 by Tiemen Staal All rights reserved, published by Tiemen Staal Printed in the U.S.A.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
3
What others had to say…
"Work for Nobody, provides a psychological blueprint that includes tried and true principles and tools critical for successful transformation of our talents into life-sustaining, life-sustaining, long-term long-term success. He presents foundational foundational keys to surviving the new economic landscape, which is requiring us to become increasingly increasingly self-supporting. self-supporting. Many thanks to Tiemen for awakening the entrepreneurial spirit in all of us and for lighting a torch, that we might go forward, self-sufficient, on our own two feet."
-- Chad Buckland, Author and Mastery University Counselor for Anthony Robbins Companies
"Tiemen is a rare type of entrepreneur in that he understands that success in business has less to do with the daily operations of the business, and more to do with the daily maturation, education and growth of the mind. Tiemen's track record of building b uilding successful online businesses, demonstrates that there is nothing lucky about what he's been able to accomplish as many try and fail. His new book, 'Work for for Nobody' gives you all the tools required to build a solid mental, mental, financial and business business foundation for for success. In less than 100 pages, 'Work for Nobody' will provide you with everything an aspiring entrepreneur needs to free themselves from the system of indentured servitude known as employment."
Fernando Ceballos, Co-founder of Attraction Marketing Formula
"Tiemen's insight into the mind of success is phenomenal. phenomenal. In such a short book he tackles all the struggles, the troubles, and the conversion we must go through to finally finally believe we CAN achieve achieve something great. It's so excellent to find a book that combines vision with the practical. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is up for the challenge of changing their minds before growing a 21st century business!"
Scott VanHoogstraat, Financial Advisor & Social Connector
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
4
"Tiemen's book, Work for Nobody, simplifies how to reach one’s full potential and arrive at the destiny that most people only dream of. His book dispels the myths that are perpetuated by many of the "old school" financial educators. Here you will find valuable information on how to succeed as an entrepreneur, but also includes exercises designed to maximize the reader's learning experience. Tiemen captures the essence of manifesting success and creating the Rich Life. If you're looking for a clear plan to attain success in business and life, look no further, this book was written for you.”
-- Jovan Will, Global Rich Dad Trainer
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
5
Work for Nobody for Nobody By Tiemen Staal
Table of Contents
Page #
Foreword Chapters
7
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Begin with the end in mind a. My story b. The big picture c. Where are you today? d. More than money e. Take stock of your values Setting your destiny in motion a. Just do it b. Engineering the future c. Train your brain d. Conscious/subconscious e. Learn from example f. Abundance vs. perception How we undermine our success a. Pain and pleasure b. Limiting beliefs c. Labeling d. Associative conditioning Becoming financially literate a. Dispel the myths b. Start a corporation c. Cashflow 101 d. The power of leverage A world of business owners a. Demise of the middle class b. Business options for the average Joe c. Our expensive lesson d. Finding your niche e. Massive Action
Final Thoughts
17
32
52
62
73
86
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
6
Foreword
Admittedly star-struck, I sat at the Rich Dad Company boardroom table directly across from author, speaker, investor, and entrepreneurial guru Robert Kiyosaki one memorable September morning. Robert has gone toeto-toe with giants like Donald Trump. People from around the world have paid thousands of dollars just to hear him speak. I must have felt a bit like Robert did the first time he sat down with his rich dad mentor, his best friend’s father; except that on that occasion, Robert was only nine years old. Robert turned out to be very much like I imagined him before meeting him: serious and stern, but fair and charismatic. He has an intense gaze, and I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to engage in any kind k ind of high stakes bargaining with him. Despite my initial unease, unease, I felt very privileged privileged to be in that boardroom. boardroom. I was acutely aware of what I stood s tood to learn from Robert. Even now, whenever I take a seat in this room, I watch and learn. Rich Ri ch Dad is a nexus in the global entrepreneurial revolution. Having escaped the Rat Race in 2006, I now work from home and run my own businesses largely from behind my computer for about two to three hours a day. Not a bad deal, as most Americans work 50 hours a week for considerably less income. So shouldn’t I teach other people how to do the same? Of course I should! It’s almost my civic duty, given the way politicians and corporate executives have squandered our trust and undermined our economy and financial wellbeing. That’s where this book comes in. So, welcome, fellow or future entrepreneur! I’m excited that this little course found its way into your hands. It sprang spr ang from a long-winded article that I wrote with the aim of shaking people from their false sense of security. This article quickly became a small book and, upon the recommendation of my friend and marketing guru Ferny Ceballos, grew into something resembling a quick crash course for the aspiring or struggling entrepreneur. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
7
The truth is that you need to rely on yourself these days, and the way to achieve self-reliance is through education. I’m not talking about going back to school, however. Our school system churns out workers and soldiers. It isn’t built to produce business owners and investors. In order to become financially free you have to study outside of the traditional school system. There is no college with a real entrepreneurial program to speak of. It’s a school of hard knocks, and you’ll have to learn from people like me who have been at it for a while, which means spending some time reading these pages. For that reason, I have tried to keep it brief enough to hold your attention. If you’re anything like me, you’ll never finish a 400-page book. Yet, I trust this little booklet is also comprehensive enough to offer some real value – even for those who have been around the entrepreneurial block a few times (whether successfully or not.) So, what made you think about going into business for yourself or at least l east entertain the idea? Are you tired of working – and, therefore, living – on someone else’s terms? Is your income not meeting your desires or maybe not even meeting your needs? Are you tired of letting l etting someone else tell you when you can have a break or when you’re allowed to go on vacation and for how long? Perhaps you found out that you like spending time with your friends and/or family better than spending time at a job. I know I do. Maybe you finally figured out that profits are something you can control, and wages are not. Or you decided you deserve to be paid before the IRS does, since you’re doing all of the work. Perhaps you decided you aren’t ready to give up on your hopes and dreams and discovered that job security st in the 21 century is a fallacy. Whatever the reason, you’ve taken a chance on this book, which just might mean we’re kindred spirits. I have discovered that many people out there just like you are desperately seeking a way out of an unfulfilling job, an insufficient insufficient paycheck, or a career that takes too much time away from loved ones and the things they love doing. I know a lawyer who resents res ents his work even though he makes a six s ix figure income. I’ve run into an executive who traded his career to drive a delivery truck in order to escape the office stress. On the other hand, I’ve known way too many people who love their job but are perpetually broke! Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
8
It seems so hard to strike the right balance, doesn’t it? Today, many people find that they no longer want their job, and it almost seems like the job no longer wants them either. Employers are always systematically looking for ways to get along without you because you are their biggest expense, whether you’re a line employee or an executive. So, let’s face it. The honeymoon is over. Unless you’ve been living under a rock the past few years, you will have noticed that our economy and our society are undergoing a significant transformation. As metaphysicist Dr. Joe Vitale recently mentioned, “The current crisis is the death of an old world and the birth of a new one.” An optimistic view, I’d say. Change is always good if you’re among those who are aware of it and take advantage of new opportunities. And change is here in a big b ig way. Oh yes, the current state of o f the world is just one of those major growing pains. You can choose to benefit from it or o r let it bring you down in flames. The Information Age is all but done with turning our world upside-down. The advent of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) has allowed Corporate America to move many of its back-office operations to Asia, where it can hire five people with college degrees for the cost of one average American worker. For me personally, the effect of this simple math really hit home – more than once. I was downsized twice before the age of 25. It really stinks to have to admit that. Painfully, I came to the realization that the job market isn’t safe anymore; it no longer offers the kind of security it once promised. pro mised. My parents were pre baby boomers. They were born in 1940s Nazi occupied Holland and recalled German troops marching down the streets where they grew up. My grandparents dealt with scarcity and worry; in the decades after the war people idealized the image of the loyal company man and his benevolent employer. But that industrial-age ideal of sticking to a large and stable s table employer doesn’t seem to hold true in today’s environment.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
9
Needless to say, I began exploring the option of owning my own business after being kicked out on my keester the second s econd time around and learned far more than I bargained for. Now, I want to help you prepare for a radically different world that will – as the middle class continues to shrink – offer you the choice to join the ranks of the rich or the poor. Becoming part of either one is a matter of choice and not chance. You can blame circumstances only for so long. For better or worse, our lives are always in motion. Some people drift along aimlessly with the societal and economic currents, while a determined few actively aim for their goals and objectives. Those few are aware of the currents and realize that they have the choice to navigate their way rather then remain adrift. Once you have achieved this level of awareness all you need is a compass to guide you. This book will help you work on that vital instrument. My point is that you have to steer yourself toward success. Never expect to just run into it one day and spend your days waiting for the perfect moment. Instead, you have to decide that this moment is perfect. I have found that winners create their own luck l uck by the choices they make. Success, which is frequently mistaken for luck, is where preparation meets opportunity. If you feel you’re not having much success in your professional and/or personal life, perhaps you should look at the decisions you’ve made so far. We’ll get into this later, but start reflecting on how well you have prepared yourself to live up to your potential. There was a time when I thought my college degree was all the preparation I needed for success in life. Boy, what a painful lesson it was to learn just how wrong I was. Luckily I came ca me to this realization well before I had myself entrenched too deep in Corporate America.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
10
Redefining yourself
Having a job can trap you mentally, so perhaps it’s hard for you to see yourself as an entrepreneur just yet. Once you have been stuck for a while, it becomes increasingly difficult to see the life you really want but stopped dreaming about. Break that pattern, and get your focus back where it belongs! I’m going to point out some things that you might not want to hear or look at honestly, but I’m here to hold up the mirror because that’s where you’ll find most of your answers. I might get in your face and say it bluntly, and perhaps I’ll even offend a few people. But that’s okay. We can’t see eye-to-eye on everything. Just promise to step out of the box sometimes s ometimes and open your mind to new perspectives. Ultimately, you need to look inward, and see what you find. Too many people are on autopilot and live by knee-jerk reactions on a daily basis. I will dare to say that these people are almost semi-comatose. Don’t find yourself among those who don’t take responsibility for their actions, as well as their inactions. And remember that it doesn’t matter where you start in terms of opportunity. In western society, opportunity and available time are equal for all willing individuals. If you dare, you can do something remarkable when you refuse to be held back by your fears and preconceived notions. It’s okay to have fears as long as you’re able to act in spite of them. It’s also okay to have preconceptions, as long as you’re able to recognize them for what they are and do not allow them to hinder you. It’s also fine to not know exactly what to do. d o. You can always find people who know “how to.” Keep your focus on “why you want to.” It’s fine if you’re unable to see every step down the road to success, as long as you never lose sight of why you set out in that direction in the first place. If you want to drive from LA to t o New York, you can’t see all the way from Venice Beach to Time Square, can you? But you’re pretty sure you can get there by following the right directions. Enough said. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
11
Start asking questions
What brought you to where you are today, and where will you end up if you keep moving in the same direction? Are you purposefully moving toward your life’s objectives? What do you want out of life and where do you want to spend it? Are you satisfied with everything and everyone in your life? What would you like to bring into your life? Who is responsible for the life you lead today? (If (I f your answer doesn’t include yourself, you have a long road to travel!) Have you given any of the above questions much thought recently? These are tough questions, but you will need to answer them. Your answers, if honest, will greatly impact how and if you will succeed as an entrepreneur. The successful entrepreneur is an individual who dares to ask the tough questions and is not afraid to stare down adversity. This is not a life for cowards seeking the assurance of “great benefits” and keeping a job they don’t really love out of fear of the unknown. I also want to impress upon you that the way to financial and personal freedom is not a sprint – it’s a marathon. Those who are willing to invest the time and money in quality training and coaching will succeed in the long run. You will need to experience personal growth before financial growth is possible. It’s a race of endurance, but the payoff can be incredible. If you expected to receive a get-rich-quick guide, sorry – that isn’t what I’m offering here. There are plenty of scam artists out there who offer such things to the foolish and lazy.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
12
I’m also here to tell you that your chances of becoming a millionaire within a couple of months are slim. However, your chances of doing so with a job are nearly non-existent . You’ll be lucky to scrape enough together for a mediocre retirement with the average career. Maybe with a professional career as a doctor or lawyer you may have a shot at doing above-average. But since when do we aspire to achieve above-average? Are you playing to win or just playing not to lose? No, I’m offering a glimpse of a new version of o f you – more empowered, more confident, and better equipped to make the transformation to a successful entrepreneur. Many people think they are entrepreneurs by virtue of doing something on l imits. I’m not going to talk the side, but they have never really pushed the limits. about hobbies; this path is only for the committed few. “The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way.” -Robert Kiyosaki
Content vs. context
You can buy the best marketing books and courses, follow the greatest experts and gurus, sign up for the best opportunity, and throw thousands of dollars into it, but ultimately, it all comes back to your mindset and context. I’m going to discuss some important topics that most Internet marketing wizards neglect to teach you. Their books, courses, or systems may be the latest and greatest, but all of this content is rather irrelevant if your context isn’t ready to handle all of the new information. Let’s assume for a minute that the content (the information available) is represented by a one-gallon drum of water, and your context (your ability to interrelate incoming and previously stored data) is an eight-ounce glass. You can probably see where this is going. The glass won’t be able to hold of the content.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
13
Your mind faces the same dilemma. It simply cannot contain or process the incoming data effectively, let alone make sense of it. So before you invest a great deal of time and money into various webinars, books, and training, take this opportunity to find out if your context matches that of an entrepreneur. For example, in the context of the average employee, leaving a career for a business opportunity is considered risky. In contrast, within the entrepreneur’s context, few things are riskier than basing your financial future on something as fleeting as a job. You’ll find that this book is more about developing your mindset than on your business skills. There are already plenty of books on marketing, management, and so forth, but they will be completely irrelevant if your context is not ready. This book contains critical information that isn’t covered in those books, in a course in school, or at your corporate job. First of all, I’m not going to cover many “how to’s.” This course is about “why should you?” Or better yet, “why haven’t you”? Ask me about “how to’s” after you have finished this book. If you want to learn how to sell, read Blair Singer, Mark Joyner or Dan Kennedy. If you want to learn to invest in real estate, look at Carlton Sheets or Russ Whitney. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
14
Do you need leadership skills? Many captains of industry have their entire lives available in print. In all of the hype and h hoopla, oopla, aspiring new entrepreneurs don’t understand or are not able to effectively apply these teachings because of the limits of their context. Regrettably, they are likely to give up on their dreams after they fail to earn any money, and these books and courses will end up collecting dust on the shelf. Your context is the foundation; don’t try to build your knowledge on top without reinforcing this foundation! Your context holds information together in a way that makes sense to you, and it’s different for all of us because it’s shaped by our individual life experience. With this in mind, I have deliberately written this material in a conversational style so that it’s most easily accessible. This is not a Harvard thesis, and it might not excite those among you who crave cr ave spotless MLA or APA formatting. But it will help you quickly make sense of and assimilate this information and add to your context so that you can get off the ground running right away. Every chapter ends with a few quick assignments to get you engaged in the process. You will see that by the time we finish up, reading is just part of o f the learning experience and shouldn’t be the sole means of absorbing the knowledge you to which you expose yourself. Whether or not you complete the assignments is up to you, but note that you’re more likely to internalize and retain more of the material if you actually perform the activities. If you really are committed you will follow through. Becoming an entrepreneur requires so much more than any school or college can offer you. If I had known years ago what I know today about education in and outside of the classrooms, I cannot honestly h onestly say that I would have invested the time and money that went into my college degree. I set out to write this book because I identified a missing link. I have seen too many people try to carve out a life as an entrepreneur who bought into Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
15
all the leadership talk and think they need to educate all of the poor souls out there who need saving from their terrible jobs or dead-end opportunities. They read a few books, bought a few internet marketing courses and think they are qualified to call themselves marketing consultants and (my personal favorite) lifestyle coaches. What a fitting homage to Corporate America to carry on this need for a job title. Seriously folks, these people skipped some important steps in selfdevelopment and went out into the world of entrepreneurs with an employee mentality. They sought out a leader in the field and took a job. Now they are working for a multilevel marketing (MLM) organization or for a selfs elf proclaimed guru, and they are once more dependent . Then something changes, and again they’re lost. Like a true follower, they go looking for answers elsewhere. When they find something that claims to have the solution for their predicament, they cling to it until the next bump bu mp in the road. That is not leadership. Once you finish this book, commit yourself to heading down a path of growth and continued reinvestment in yourself. If you think your education ends here, you’re sadly mistaken. This is a lifelong journey, and you have only just begun. Let’s get started. - Tiemen
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
16
Chapter 1 Begin with the end in mind - My - My story
Not too long ago, I found myself in a stereotypical corporate job at JP Morgan Chase & Co. I had been laid off twice prior and thought I had finally found that stable job that my parents told me about. I was making a decent living, and we were able to afford a nice ni ce house, two nice cars, and take the kids on occasional trips. But there was never any money left to invest, and we couldn’t splurge on something we were passionate about. As time passed and prices rose r ose faster than my income did, I felt I was in reverse while I should have been moving forward. Although I had my suspicions, I didn’t fully realize the potential of owning my own business until my wife began an eBay store in 2004. She had started a year earlier at a hobby level reselling our two boys’ used clothing. When we decided to deliberately acquire products for resale, however, things started to gain momentum. Soon, my wife’s hobby was bringing in more money than my corporate paycheck. I thought to myself, “Am I putting my hours where they count?” I should have been minding my own business instead of someone so meone else’s! So, after initially reducing my office hours, my job eventually became obsolete. Within a matter of months, we became a recognized retailer of luxury children’s apparel on eBay and Silver Powersellers (eBay terminology – look it up, bookworm!) in a community of a few hundred million users worldwide and growing. In 2006 we incorporated, began producing some of our own products, and the business took on a life of its own. Once our eBay business became a successfully working retail machine, I began exploring other business opportunities. It’s always smart to diversify your business activities and investments to a certain degree, so I didn’t want to leave all of our eggs in one basket. I became even more interested in broadening my horizon as eBay’s desire to please buyers at the sellers’ expense began to escalate. I began to feel like an employee again in some ways. I wanted to less vulnerable to the t he whims of their board of executives. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
17
After several years of continued online success, a good friend introduced us to a new nutritional product in 2007. After months of consuming this fancy juice, we found out that it was offered solely through a multilevel marketing (MLM) organization. At the time, I didn’t even know what that meant. I was a tad skeptical, but I figured it would be easy to promote p romote a product we used and loved. Besides, I already worked from home, so what could possibly be the harm in taking on something else from home? Looking forward to another income stream, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work. However, I soon found out that this kind of business isn’t as easily built as the “rah rah” MLM events make it appear. I quickly learned that my success with the MLM business model would rely on my ability to recruit and lead other people p eople interested in starting their own business with our product. Selling expensive juice alone was not going to be worth the substantial effort. It takes an unusual salesman to convince someone to keep buying $45 bottles of juice in a slow s low economy. No, it would be a matter of duplication – recruit other distributors, teach them what you do so that they can recruit and teach others, and so on. Finding people able and willing to do so was not as easy as I anticipated. Another factor I underestimated was the simple fact that not everyone is fit to be a business owner. I learned this the hard way and wasted a great deal of time with hobbyists and employee-minded cowards. A $37 investment in a book called Magnetic Sponsoring changed my thinking a great deal. Author Mike Dillard emphasized the importance of studying and self-development. He made it clear that people join people, not opportunities, and people only join those they perceive as having value to them. People instinctively seek out leaders; it’s an inescapable reality. It made sense to me. It struck me long after reading it, that Magnetic Sponsoring was also a contextual work. Mike doesn’t tell you you what to do. Rather, he shows you what you have to become so you can figure out what to do for yourself. One business model might work today, but what are you going to do when it stops working? Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
18
As I learned about leadership, marketing, and copywriting, I was still steadily spending thousands of dollars on products and marketing but not bringing in nearly as much. I found out that I wasn’t alone. An estimated 97% of MLM-ers still spend more than they make. My venture into MLM definitely brings some grave concerns to light for anyone still pondering to pursue success in this arena. I came in with top talent to support me, plenty of capital, and a determination to win. And still, I got spanked! Thank heavens our eBay business allowed us to absorb the financial blow. Sadly, my stint in the world of MLM caused me to do something I had vowed not to do: I threw in the towel. More on this experience later. So, what happened next? Well, I ditched the juice business. I began to focus on what I enjoy doing, which is helping others. More specifically, I focused on helping others create businesses from scratch and educate themselves financially. In my humble opinion, a solid financial education is the only road to financial freedom. Sure, you can make some money – even a lot of money – but if you don’t understand money, you will never have it working for you. You will always be working for it . As a banker I had seen this all too often. While working for JP Morgan, I served many clients who no longer needed to work for a living. As a banker, I always wondered what my clients did that separated them from the rest of society. How did they think? How did they handle setbacks? What got them excited, and most importantly, what did they invest their time and money in? It probably comes as little surprise that Robert Kiyosaki has been one of the principal influences on my financial re-education. I first met Robert about six months after first reading his book Rich Rich Dad Poor Dad . Call it a sign of the times or whatever you like, but I joined with Rich Dad on its mission to provide the masses with the financial education that they did not and will not receive in the traditional classroom or anywhere else.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
19
In order to achieve this I aligned myself with Mike Dillard and his team of marketing pros and a couple of entrepreneurs from Robert Kiyosaki’s inner circle (it’s amazing to see how things fall into place once you set them in motion.) Together we market a product called the Business-in-a-Box (BiB), created by Canadian entrepreneur and former Midas employee Jay Kubassek. Jay’s product shows the total novice how to start a business online from scratch. It also carries great gr eat appeal to the disillusioned network marketer that’s grown tired of silly MLM gimmicks, dead downlines, prospecting nightmares, and awkward living room “parties.” We employ a highly automated all-online marketing system called CarbonCopyPro to promote our line of financial education products created by Wealth Masters International (WMI). Learning how to earn one million dollars in network marketing is one thing, but learning how to keep k eep and invest it and turn it into two million dollars or more is quite another. Personally, I’m in the best place imaginable. I found a way to fuse my passion for financial education with my skills and interests in Internet marketing. In a broad sense, I am putting into practice Rich Dad’s lessons: get your financial IQ up, build businesses, and learn to invest. i nvest. I have found my niche, and there’s nothing I’d love more than to help you find yours!
The big picture
You already know that the number of lower income households is multiplying. I used to know several network engineers who had to settle for entry level jobs after a “colleague” took over their position in a new office in Mumbai, India. But there is a bright br ight spot in all of this – as I will explain in Chapter 5 – the rich are also growing fast in numbers. As rapidly as corporations are offshoring their offices and domestic manufacturers are closing their plants, enterprising individuals are starting their own businesses at home. They will replace the collapsing middle class, which is leaving a great divide between rich and poor. The middle class is what made the American economy great, and the great financial minds of our time agree that financial education and self-reliance will be crucial in this transformational era. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
20
This book is written around these two patterns p atterns of thought: 1. Societal changes are forcing us to become more self-reliant. Just look at the ways the government is maneuvering around some of the financial pillars of our society. They are pushing from pension plans to 401K plans, shifting the burden from employer to employee. Consumer-driven health insurance plans (like HSA’s) are beginning to replace the increasingly unaffordable HMO and PPO plans, placing yet another burden on the individual. As our government is rather r ather powerless in a free market to halt the flow of jobs overseas, we will be left to figure out what to do for a living. Prices are rising, jobs are becoming scarce, and annual pay increases are stagnant at best at the jobs that are left. Since the housing market suffered a significant implosion that eliminated many billions in equity, it might be some time before we can rely on our real property again to fall back on. We have also discovered we cannot fall back on our jobs. So, what are we left to do? Get a second job so that we don’t ever see our family? Hold out our hands for a bailout? No way! If you cannot count on an employer to provide for you or a government to look out for you, the alternative is simply to learn how to provide for yourself – 100%! This will require enhancing your financial IQ and freeing yourself from industrial-age ideas that do not belong in the Information Age. 2. The changes necessary to become a self-reliant entrepreneur are largely a shift in mindset . You can pick the finest business opportunity that suits you and invest in the best b est equipment, marketing materials, consultants, etc., but without aligning yourself mentally, you will go absolutely nowhere. Unless you have read into subjects like associative conditioning, paradigm shifts, and autosuggestion, you need to learn about human behavior and motivation. An understanding of these basic principles will largely determine your success in any field of endeavor, especially if you own your own business. You don’t control much in a job, but you sure can control your mindset when you learn how to change it. And you can only change from the inside out, whether the change is physical, emotional, or mental.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
21
Where are you today?
So, speaking of mindset, what do you really want in life? Many of us can outline in general terms what we desire, and it usually amounts to a well rehearsed line-up of health, happiness, and world peace. Some are daring enough to throw wealth in there as well. But for many of us, the desire for financial abundance is stifled at an early age when we’re introduced to the th e fallacy that “money doesn’t make you happy.” This and similar notions were concocted by those who were too scared, lazy, or disheartened to succeed financially. Numerous studies that compare depression to demographics and income find that people with higher income and net worth are generally happier. I won’t waste space quoting these studies (you have Google for that purpose.) The point is that we tend to forget that it’s not the money’s fault, so change the way you feel about it. Money can improve your life as well as the lives of others around you. Ever larger amounts of money at your disposal can improve the lives of ever larger numbers of people. You might call a man who makes $100 million a year and donates one million dollars during the same period to charity, stingy. But let’s face it; he probably donated almost $1 million more than you did. Who made a bigger difference in the world? Learn to appreciate money for what it is: the means to create the kind of life you want for yourself and those around you. “I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.” - Mark Twain
Whatever your financial state, live within your means – it’s the smart thing t hing to do. But if your means don’t cover your needs and wants, you must simply seek ways to increase your means. It’s a matter of Cashflow. I personally discourage the use of budgets for your personal life because they create mental constraints. Budgets create a framework of limiting thoughts and make it hard to think outside of the box . Of course, not everyone can handle that freedom, so do what works best for you. But whatever you decide, adopt this very day a mindset of abundance instead of budgeting through life from a perspective of scarcity. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
22
Don’t confuse materialism with abundance mentality, however. They’re not the same, just as wealth isn’t always defined in monetary terms. Some find wealth in the freedom of time or having the financial means to help others, while some define wealth as simply living life on their own terms. The state of abundance is a feeling of gratitude for everything that you’re blessed with and all that you are still to receive and experience. So, reach back to your inner child, and get specific about your dreams. Start asking yourself new questions about what makes you feel good. Get excited. Liken the experience to that of a child writing a wish list for the holidays or a birthday. Decide where you want to live, the car you want to drive, the places you want to visit, the people and charities you want to help, the level of business success you wish to achieve, the net worth you want to attain at a certain cer tain point in time, and so on. You have to be really specific, so make your goals as detailed as possible. Nobody else cares about your goals as much as you do, so take ownership of them! “If you can’t articulate your goals, you can’t achieve them. - Pari Livermore
Ever since the release of Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret, it has finally become more acceptable (dare I say “fashionable”?) to openly discuss the phenomenon of manifestation, also called, the law of attraction. The Secret calls the driving force that regulates the law of attraction, “The Universe.” Some will substitute Universe for God or infinite intelligence. Whatever you decide to call it, the core philosophy remains the same. s ame. I realize that The Secret has stirred up some controversy, and not everyone agrees with every point made in the book and the film. Relax! I’m not here to endorse it or claim that it’s the one road to happiness and fulfillment. But the topic has actually been widely discussed for centuries; it has just tended to remain confined to certain circles. The Secret is aptly titled because the phenomenon of manifestation has not been previously discussed in a manner easily digested by the general public. For instance, Charles Haanel’s ground-breaking 1917 Master Key System was not everyone’s cup of tea. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
23
The central theme of The Secret is that your life is a direct manifestation of your mental focus. It’s basically Napoleon Hill’s Achievement Philosophy st repackaged for the 21 century audience. Despite what the critics have written about The Secret , its main arguments correlate awfully close with Hill’s findings.
Napoleon Hill (1883-1970) was an American author who was commissioned by industrialist Andrew Carnegie to interview 500 of the most successful people on Earth. They included Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, George Eastman, Henry Ford, Elmer Gates, John D. Rockefeller, Charles M. Schwab, F.W. Woolworth, William Wrigley Jr., John Wanamaker, William Jennings Bryan, Joseph Stalin, Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Charles Allen Ward and Jennings Randolph. Carnegie, one of the wealthiest and most influential business tycoons of that time, believed strongly that successful people lived in accordance with a certain code and that this personal strategy could be implemented by anyone. Hill’s project lasted 20 years and resulted in a course called The Law of Success (sound familiar?) published in 1928. Anyone who argues that the combined experience and knowledge of the people researched and interviewed by Hill is unlikely to lead to an extraordinary success formula is a complete and utter fool fool . This is why The Secret – in my humble opinion – has a lot of merit, but you need to judge for yourself, of course. Though the over-produced Hollywood blockbuster style opening scene s cene might cause you to think twice about sitting through the whole film, you will be glad you watched The Secret . I’ll admit right now that I was quite skeptical, but you can’t judge a book by its cover. So, I watched it with an open mind. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
24
Though dispelled by some staunch realists (often pessimists in disguise) as happy-thought nonsense, few can argue the film’s usefulness as a reminder of the sheer power of positive thinking. The only criticism that I find valid is the t he film’s appeal to materialism. Perhaps the filmmakers used these seemingly superficial examples to illustrate the mechanics of thought vs. reality, but you be the judge. I recognized the deeper meaning behind the events in question, but maybe it was lost on some viewers. Just take from it what appeals to you, and leave the rest, as long as you see the value in learning how to shape your own destiny on a daily basis. I’m not saying, of course, that you can affect the universe u niverse metaphysically. You can’t levitate boulders with your mental powers and other Supermanlike maneuvers, but your focus will make you aware of certain opportunities. And without this awareness, you may miss them. Acting on those opportunities can lead to physical manifestations. One fateful introduction or opportunity will lead to another, and soon, the snowball effect will take hold. From that point on, you’ll see how one thing resulted in another, and you’ll come to understand that after directing your focus, things started to fall into place . Conversely, if you focus on everything you don’t want , like clockwork, the Universe will deliver more of it. Additionally, you will only be aware of more things you don’t want just because that’s where your focus is. Remember, nothing positive can ever come from negative energy. Now, you may be saying, “Wait a minute! I didn’t d idn’t focus on these bad things that happened to me.” And you’re right. Bad things still happen to good people. It rains on the righteous and the unrighteous just the same. Farmers who pray for rain and ones who don’t share the same fate, don’t they? What may surprise you is that many unfortunate events can still serve a useful purpose depending on the meaning we attribute to them. This doesn’t always become clear until much later – sometimes years or even decades later.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
25
Tough times shape people based on the meanings they attribute to their setbacks. Some will recognize an opportunity for growth and take action no matter the odds. Others will ask themselves repeatedly, “Why has this happened to me?” But that’s a question that will never be answered for them. Life is a culmination of circumstances and how you decide to think and feel about those circumstances. Those feelings will influence your actions – despite the good intentions of your common sense – and will deliver a new set of circumstances for you to consider. It is the principle of cause and effect in its raw beauty, and unless you recognize this cycle, it’s hard for you to control your future. Decide what meaning you can associate with the unfortunate events in your life and how they may empower you to advance to a better place than you were before. Simply said: Learn to look at things on the bright side. Of course, it’s hard to feel good about money when you’re in a lot of debt or mortgaged to the hilt. But there are tricks tr icks you can play with yourself to manipulate your thinking and bring yourself into a better frame of mind. Rhonda Byrne explains how she took bills and added a zero to the amount, telling herself that it was a check instead of a bill. She would say, “Thank you,” feel grateful, and get on with her day. This may sound crazy, and perhaps it won’t work for you or me. But the point here is that you can influence your thinking by playing games to alter your mindset and shift your focus. Using debt as an example, you can also place yourself on an automatic repayment plan so that you’re not confronted with those negative thoughts t houghts repeatedly. This would allow you to t o focus on constructive thinking instead. So, free yourself of doubt and worry, and have faith in yourself and your ability to shape your future. The way is not n ot always immediately clear, but it will always reveal itself in time if you allow it. Remind yourself frequently of your long-term goals, and remember why you set them. Don’t be overly concerned with the how part of the equation. Just be concerned with taking it day by day and with continued improvement. Looking too far ahead on your to-do list can derail you or even discourage you from starting anything at all. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
26
“All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles have strengthened me... You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.” - Walt Disney
More than money
Now that you have started to think about your aspirations, it’s time t ime to introduce the next step before we actually explore how you’ll achieve your goals. There are numerous individuals out there who have a fair idea about how to win in the game of life, but a staggering percentage of them don’t even know the purpose of the game! Too many set out with the singular notion that they can succeed in life without first deciding what or who they’re doing it for. They’re missing a crucial step! Whether it’s a life, a career, or a business, without purpose, it will never deliver fulfillment. For many, it’s too late by the time they realize this. Your values are the reason why you are taking action to realize your dreams. If it’s just to have more money in the bank, you’ll give up before you get through the amount of work it takes to become rich. Values are things we never give up on, like taking care of our children, for example. If you make it a core value to enhance the quality of life for your family, your inner drive for financial abundance will quadruple! Your values should be your daily source of inspiration, as well as the life preserver pr eserver for your dreams during those times when uncertainty rears its ugly head. So, take as long as necessary to decide why you want what you want.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
27
Take stock of your values
What matters to you? Is it to make a difference in the lives of the less fortunate? Maybe you’re primary purpose is to make sure that your children and grandchildren have the opportunity to go to college. Maybe your purpose is to end up living along the Pacific Coast Highway and draw beautiful sunsets for others to enjoy. It’s up to you! I figured out that my purpose is to show people that there is a way to create a life with more freedom and fulfillment, and I started living this purpose with my friends and family. Eventually, I want to create an army of enlightened millionaires – people who enjoy life in every aspect and show others how to do the same. If you haven’t yet thought of your own why, start now! Your values drive your motivation; they’re not to be confused with your goals. Goals change, goals are achieved, and goals are abandoned at times for better goals. Your values should remain largely unchanged, although events in your life could cause you to pick up a few additional ones. Goals only serve as landmarks along your life’s journey, and you should have many of them – large and small. Your values, however, give you a sense of direction along the way toward your goals. Let them be your compass. This is why your values should be perpetual, just like the journey, and offer you continued fulfillment. Think of your values as things which are beyond the immediate or temporary. Think of them as your legacy. Having an Italian sports car in the driveway is not enough by itself. Though it might be a great reward for your hard work, it should not be a core value! If you just aspire to become rich for the sake of having more money, you might actually succeed at being rich… for a while. You see, money by itself doesn’t bring fulfillment, and you’ll just spend it until it’s gone. You should continuously reinvest in yourself and your community in every way you are abundant, be it mentally, spiritually, or financially.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
28
Realize that there might be something you were meant to do and be, beyond the daily drag. Wouldn’t it inspire you to know that you’re intended to do more than eat, sleep, work, pay bills, sleep again, and so forth? You can be more than what you are today, so set your goals both for the long and short term, while identifying your underlying purpose. “Money – ultimately – is not a driving motivator, not a driving motivator that lasts. I found that what lasts is your values.” - David Bach (author of Start Smart, Finish Rich )
Look, everybody wants more money, a bigger house, and a nicer car. That’s all fine, but if wanting by itself were enough, everybody would have them, right? Desire alone, is just that and only that. The missing ingredient to actualization of those desires is action. The vast majority of the population will not achieve their desires due to their inaction. Reading, envisioning, envisioning, and hoping will not get you anywhere. At some point you have to start setting things in motion. So why do most get stuck in a state of inaction? Some didn’t bother to further their knowledge; others didn’t have a mission beyond the money. But getting rich is mostly a shift in mindset, and those who set out merely to become rich do so with a poor person’s mindset. Until that mindset changes, they will not achieve real wealth. You need to become emotionally neutral towards money. Money isn’t real. One of the wealthiest men I ever befriended built, bought, and sold eight different businesses in the range of 20 to 170 million dollars. He has spent the last few years traveling the globe for the sake of having fun and picking up real estate. Needless to say, I trust his advice on the subject of money without question.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
29
The two of us were having dinner when he was in town, and he shared something with me that really drives home my point of becoming neutral towards money and loss. He said: “You need to be able to make a few million dollars, lose it all and simply do it again… and not go crazy.” Look, money is nothing more than an agreement based on trust in a system. We’ve all seen how frail that system can be, so s o don’t place all your hopes and dreams on the balance in your bank account. Instead, learn the workings of the system and how to put money to work for you. Robert Kiyosaki has always said there is a difference between being poor and being broke: being poor is a mindset, being broke is a financial situation. Rich people will sometimes go broke, but it is their recoveries that separate them from the poor. “We cannot help poor people, but we can certainly help rich p eople that don’t have any money yet.” –Robert Kiyosaki
Unfortunately, most people don’t have a real mission in life and they likely have never even thought about it. Even if you figure out your mission – your reason for being – you still need to go out there and make it a reality! Money is just a tool that comes along to help you complete your mission. So start thinking about your mission. Anchor it to your values, which represent your life’s compass. Don’t lose sight of it!
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
30
Assignment for Chapter 1: Focus on things to come
1. Watch/rent/borrow The Secret . It’s available in print, as a DVD movie, or an audio book. Don’t get tripped up by skepticism. Watch it with an open mind. Afterwards, make an honest assessment of the recent focus of your thinking. If you have focused on things you dislike, try focusing on things that make you feel good. 2. Write down a list of goals. Categories can range from where you would like to live and how, to what you would like your net worth to be. Where do you want to be in terms of physical fitness, and what kind of relationships would you like to have? Like I said, start asking questions and begin writing down the answers. 3. Create a goal board. Many movers and shakers use these simple tools to keep them focused. Take your newly created list of goals and simply clip pictures from magazines; take images or quotes from the Internet. Take anything related to your values and objectives, and stick them all on a piece of cardboard. Then, place it where you will see it daily. You could also create a digital goal board, either as a PowerPoint presentation or as desktop wallpaper.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
31
Chapter 2 Setting your destiny in motion - Just - Just do it!
Now, I’m not trying to infringe on Nike’s trademark here. I’m just trying to convey to you how simple the how-to part of all of this is. Every journey begins with a first step, so just show up at the starting line. More than half of the work of achieving your goals is in expecting that you’re going to achieve them. Some of you will scratch your heads, but explore this with me a bit. I knew a guy named Ron during my banking days. Ron was always friendly in the hallways and ready to chitchat about the news. But there was something going on with Ron. Whenever you asked him how he was doing, he’d say, “Okay” or “Same old, same old” or “Alright.” Ron was in his early forties and seemed already to have lost his lust for life. I began talking more to Ron about his aspirations and ambitions. One day I started asking some direct questions. The ugly truth was that Ron resented his job and wanted to do something for himself, but he didn’t know what to do. So, he just kept going to work every day. A year went by and I ran into Ron at a company event. By this time, I had scaled back to 20 hours a week at the bank and was plotting my exit strategy. I decided to quiz Ron on his progress toward his goals. The reply was a series of excuses like, “I haven’t had the chance.” I lost a lot of respect for Ron that day, and I hope he will pick up this book one day and remember me. Even if he didn’t have a clue as to where to start, he could have asked me what I had done, picked up a course, or attended a seminar. My point is this: if you want something, go after it. it . Figure out how to catch it by the heels while you’re on the way, but just get going! The lesson learned from Ron is that t hat if you have found something to complain about, you have also discovered an opportunity to make things better. If you don’t take action, you forfeit your right to complain about it. There are countless people out there waiting for the right moment . Guess what folks? Any moment is the perfect moment to start when you make the decision. Do you think I sat around and waited for a sign of some sort? Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
32
Were you born with the ability to walk? No, nobody was – ever. But we all learn to walk one day. We don’t all master this fine art at the same s ame rate, but nobody ever gives up on learning how. Do we ever give up on a child learning how to walk? No, we expect them to succeed, so they do. This is the reason why they don’t give up. So, why are we as adults so afraid to fail? Maybe we don’t want to lose face, or maybe we have convinced ourselves that we can’t achieve a certain goal. We create stories in our heads that justify our falling short of our dreams. Settling for less than our dreams is the biggest thievery in the world, and we commit that crime against ourselves on a daily basis. Your success at anything rests in large part with your own decisions. The origins of the word decide are actually from the Latin phrase, “to cut off from [any other possibility.]” As you can see, the original meaning lends a degree of certainty to the word that isn’t immediately obvious. It implies that a decision is not something you should take back. It’s like a promise. Too many people just float along without ever really deciding what they want. Even when they do finally decide what they want, some still fail to do anything to achieve those desires. Thinking of excuses not to do something becomes almost second nature to them. These people will go through life rarely doing anything of significance. So, when you decide to create a life of meaning and fulfillment, you need to have unwavering faith that it will become fact because you have cut off from all other possibilities . In your experience, it is a certainty, no matter where you are today! Don’t underestimate this power of certainty. We’re too afraid to commit to things for fear they won’t work out; o ut; and sadly, we miss out on the experience that could have been gained from trying. Many people start out trying to achieve a goal but quit before they get there. Haven’t we all tried something, and in the absence of immediate success, we give up? Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
33
If we go back to the example of the child learning to walk, at what point do we give up on a child? We never do, right? The child will keep trying until ultimate success is achieved. Success is reserved for those who continue to get back on their feet. For many, this determination is lost on the road to adulthood; the emotional response to give up is a learned behavior! Your drive (purpose, instinct, whatever you wish to label it) should cause you to keep changing your approach until success is achieved. Understand me correctly here: don’t keep trying the same thing if it doesn’t work. That’s the definition of insanity! Just change your approach until you get the result you want. Successful entrepreneurs aren’t always extraordinarily smart or exceptionally lucky. They have faith in what they’re doing and never relent in trying to reach r each their goals. Let’s say you liken failure in business to a schoolyard brawl. After being knocked down, very few people get back up and seek out the bully, inviting him or her for another round. Who has h as the courage and stamina to do that? Let’s say the “bully” is your ability to run your own business? So, what if you get knocked down? Learn, get back on your feet, and start s tart again a little wiser. Regrettably, most people do the opposite and give up, going back to what they’re used to. They feel they were punished for going outside of their comfort zone and are even more afraid to try again. A setback doesn’t equal failure, but giving up does . Success is a poor teacher. Embrace setbacks s etbacks as learning opportunities. Every time you hit a roadblock, you’re better off than you were before because you now know what doesn’t work. We tend to underestimate the importance of acquiring knowledge in this way and assimilating it. And why shouldn’t we? Our antiquated public school system punishes mistakes! You would be amazed by the number of self-made billionaires and tycoons who have been through failures and bankruptcies before getting it right. You might be even more shocked to learn that many of them never finished school. Can you guess why? Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
34
I’ll tell you why: they were frustrated by the rigid r igid school system that placed limits on the creative process. Therefore they left school before allowing it to break their entrepreneurial spirit. The only difference between you and the people you admire is their willingness to keep seeking out that schoolyard bully (usually several times!) So face your fear of failure, and act in spite of it. Avoid taking advice or joining in business with people who believe that there are limits to what one can achieve. Sometimes, these people are your parents or best friends, so be mindful of this! “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” - Calvin Coolidge
Engineering the future
Have you created that goal board yet? If not, get to work! It really keeps your focus on the direction you want to go, so don’t disregard your future. Are you 100% satisfied where you are today – physically, emotionally, financially, socially, and spiritually? Not yet? Good! Dissatisfaction is actually a very useful emotion. It tells you things need to change if they don’t measure up to your values and standards. It doesn’t really matter where you are today t oday in any of those categories. Manifestation guru Matthew Ferry teaches his students to disassociate themselves from the past. Sure, the past has gotten you where you are today, but it certainly doesn’t have to determine where you’re going tomorrow. Take lessons from the past, but keep moving forward because that’s where you’re going – like it or not. You might as well make it a place where you’d like to be, right? Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
35
How about making your future somewhere you would love to go? It’s the only way to become motivated enough to make effort required to get there What you are right now is merely a residual effect of all of your decisions and experiences up to this moment. Let go of the past, decide what you want to do and who you’d have to become to do those things. Take stock of your talents, skills, and passions, and see how they might aid you in achieving your goals. But don’t be alarmed if you don’t have all of the skills and traits required for the journey you want to take. You can develop these along the way. Repetition is the master of skill, and all skill can be learned. Remember this: focus on mindset, not skill set. Skills can be acquired, hired, or outsourced. Your mindset is 100% your territory. You just need to get into the right mindset, get started, and keep your confidence up. All that matters is focusing on this moment and where it will take you. Since the past won’t hinder you now, this moment is perfect p erfect because you can control it and you can move in any direction going forward. We have already figured out that we need to decide on our goals and the values required to take us there. But what’s next? You need a plan to get there, don’t you? Once you have envisioned where you want to be, you must reverse-engineer the future. Almost sounds like magic, doesn’t it? You can actually make it quite practical. Decide on the steps you need to take to reach your goals and the actions required to complete those steps, one by one. The jump from minimum-wage worker to financially free entrepreneur seems like an enormous leap, and it is. But if you break the transformation down into smaller steps, the journey becomes manageable. So, don’t sweat the details – just start with step one.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
36
“The past does not equal the future, unless you live there.” - Anthony Robbins
Train your brain
Now that we have some ideas to work on, let’s get into your head for a moment. Staying on track toward your goals requires a little bit of mental conditioning. Your mind is a biochemical supercomputer that’s continuously working to solve problems. Just like its digital counterpart, it is only as good as its programmer, even though it’s many times more powerful. And guess what? YOU are the programmer! Most people never come to this realization, and this is why people don’t succeed at the same level. Most people live in a state of reaction rather than action. Instead of taking control, they spend their time fighting and/or avoiding things coming at them. People in this state of awareness identify themselves as victims or, at the very least, behave like victims. They always look outward for answers instead of inward. Quintessential pessimists fall into this category. Just ask them how they’re doing, and you’ll hear something like, “as well as can be expected.” If that sounds like you, I hope I’m kicking your ant hill today, and I hope you’re taking a long, hard, and honest look at yourself and the things you tend to complain about. Pssst… If you’re still thinking of all of the people and situations that are holding you back, you still aren’t getting it!
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
37
Let’s put things in perspective: unless you have reason to believe you might succumb to disease or hunger tomorrow, there are many millions of people worldwide who are in far worse situations than you. Now that we have that out of the way, let’s turn our attention to using your head to get things done. Back to the computer analogy, a PC’s central processing unit (CPU) is nothing more than a paperweight unless you feed it with instructions in the form of code. This code is written by a programmer and is basically a long mathematical problem that the CPU will solve in order to perform the various instructions that are derived from the code. Your brain works in a very ver y similar fashion. If you focus on a goal ((the the code) that you wish to realize, r ealize, your brain (the CPU) will identify it as a problem that requires r equires solving, and awareness will allow you to identify opportunities that will facilitate the process. This is the reason why the how part of the equation will reveal itself as time goes by. You will find out how as long as you stay aware of what you want to achieve. If your life is lived in reaction mode, the daily junk that you fend off is the code you feed your brain, and you’ll never get around to presenting it with the good stuff: your objectives. This is why it’s so important i mportant that you gain awareness of where your focus is, and schedule time to realign r ealign your thinking. Sounds kind of like taking time to fix an appliance or something, doesn’t it? Well, that’s exactly what I’m getting at. This is required maintenance for the most important thing you’ll ever own: your brain. It is amazing that most of us spend more time, money, and energy on maintaining secondary things like homes and cars.
Conscious/subconscious
As you know, you have a conscious and subconscious state of mind, but only the conscious mind ever goes to sleep. The subconscious is always at work, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This is the part of the mind where your habits rest. It enables you to drive a car and do others things (within reason) without veering off the road because driving becomes habitual; you’re programmed with the basics. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
38
So, your mind operates on two levels of consciousness, and if you don’t get both of them on the same page, it will be quite difficult to achieve your goals because your conscious mind will be continuously interrupted with life and its many issues. Get it? While your conscious mind is handling your immediate affairs (everyday stuff), how do you get your subconscious to keep you on track tr ack with its 24/7 work schedule? Your conscious mind responds mostly to your senses, so it’s easier to program in the moment. But your subconscious is primarily influenced by physical and emotional energy. Simply put, it responds in large part to how you feel. Did you ever have a bad dream after watching a scary movie late at night? Well, presto! Your emotions, in large part, control your subconscious and its powerful influence on your life. The Secret (have you ordered it yet?) lays down this process in understandable terms. Just thinking positive thoughts or merely thinking about what you desire isn’t enough. You have to feel, or better yet, experience it. When you combine this emotional experience with the aforementioned gratitude reinforcement, you come up with something very powerful that gives you clarity and removes your fears. Unless you have already read into the science behind this, you have yet to understand the power of this skill. In fact, many of you might still believe that feelings are caused by exterior factors rather rat her than by an internal decision in the conscious or subconscious mind. The point is that you make a conscious decision about how you want to feel. If you don’t make it consciously, your subconscious does it for you based on how it has been conditioned by experience. That’s why so many people are on autopilot and live life in reaction mode. They feel helpless and always experience uphill battles. They surrendered control and ceased taking action because they have always been in reaction. So what’s the answer? Train your brain! Someone who has presented us with a great way of programming p rogramming the subconscious mind is world-renowned success coach Anthony Robbins. One of his core techniques revolves around incantations. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
39
You recite to yourself aloud how you wish to feel and what you wish to attain or experience. Actually saying it out loud activates your physiology and sends more powerful signals to your subconscious mind, keeping you focused and more likely to remain aware of your intentions i ntentions. The purpose of this exercise is to create new feelings and program habits. If you practice this regularly, the process itself becomes habitual. It is in habitual behavior that the rich find lasting success in life, not a singular act or decision. It is continuous and requires lifelong commitment. The process of programming your subconscious by way of incantations is known as autosuggestion or self-suggestion and has been used by the most successful people in history for centuries. Experiment: randomly ask someone what he or she is thinking. I will bet you anything the answer will be either nothing or some inconsequential thought about their to-do list. My suggestion to you: think with specific intentions. Author Napoleon Hill extensively chronicles the use of these techniques by the world’s elite in his book Think and Grow Rich . As I mentioned in Chapter 1, Hill was commissioned by industrialist Andrew Carnegie to document the philosophies and methodology of some of the most successful people in the world. Hill noted that many of these tycoons and world leaders used autosuggestion to retain control of their thoughts 24/7. Considering the company you’d be keeping, it’s certainly worth a shot, wouldn’t you say? The practical application for autosuggestion is to program the subconscious so that it continues to work in the background on solving the stated problem, a.k.a. the attainment of your goal. (Your brain is a problem-solving computer, remember? So, give it something important to solve instead of everyday stuff that has no bearing on your life’s objectives!) The subconscious mind works at its own pace, and the more complicated the problem, the more time it will take to work on it. Sometimes, it will take days, weeks, or even months for it to come up with the answer. Don’t worry about it too much. Your awareness will find the necessary clues.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
40
Have you ever had one of those moments when the light just came on? Those moments come when the subconscious announces a solution for a previously submitted problem! “It’s not that I’m so smart; it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” - Albert Einstein
How we perceive things depends on how we interpret them based on our mental conditioning. How we subsequently feel about them depends on the meaning we decide to attribute to them. This power of choice and reason gives us control. It’s our evolutionary edge over every other life form on Earth. Take the power given to you, and use it to your advantage. Do you want to know if you made the evolution from corporate stooge or home-based amateur to bonafide entrepreneur yet? There is a quick way to tell when people hit a road block or setback. Take these two people with fledgling home-businesses for example: Mac: “This is not working. I am going to look for something else.” Madie: “This is not working. How can I make it work?” Can you tell which one is the entrepreneur? It’s easy. Mac responded to his situation with a finite answer, immediately shutting down the creative process in his subconscious. The result? r esult? His brain stops working on answers for his problem and he’ll likely end up taking that job.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
41
Madie, on the other hand, answered her predicament with a question instructing her subconscious to get to work on the problem! pr oblem! If she is determined enough she will find her answers and succeed, even if she makes numerous mistakes before getting it right. Getting the hang of this yet? Don’t worry – if i f you’re not scratching your head, I’m not teaching you anything new. It’s a good thing, believe it or not, and an indication that your money was well spent on this nifty little booklet. Read it again if you have to.
Learn from example
No matter what field you have chosen to pursue, odds are ar e that you have identified a leader or hero you admire and wish to emulate. Imitation is the ultimate form of flattery and, frankly, a proven road to success for many. It makes perfect sense. Why reinvent the wheel? And your heroes don’t have to be in the same field you’re working in; they t hey can be authors, historical icons, spiritual leaders, or business executives. My short list includes Anthony Robbins, Matthew Ferry, Robert Kiyosaki, and Mike Dillard. Those familiar with these leaders will notice that only one of them is specifically related to the network marketing industry. Robbins and Ferry appeal to me for their spiritual and personal development strategies. Kiyosaki is my financial mentor. Mike Dillard showed me online marketing techniques that helped me market my online businesses. Let me clarify that there is no need to copy anybody or believe that you can’t succeed if you don’t closely mirror your heroes. I want to impress upon you that you can take away from them what you like and leave the rest. If anything, their work will help you with your visualizations of what you wish to accomplish for yourself. One of the best things you can do as you start out is to study those who came before you. You’ll probably end up with a hodgepodge of strategies and philosophies, but that’s a good thing! Pick and choose the ideas that fit you and your circumstances. I use numerous techniques and quotes from my personal heroes throughout my various writings.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
42
Beware of the pitfall of thinking that you have ever finished learning, however. You can never stop benefiting from acquiring new information, and if you neglect to do your homework, you will obviously never even get off the ground. If you do achieve lift-off but neglect to continue learning, you will falter at some point or hit a ceiling. The more income you generate, the more you should proportionately increase your spending on training and coaching. For example, my spending on training and coaching so far for 2008 (it’s June as of this writing) has been b een more than $8,000. I would say investing about 5% of your income in continuing education is a fair guideline. Some seminars that cost several thousand dollars may seem expensive to you now, but if they enable you to work your way to a life of freedom and fulfillment, wouldn’t wouldn’t you agree that they worth every p penny? enny? It seems reasonable to me to stretch my budget to invest in something that generates lifelong returns beyond what I once thought to be impossible. Once again, it’s all about choice. Some people consume and spend their money on renting a “lifestyle” while others invest in themselves and become truly wealthy. Why is it that we gladly plunk down $30.000 for a Sport Utility Vehicle that will depreciate 25% the moment we drive it home, but we cringe cr inge at spending a few thousand (or even less) on seminars that teach us how to become financially free? Because the car makes us feel good, and the seminar just sounds like work. The decision to buy is an emotional one. Understand this and you will become a marketing master. However, the fact remains that one purchase enhances our wealth and the more popular one diminishes it. We have become a society of instant gratification because mass marketing appeals to the impatient child in all of us. We have become resistant to long term investments like financial education and we need to reverse course if we ever hope to become wealthy. Yes, wealthy, not just rich. You can make anyone rich by handing them a million dollars or more, but I promise you that this money will not even last a year without proper financial education. My finance instructor in college was a former wealth management professional at Smith Barney. Several of his clients were major lottery winners and he had some sobering insights to share about their experience. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
43
Instead of investing in income-generating assets these people often purchased luxuries such as large homes, great vacations, and expensive cars because they think that’s what the wealthy do. The temptations of status symbols are too much and their lack of financial IQ sends them down to the Maserati dealership. After about two years they are usually worse off then they were prior to winning their fortunes. Why? The millions are gone and their Cashflow cannot sustain their newly acquired liabilities because they don’t have the residual income to pay for them. Before too long, they are back in the Rat Race. More on this in chapter 4: Becoming financially literate.
Abundance vs. perception
This may be one of the trickiest t rickiest steps along your journey. In order to attract more of the things that you want, you need to feel grateful for what you have. I’m sure that sounds like grandma’s bulletproof advice that you’ll gladly hand down to your kids. But I’m going to take it one step further. You need to feel grateful about the things that you have yet to do, have yet to own, and have yet to experience. That’s right – stuff in the future. Stay with me on this one. The goal is to tie a sensation of gratitude into your visualization exercises. The effect is that you expect these things to happen because your subconscious is already experiencing them! Remember how your subconscious fits into the picture? It’s that handy section of your brain that’s constantly working on bringing those things into your life that you have been focusing on. This concept might be hard for you to wrap your head around at the moment. If you need to delve into the actual biology of this phenomenon, check out Charles Haanel’s 1917 course called The Master Key System. One of the many fascinating aspects of Haanel’s course is that he actually identifies the parts of the human body that facilitate the connection with the immaterial (the Universe, God, infinite intelligence, or whatever you want to call it.) The fact that his course is over 90 years old underscores again how this t his science isn’t new.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
44
Regrettably, the masses are still largely ignorant about many aspects of this branch of science, even though it has such far-reaching far-r eaching effects on their lives. If you’re going to pass on Haanel’s course, let me try to convey one of his main points. Let’s say your brain is a transmitter, and your senses are the receivers. It’s key to become mindful of how you interpret incoming signals (perception) and how your interpretation shapes the actions you take in response. Voluntarily or involuntarily, we constantly receive all sorts of signals from the world around us. Your actions are based on the emotions you have allowed yourself to feel in response to those signals. This entire process can take place in an instant, so it might not seem like something you can control at first glance. We’ll sometimes regret our actions later but justify them by saying, “That’s just the way I am.” Wrong! When you view the world from a perspective of need , you will always perceive scarcity. You will never achieve wealth in the areas of your life where you see scarcity. For the vast majority of us, this is true when it comes to money. We never seem to have enough of it! Shall I share a secret with you? Abundance comes when you experience it; it’s an all-encompassing mindset. You have enough once you feel that you do, regardless of o f exactly how much you have in your wallet or in the bank at the moment. When you feel terrible about your money situation, for example, you attract more of what makes you feel that way because this is where you’re focusing. You have to feel rich before you can actually become rich, no matter if you’re worth $25 million or $25 and some change. By feeling rich, I don’t mean pretending to be rich. This is a pitfall that has landed millions of consumers in crushing debt positions. By feeling wealthy I mean feeling abundant and grateful now and that anything is within your grasp. When you mentally tune into abundance, the financial abundance will follow. This is not just about money, of course. There are many people out there with plenty of money who are unhappy, unhealthy, or both. Life is meant to be abundant in all aspects – not just your bank account! Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
45
A great example of the abundance mindset is found in a newsletter written by Mike Dillard, my aforementioned marketing hero. The title of the email read “Why the rich hate Wal-Mart.” My first firs t thought was, “Oh boy, some people are going to take offense to this.” But Mike explained that the store’s philosophy is based on penny-pinching, so it attracts hordes of budgeters, coupon-cutters, and others who think from a perspective of scarcity and need. I thought the email explained the concept of the abundance mentality so well that I’ve retrieved it from my records for your review. It’s lengthy, but I consider it important enough to include verbatim to help drive home my point.
“I’ve been debating whether or not to write this email for about two weeks now because I know that quite a few people will wrongly be offended by it, and that my inbox will be flooded by derogatory responses. “Then my new issue of Perry Marshall’s Newsletter arrived in my mail box, and I changed my mind... “Here’s the introduction to the newsletter: ‘You know what’s wrong with the Internet? ‘Smart people and stupid people get equal airtime. And since stupid people tend to shout longer and louder than people who have acquired wisdom and judgment, ignorance usually prevails. ‘Stupid people proudly step forward and identify themselves. They self-select. As soon as this newsletter issue hits the streets, people who are angry about this newsletter and this irrelevant first section which obviously has nothing to do with marketing will send nasty emails and cancel their membership. This naturally weeds the stupid people out of my Renaissance Club.’ - Perry Marshall. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
46
“Perry’s point is that you should never stifle the growth of the wise minority for fear of loud reprisal by the ignorant majority. With that said, here is a very basic, very simple message on the surface that will contain deeper meaning for those who get it... “I hate shopping at Wal-Mart. It makes me sick to my stomach, but the important part is why... (If you’re going to read this, you need to read the entire page.) For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a burning desire to achieve above average financial prosperity... To have the million dollar home on the lake, the cars, and the t he ability to do anything, or buy anything I want. 100% pure freedom. “But it’s not just about material goods. Money gives you the freedom, options, and power to have a large and positive impact on society through charity, education, and reform. “Because I have such strong feelings and emotions attached to the desire to achieve wealth and success, I have equally strong feelings of repulsion for poverty and weakness. Most wealthy and successful people share this repulsion. Why? “Because they are consciously aware (unlike the majority of society), that thoughts, ideas, and attitudes are real things, and that they are contagious. You will adopt the ideas, beliefs, and mindset of the people you spend the most time with (including the people found on TV, in books, or on tape), t ape), which will lead you to make similar decisions, which will lead you to assume a similar life and lifestyle. “Rich people know this, and they know that a person’s mindset is fluid. It’s always changing with the ideas and interactions it comes into contact with on a daily basis. This is why rich people protect themselves from everything associated with struggle and poverty. “Ever wonder why they live together in walled communities closed off from the rest of society with massive gates? Ever wonder why they shop at expensive boutiques, fly first-class, stay at $500/night hotels? Ever wonder why most of them belong to ‘members only’ country clubs? “Is it because they want to enjoy the finer things in life? Well sure. But that’s not the only reason. They want to protect their minds from the Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
47
thoughts of poverty and struggle that are held by the rest of common society because they know that all thoughts are contagious, and they have a burning desire to live un-common lives. “The rich get richer because they only invite and interact with other prosperous people. The common man sees this behavior as ‘stuck-up’ and ‘snobby.’ The rich simply see it as an unfortunate necessity, as I do. That’s why I never shop at Wal-Mart. Have I? Yes. But just walking into that store makes me physically uncomfortable. My stomach turns. “I feel that way because I associate that store and the people who shop there with struggle and poverty. The entire company is designed around the concept of “saving money” and pinching pennies. “It’s a physical monument dedicated to thoughts like... ‘I only have this much money, so I need to save as much as I can.’ ‘The economy is crashing, so I need to guard what little I have.’ ‘I can’t afford it...’ ‘We’re on a limited budget.’ “That kind of mindset is a disease voluntarily held by people who go through life as victims. They are subservient to their boss, to economic times, to prices, and to money itself. Money has the power, p ower, and they are lucky to acquire and save any that comes their way. “The rich think differently. They believe and accept that they have the power to change and shape their lives as they wish. Money doesn’t own their lives; they own the money. They have the power. “The difference between these two mindsets can be summed up like this... - Someone with a poverty mentality says, ‘I can’t afford it.’ - Someone with an abundance mentality says, ‘How can I afford it?’ Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
48
“The more you start to think like the rich, the more apparent this mindset will become to you. One day, you’ll walk into Wal-Mart, and you’ll literally FEEL what I’m talking about. You’ll feel like you’re out of place... Like you’ve walked into a club or restaurant where you’re the one person who doesn’t belong. “Now I know that there are a lot of people out there reading this who DO shop at Wal-Mart and are saying, s aying, ‘That’s easy for you to say, Mike. You don’t have a family of four to support, and you’re not struggling to get this home business thing off the ground anymore.’ “Well, I have shopped at Wal-Mart, and I have been as low as anyone. When you’re pawning your DVD collection to eat as I have, you’ve basically hit the bottom. But the difference is that even during those times, I have NEVER been comfortable shopping there because in my mind, I was different. I didn’t belong in that store. I didn’t share the same mindset that the rest of the people in there t here did. “I have nothing against saving money when you’re struggling. I was there. But I do, and will always, wage war against a poverty mentality. Whether or not you shop at Wal-Mart is not important. Everyone starts from the bottom and does whatever they have to do. Whether or not you are comfortable and happy shopping at Wal-Mart is where your personal truth is found. “If you don’t have the feelings, desires, and aspirations to separate yourself from the crowd of Middle America discount shoppers, then I don’t know why you’re even on this list. “To take this attitude of abundance vs. prosperity to another level, I’ve also adopted the following habits: I never use coupons, and I never n ever accept coin change from a purchase. If my bottle of water costs $1.75, the cashier gets $2.00 and keeps the 25 cents. “Why? “Because I NEVER focus on pinching pennies. I focus on MAKING MORE. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
49
“I constantly hold an abundance mindset, and these two habits are a physical expression of that mentality that I have held even when I was making $1,500/mo as a waiter. It’s a message to my subconscious mind to always see life through a lens of prosperity.”
So, were you entertained, or are you shaking s haking your head in disagreement? If you disagree with Mike’s point of view, let’s at least agree on this: you will only perceive and receive what you focus on, and if it’s saving money, cutting coupons, and pinching pennies, life will present you only with opportunities to do exactly that. That isn’t my idea of an extraordinary life and not a position from which you aid those in need. I’ll be perfectly honest: I shop in that awful store for certain things when I absolutely have to, but I hate the lifestyle concept that the business is based on. Living with a budget is like living in a financial cage. If you lack the funds, simply find ways (legally) to increase your fortune. All it takes is a decision and a strong enough desire to take the necessary steps to get there. Everyone else can remain firmly seated on their hands h ands and complain their lives away, for all I care. As Mike attempted to make clear in his infamous email, everyone starts somewhere, and most of us started from the bottom just as he did. Almost a decade ago I had my whole life contained in two suitcases – yes, really! But that doesn’t mean that the bottom is where you have to remain. r emain. Your future will mostly be what you envision it to become. Life is less a result of your circumstances than it is of your choices: choice of thought and choice of actions. Focus on what you’re grateful for now and in the future. Don’t hope for it to happen, expect it.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
50
Assignments Assignments for Chapter 2: Becoming Aware
1. Take your list of goals and create cr eate a list of all the actions you have taken to achieve them. This should give you an indication of the level of control you have in your life. If it doesn’t measure up, step up your efforts to take action no matter how seemingly insignificant! 2. Think of a handful of people you admire for their achievements, and research them. Take your top three, and find out what they have done to get where they are? Consider what you could do, too. Very few people are handed a life of freedom and wealth, and those who have attained it faced many setbacks on the way. Any self-made millionaire had to search for answers, study, experiment, fail, and do all of it over again until success was finally achieved. If you’re not willing to deal with that, you won’t earn the privilege of becoming financially free. 3. List several obstacles that are currently preventing you from pursuing your goals. Can they be overcome? (The answer is “yes,” by the way.) How can it be done? Do you have a network to tap into? Are they really obstacles or just fears? I’ll I ’ll leave you with this quote:
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
51
Chapter 3 How we undermine our success – Pain Pain and pleasure
So far, we’ve merely explored the predicament of the ignorant. Amazingly, there are people who know exactly what they want and how to obtain it but choose not to do anything about it. In my opinion, these people are even farther removed from success. Unfortunately, you will find that most people are too lazy or fearful to take action, or they’re consumed with satisfying short-term pleasure and avoiding pain. This is where you will find addicts of all sorts. All human motivation is fueled by merely two needs: the need to attain pleasure and the need to avoid pain. The caveat here is that the long-term is often overlooked in favor of the short-term, and the need to avoid pain is stronger than the need to attain pleasure. Let’s take a 1500-calorie coconut cream-pie shake as an example. You’ll gladly spend ten minutes enjoying this audacious desert. At the same time, you’re all too willing to ignore two simple but profound facts: first, the pleasure of the shake will last only ten minutes; second, at the cost of selfdiscipline, a healthy body can be enjoyed 24/7. Another example: there are people who will not invest $2000 in a course or business opportunity that could change their lives because they don’t have the money. Those same people live in a shoddy trailer with a $2000 HDTV system and a new Mercedes parked outside. At the t he same time they can hardly afford to pay the rent on the trailer, let alone health insurance. Deep down they wanted that course or opportunity, just not badly enough. If people have a strong desire for something they will do whatever it takes to attain it. The people in this example preferred the immediate pleasure of those luxuries and the avoidance of the $2000 pain over the eventual bliss of living a life of financial freedom. Instead, they continue renting a lifestyle they can’t really afford. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
52
They prefer to spend money on things that make them look rich instead of investing it in things that will actually make them rich. “Don’t trade what you really want for what you want at the moment.” --Author unknown
As a former credit underwriter I have already seen too many people renting lifestyles and they come from all walks of life. Whether they made $30K a year or $300K, their financial choices forced them to keep running in that t hat hamster wheel also known as the Rat Race. Take it from the guy who used to write the loans: eventually you no longer own the stuff, but the stuff owns you. Have you ever procrastinated? Of course, you have. We all do it! So, why did you put off doing something you knew you would have to do eventually? It’s simple. You associated more pain with getting the job done than you associated with doing nothing in the moment. Recognize the power of the moment. You have control over the moment. The present is the sum of all al l of the moments that have come and gone. Control them, and you control your future. Procrastinating can significantly backfire in some instances, but in every instance, it has an immobilizing effect. This very emotion is what keeps many people from starting their own business. It would mean that they would have to come out of their comfort zones and do something totally new. “Get out of your comfort zone and stay there.” - Morgan Smith, founder of Morgan Capital, while addressing a gathering of Phoenixarea entrepreneurs, including myself.
As I mentioned before, many adults are fearful of failure. Regrettably, most of the barriers to success are created in our own minds. These barriers are merely rationalizations that we create in order to avoid dealing with the potential pain of failure. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
53
Most people won’t attain financial freedom or realize their goals because they are too afraid of the unknown and the uncertainty of success. We stick to jobs because we chose security. At the core the quest for security is merely the fear of loss in disguise. Major life choices motivated by fear generally don’t serve us well in the long run. People who are in control of their emotions and recognize how their minds link up pain and pleasure are the kind of people who are often excited by new challenges. They will get bored quickly with the status quo and count on the unknown to keep things interesting. They are driven by another human need, the need for uncertainty. Yes, that’s right … because predictability also drives us crazy. So, how do you find balance between these competing needs? The key is to focus on the appropriate and ultimate outcome. Instead of focusing on the short-term pain of taking action, imagine the long-term pain of inaction. Take someone putting off retirement planning, for example. They don’t want to deal with the headaches of research and pulling out money for retirement contributions. For some reason, they associate more pain with getting it done than not being able to retire and having to work until death. Avoiding the steps necessary to attain financial freedom and take control of your life should pose less pain than having to work until you’re too old. In summary, your focus should be on the long-term pleasure that will result from following through with the things you owe to yourself. Not doing so will result in eventual unavoidable pain. Before we move on, I want to ruffle your feathers just one more time. Another reason that people don’t reach their goals is because they associate more pain with the process of achieving them than with forever keeping them at a distance. Perhaps it’s fear of failure, or you associate great pain with the work you imagine it takes to get there. Then there are those who believe the achievement of wealth will mean that they will have fewer friends or that they will be perceived differently by those who aren’t as financially secure. Others are afraid of the great responsibility that comes with great wealth. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
54
First, let me tell you that an estimated $13 trillion exchanges hands every day globally in all of humanity’s transactions. That simply means that there’s enough for everyone who is interested in a slice of that enormous pie. Every 60 seconds someone somewhere becomes a millionaire. So you see, there’s no need to fear appearing to be greedy, or to actually feel greedy. Your fair share is out there and, if you are interested, your turn will come. Second, it’s not lonely at the top, but the bottom is definitely d efinitely more crowded. Don’t find yourself stuck there!
Limiting beliefs
Your belief system is besieged from all sides, and you probably aren’t aware that you need to take an active part in defending it. You need to be the gatekeeper of your mind and stay mindful of what you let inside! One of the few useful skills that I picked up from my college days was the practice of analyzing my sources. When given writing assignments (and there were plenty!), we had to make sure our research material came from a reliable source. These sources had to meet certain criteria before we could quote them. Similarly, you need to be careful what you allow to enter your head. Your mind is bombarded on a daily basis with massive amounts of information from the media, businesses, politicians, special interest groups, and all of the people who interact with you. Be very careful with anything you consider to be skewed, one-sided, or even pure fiction. It takes a second look to consider where the information comes from, as well as the motives of the originator. o riginator. Know your sources! Beliefs that cause you to limit yourself are treacherous because they can arrive as wolves in sheep’s clothing. Unfortunately, some of the most harmful misinformation is fed by our parents, teachers, friends, or other people we may blindly trust. They are not always qualified to dispense advice on topics such as finance.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
55
Other beliefs can stem from our friends’ fears that we might achieve success and leave them behind. As a result of that subconscious fear, your friends might instinctively discourage you from pursuing a venture. Humans have an inner need for connectivity, and if someone leaves the circle, it shakes up the comfort zone of those left behind. So, you might hear things like, “These business opportunities are never as easy as they sound,” or “Oh, those Internet offers are scams!” Since these are your friends, you may trust their judgment automatically because you’re you’re programmed that way. If you fail to recognize this programming, however, you might just let an opportunity slip away that comes only once or twice in a lifetime. Life-changing opportunities come come by just once or twice. Who knows if you even recognized the first one. Sometimes, our friends can prevent us from moving forward, and you have to take a long – sometimes painful – look at the meaning they have in your life. You might even come to realize that a certain cer tain friend isn’t really the kind of friend you thought. True friends should have a selfless interest in your prosperity and allow you to live up to your full potential. I speak from experience here and have seen a major change in my social circles. Don’t forget that thoughts are infectious, and you assimilate a great deal from the people who surround you. So, you owe it to yourself to be critical in choosing your friends. I’m not telling you to ditch your family and current social circle, but do become mindful of their influence on your thinking. Regrettably, our school system is to blame for many other fallacies that we take as truths. We’re taught to learn how to do a particular job and follow directions. Mistakes are punished with low grades. In reality, mistakes teach us what not to do, how to handle setbacks, and how to recover from them. They’re so much more valuable than we realize. The ultimate evil in limiting beliefs is passing them on to our children and friends as truth simply because we’ve never doubted them. Only if you expose yourself to the teachings of those who have dared to question the status quo will you be able to move beyond these beliefs.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
56
Don’t be afraid to acknowledge the contradictions and fallacies in what you’ve been taught in the past! Just because you’ve “always” thought something doesn’t necessarily make it true. Labeling
Labeling is something we all do, and it’s a potentially harmful by-product of our persistent need for identity. Ever since I started out in banking back in my W2 days, I referred to myself as a “banker” whenever the all-toofamiliar question came, “What do you do?” Even though there was so much more to me than my job, I identified myself by my job. Your mind is on a constant quest to simplify things by categorizing data; when people ask what you do, it really means, “In what category can I store you?” The answer creates a label for you, and it’s stored in their minds for future retrieval. So, labeling really works in both directions. It’s no wonder that we label ourselves, considering all of the forms that we have to fill out specifying our identities. Society seeks to label us because everyone wants to know where you fit in, be it the government, marketing firms, or your in-laws. Many women with children will always label themselves as a mother – period. Even though there’s so much more to them beyond their parental role, they limit their identities to their primary activity only. And how can you blame them when they’re called “Mom” all the time? Ever wonder why so many moms fall into a depression after their kids move out? Here are the two primary dangers of o f labeling: 1. Identity crisis. Let’s say you lose your job and your label gets torn off. A major part of your identity is suddenly taken away. Crisis ensues and many fell into depression. 2. Hindrance to visualization. As will become clear in the following chapters, it will be hard h ard for you to see yourself doing something else if you resigned yourself to a label. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
57
Right now, ask yourself who you are. Go ahead and tell me, are you everything you ever wanted to be? Are you considering your interests, passions, things you’ve always dreamed of doing or being? I know that I never dreamed of being a banker. (Yuck!) A turning point came for me when I started listening to one of Tony Robbins’ Personal Power tapes on labeling. One day, when I was taking my then seven-year old son to his Montessori school, he said, “I want to be a banker just like you, Dad.” My heart sank. I didn’t want my son to aspire to something I considered to be the single dullest thing about me. So, I quickly started to fill his head h ead with things like, “Oh, don’t try to decide on jobs now. Maybe you’ll be the employer instead, son!” And then, I saw it clearly: I was spending five days a week at a job I considered boring. Even if it wasn’t so dull, it surely surel y wasn’t going to allow me to realize my dreams. Something was going to have to change dramatically, or at age 65, I was going to be left with nothing but regrets about what could have been. So, take a long hard look at yourself, and try to expand your label because, otherwise, it will limit the way that you and everybody else see you. There is so much more to you than your job or responsibilities – trust me. Don’t ever believe that you’re limited to the qualifications and traits that come with any label. Only you can decide who you are! Today, I ask people how much time they have before I answer what it is I do or who I am. The short list includes father, entrepreneur, husband, author, coach, student, businessman, investor, financial expert, traveler, networker, etc. Doesn’t that sound better than banker ? Here’s the risk you run into with labeling: you can’t see yourself doing things beyond your label because it becomes your only frame of reference. So, let’s say a certain business opportunity shows up, and it’s outside that frame of reference – as a result, you don’t consider it an option for you because your are limited by your present label. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
58
Here’s another example: if you label yourself a stay-at-home mom (popularly shortened to SAHM), you may find it hard to see yourself as the president of your own network marketing organization with 3,500 distributors who look to you for leadership. Or you may not be able to see yourself running an online retail business from a warehouse with 20 employees and averaging $5 million in sales per year. Unless you recognize the subtle effects of labeling, it can hold you back from reaching your goals and realizing your dreams.
Associative conditioning
The process of associative conditioning is one of the most powerful forces driving human behavior. Your understanding of it will play a central part in determining your future. A classic example is given by Tony Robbins with his own experience as a young boy who wanted to be like Dad and drink beer. His mother decides, after much whining on young Tony’s part, that he can have a beer, but only on the condition that he drink the entire six-pack. Already after beer number one, little Tony feels quite sick and declines the second bottle, but his mother makes him drink on. Halfway through, Tony spews the beer all over the kitchen table curing him of ever wanting to touch alcohol again. So, what happened here? The experience caused Tony’s brain to link beer with nausea. In other words, he was conditioned to associate beer (or alcohol in general) with pain. Another example is the common resistance kids have to going to school because of the rigid and unnatural learning process of our public school system. Their brains have linked school to pain. Conversely, my eldest son s on developed the association that video games were no fun at all because he wasn’t able to play well. It turned out that he needed vision correction. Obviously, he’s now much more into his Wii than before because he learned that his original association was invalid.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
59
Associations can also be positive, of course. Just think of how many people associate chocolate with great pleasure. So, associations are created primarily by experience. We program ourselves based on results in the past. The trouble with our associations is that they control our future decisions. This can get in the way when making pivotal choices with respect to career and money. Associative conditioning is the primary reason people quit entrepreneurial businesses. They may have tried something in the past and failed. If they decide based on those results – that being in business for oneself equals pain – they may never try again. Do you think Donald Trump should have quit after he filed bankruptcy? Of course not! Why did he jump right back into the fray? Because he didn’t associate going bankrupt with pain or failure. Therefore, he wasn’t afraid of it! Donald Trump wrote a book with Robert Kiyosaki, and the men now frequently chat about their business affairs. A perk for those of us who are affiliated with the Rich Dad company is that Robert will share anecdotes and stories. He recently shared an experience that Trump had with a reporter when he was over a billion dollars in debt! The reporter asked if Mr. Mr . Trump was at all worried. Trump’s reply was, “Worry? What’s that? Either you take action, or you don’t.” It would be a good idea to start thinking about your associations. How? Think of a topic, and see what feelings it generates inside of you. Think about not having a job and being responsible for your own income and income protection benefits. How does it make you feel? Do you feel uncomfortable? If you can’t act in spite of that discomfort, you may need to change your associations. First and foremost, you have to become aware of your associations (there’s that word “aware” again.) It doesn’t happen overnight, but slowly, you’ll consciously let go of your preconceived notions. Trust me on this, half the battle is simply recognizing associations for what they are. If you take anything from this whole chapter, let it be this: the only thing you have to fear in starting a business is that you will quit before you succeed. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
60
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” - Author unknown Assignments for Chapter 3: Spotting the Roadblocks
1. Write a single-sentence bio about yourself. This will give you an indication of how you perceive yourself, which will allow you to determine which subconscious limitations you might have placed on yourself. You could also ask someone else to describe your personal traits. Sometimes, others will point out strengths and/or weaknesses that you haven’t considered. Get to know yourself better! 2. List your family members, friends, co-workers – the people you interact with frequently. What are their views, achievements, and backgrounds? How do your values compare to theirs? How might they have shaped your opinions of yourself, the world, and your ambitions? Is their influence harmful, or can you benefit from it? Often, you’ll find that your income calculates to about the average of the incomes of others with whom you associate. They are part of your current context and what you consider to be possible. In other o ther words, their individual incomes represent what you believe you are worth in terms of your your income. 3. Separate fact from fiction. What are you worth? $45,000 a year? Should your employer decide what figure you’re worth or should you? It’s kind of an important issue to leave up to someone other than you, isn’t it? Write down reasons why you’ve been content with where you are or why you were not content but too afraid to do anything about it. Are these insurmountable problems or inconveniences? If you want your dream life badly enough, your creativity should find a way around any obstacle. The point of this exercise is (like ( like many of them) to get you to think on a different frequency. You are a creator, not a product! So stop making excuses and get down to business.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
61
Chapter 4 Becoming financially literate – Dispel Dispel the myths
You are likely familiar with the age-old proverb, “Nothing is certain but death and taxes.” It makes people think that taxes are an inseparable part of life, but nothing could be further from the truth. Don’t forget that the USA was spawned from a colonial uprising against the taxation by the British Empire. After American independence was secured over two centuries ago, taxes were only briefly reintroduced during times of war. Taxes were definitely not a certain thing in early American society, so how we came to believe fallacies like the proverb above requires a short delve into U.S. history. I am a major history buff, but I realize many of you aren’t so I promise it will be quick and painless! When the Industrial Revolution picked up steam, new technologies excelled. When the industrious and innovative elite reached new heights, the poor cried foul. They believed that the rich ought to be punished for their success and pay for social programs that support those in who made less. Politicians were eager to please the poor masses, since universal voting rights meant that they had a far greater support s upport base there. The poor got their way, and, initially, only the rich were taxed. However, the government’s appetite for money grew exponentially, and a growing federal deficit required universal taxation. It wasn’t long before this became a way of life. Ironically, taxes eventually hit the average middle and lower class families the hardest. Many still don’t realize that they work from January until roughly May just to pay what they will owe in taxes for the year – that’s almost five months’ income, and yes, that is still true today. Ever notice how government officials are considered ineffective when they don’t use up their allotted budget? They never want to finish a year under budget because that could result in a budget cut! That thought strikes fear in the hearts of a great many government managers. In the business world, the opposite is true, and people are rewarded for completing a task under budget. Because the government is always striving to employ all available funds, there is an ever-increasing demand for more. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
62
That’s why taxes have steadily increased. This is a major reason the rich use legal tax shelters. They are all too familiar with the government’s long history of highly questionable financial stewardship. Still, even with the strategies that the wealthy use, the wealthy pay for the vast majority of federal taxes. Don’t mistakenly think that the biggest load is carried by the working class. This is a very stubborn myth that needs dispelling. The top 1% of income earners alone pay more than a third of total individual income tax payments. Are you already beginning to take a new stance s tance toward your money? That’s the major purpose behind this chapter. Make no mistake: I’m making a blatant attempt to change your opinion about money. And what is money really? What is the value of that paper and metal we stuff in our wallets? A banknote in itself is worthless; it’s a promissory note, which is accounting terminology for an IOU. However, if you intend to show up at a regional Federal Reserve branch office with the intention of having the government live up to that promise and exchange your note for gold, you’re going to be in for an unpleasant surprise. Ever since President Nixon detached the dollar from the Gold Standard, our money is merely currency backed by consumer confidence in the system. That’s certainly a shaky foundation during tough economic times. One side effect of this is the dollar’s devaluation due to all of the extra money that the U.S. mint has been printing. By controlling the money supply, the government can increase or decrease the flow of money in an attempt to steer the economy when deemed necessary. But this power comes at a price. When you look at a stock graph gr aph figured in dollars without devaluation, you’ll see the famous 10% line going steadily up over the years despite the many ups and downs of the market. If you do figure in the dollar’s devaluation, however, you’re in for a sobering and unnerving surprise. Inflation and currency devaluation will erase most of the interest gains on your company 401K. If it is security you seek, this method of saving is not as safe s afe as you have been told! Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
63
In reality savers are actually losers if you look at the numbers, which very few people ever do. Financial advisors (some very famous ones), banks, and our own government have been filling your head with nonsense for years. Don’t think for a second that the truly wealthy live by their advice. Do you think your local banker can teach you how to use a self-directed Roth IRA to finance real estate and earn capital gains in transactions that are 100% legally tax free? Nope. But you can bet on the rich making sure that their kids know how. Applied knowledge is power. Use it or lose it. i t. Neither the IRS nor the big banks have a stake in advancing your financial education, but you certainly do.
Starting a Corporation
If you’re a business owner or a real estate investor and have ever taken a seminar that was of some value, you were no doubt introduced to a strategy called “asset protection.” The way the rich keep their assets protected from legal mishaps and unscrupulous people is through the formation of corporations. A corporation in its simplest form is nothing more than a business entity that is legally separated from its owners. When my wife and I started seeking consultation on growing our eBay operation, we were told repeatedly to form a Limited Liability Company (LLC). The LLC would be separate from us, hold its own bank account, and own its own property. If someone ever sought damages from us or the business, it would be most difficult for them to cross the legal barrier. I couldn’t argue with the advice, so I set out to locate a certified court document preparer. I wanted to avoid lawyers, as their fees were out of our range. I also didn’t want a do-it-yourself-kit because I wanted it done right . I also had numerous questions about future expansion and taking on partners, so I needed a knowledgeable person. It ended up costing me just $300, and I discovered a previously undisclosed perk to owning an LLC.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
64
After filing the paperwork with the IRS, you are issued an Employer Identification Number (EIN), also called a corporate tax identification or wholesale license. When you take your tax I.D. to a bank, you can now apply for corporate credit cards. You’ll find that banks are much more generous toward businesses than consumers, and here’s why: 1. Business cards bring in 5% per purchase transaction, while consumer cards bring in just 1%. So, the banks make five times more in transaction fees. 2. Businesses perform better statistically. Their payment behavior is more reliable than consumers, where charge-off rates are higher. 3. Banks want to sell you on their merchant services, which bring in heaps more in transaction fees. In short, you’re suddenly a much bigger fish for them to go after than when you showed up as a mere consumer. co nsumer. Within months, I had been approved for five credit cards with an average of $20,000 in credit cr edit limits. That meant that my business had about $100,000 in unsecured loans available to grow its operations. If you have ever tried to obtain o btain a SBA loan in that range, you will have found it to be very hard. Another great benefit of corporate cards is that most of them don’t report on your personal credit file for as long as they remain in good standing. So, any debt carried on them doesn’t weigh you down personally. The tax benefits of the corporation make up the rest r est of the argument for any serious business owner to start one. A corporation doesn’t pay individual income tax, because it’s not an individual. As an employee, the taxes are withheld before you receive anything. You did the work, why should you be paid last? Thank your government. Consult your attorney or CPA for details, but the rich use corporations to pay for most of their expenses, hold many of their assets for protection, and avoid paying more taxes than necessary. There are even strategies available that will allow one to personally and legally own almost nothing, and earn nothing that can be taxed. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
65
It’s a matter of obtaining the knowledge the IRS would like to keep from you. My personal disclaimer: don’t exercise any of these strategies without counsel from tax and legal specialists. Their advice does not come cheap, but it will cost far less than getting yourself in legal trouble.
Cashflow 101
Making money is really a game of sorts, isn’t it? The sooner you start learning how to play it, the better off you’ll be. The place to start is the advancement of your financial education. When it comes to the power of money, it’s not really about how much of it you have at the moment but how you control the flow of it. Remember the lottery winners? They win and spend millions only to end up back where they were. So, the amount of money you possess at any given time is rather r ather irrelevant. With financial education, you will gain insight into your personal and business cash flow, and you’ll learn how to accumulate enough to live life on your own terms. Liken your business life to a game of monopoly – your success is dependent on how much money you bring under your control. The key word here is control. Most people work for money and never realize that they could have their money work for them instead. Look, it’s not about the amount of cash you have or the things you can buy. The rich concern themselves with cashflow: how much comes in and how much flows out. Everyone else is poor, temporarily rich, or pretending to be rich. As a banker, I have seen too many people who are just renting r enting a lifestyle and paying dearly for it. One day, you no longer own the stuff, but it owns you! According to most standards, you are considered rich if you have a net worth exceeding 1 million USD. Most people would also call such an individual wealthy. Rich Dad, Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki makes a distinction between being rich and being wealthy. While being rich is measured in dollars, Robert measures wealth in time. By his definition d efinition your wealth is measured by your ability to sustain yourself financially without having to rely on earned income. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
66
In 1996, Robert and his wife, Kim, created a board game (told you it was a game!) called Cashflow 101. Their aim was to show people how the th e wealthy think and how you need to expand your context if you plan to become wealthy yourself. Few people know that Robert’s best-selling book Rich Rich Dad Poor Dad was originally written as a guide for the game! The Cashflow game was Robert’s original concept to financially educate the public back in the 1990s, but it took a backseat to the success of his Rich Dad book series. Lately, Robert has been busy bringing the game back to the forefront because he realizes that now more than ever, the time is ripe r ipe to enhance the financial IQ of the general public. The government and big banks are not going to teach you how to play smart, so you will have to take ownership of your own financial education or lose out. There is no denying that the public needs financial understanding, and our school system simply fails to provide it. This is the void that the Cashflow game can fill. A central theme of the game is the Cashflow Quadrant, which classifies people as an employee (E), self-employed professional (S), business owner (B), or investor (I).
Trademark of Cashflow Technologies, Inc
The Cashflow Quadrant lays out how the employed and self-employed have to work for money on the left side of o f the quadrant, while the business owners and investors on the right side have their businesses and money working for them. Though some earn their income from multiple quadrants, people on the right side earn passive income that enables them to live without the need to go to work. The objective of the game is to increase your passive income (derived from businesses, real estate, or investments which are generated on the right side of the quadrant) to exceed your expenses. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
67
Once you have achieved this, you are financially free, which means you no longer have to work for your money and have effectively escaped the rat race (the left of the quadrant.) The game allows you to experiment with different investment strategies without real-world consequences. Robert found that the financial decisions players make in the game trigger the same emotions as they would in real life. li fe. Therefore, once you master your emotions and control your decision-making in the game, you will be much better equipped to deal with such circumstances in the real world. Thanks to a chance meeting in Austin, TX in the summer of 2008, I met some of Robert Kiyosaki’s associates and began forming a relationship with the Rich Dad Company. This relationship resulted in the creation of a Cashflow Club based on Robert’s Cashflow 101 board game and officially sponsored by the Rich Dad Franchise. Later that year I finally got to meet with Robert at his office and attend several board meetings with his leadership team. I conduct club meetings where I teach Robert’s lessons l essons the way he intended them. Though attendance is free and I’m not paid by Rich Dad to host these meetings, what I learn from working with Robert and his brilliant team is invaluable. The club also attracts all sorts of like-minded people who teach me a great deal as well.
The power of leverage
Your financial fortune and the legacy you leave behind stem from what you have learned about money and what you have taught your children about it. The difference between what the rich teach their kids about money and what the poor teach their kids is one reason the rich stay rich. You know the sayings, “money isn’t everything” and “money doesn’t make you happy.” Although both statements hold some measure of truth, I also know that money allows me to travel; it’s sending my kids to a school of my choosing; it allows me to contribute contribute to charity; and it it will help me when I’m older. The most important thing money buys me is the irreplaceable asset of t ime to learn, time to spend with those I love, and time. I have time to think, time time to spend at places and activities I have a passion for. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
68
Even though there are things that outrank it in life, money does make people happier and allows them to do more for themselves and those they love. You would be able to contribute so much more to the world around you if you would just allow yourself to live in abundance. You can make a bigger difference when you’re rich than when you’re poor. Remember that abundance is a perception. If you perceive lack or scarcity, that’s what you live. If you tell yourself that you have to work for money, you’ll live your life working for it, a risky proposition in today’s job market. Wouldn’t you rather have your money work for you? It’s a major shift in mindset, especially if you don’t have any money right now to put to work for you. But we’ll shed light on how to generate that money in Chapter 5. At an ecommerce conference, tax authority Diane Kennedy taught me a short and simple phrase that stuck with me for years and helped me with building our eBay business: work on your business, not in it. She reminded me that before you even worry about learning how to leverage money, you need to learn how to leverage time. What this means is that you can’t do it all on your own, which is what people in the S (self-employed) quadrant try to do most often. They are rugged individualists and will work themselves to death. Early on, I almost fell prey to this as I tried to keep up with our company’s books by myself. I weighed the cost of QuickBooks training, my dislike of accounting, and the amount of time and frustration it would require. Then I remembered Diane’s words and started interviewing bookkeepers and CPAs. The time saved doesn’t measure up against the expense, so my point is: Does it really save you anything by trying to do it all yourself? Robert Kiyosaki uses leverage to grow the Rich Dad brand. He recently partnered with Russ Whitney, for example, to create Rich Dad Education to serve those looking for training in the world of real estate investing. Rich Dad has traditionally been about context because Robert had always said the content doesn’t make sense until you understand the context. That’s also the reason why so many people mistakenly thought the book Rich Dad Poor Dad would teach them how to become rich. Nope! The book serves to change your mindset toward your investment of time and money. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
69
It provides the context for Rich ’s philosophy. But a lot of people still Rich Dad ’s need to learn what to do once o nce they understand why an enhanced financial IQ will serve them well. So, instead of reinventing the wheel, this joint venture with Russ Whitney came about. As Robert likes to say, “Do more with less.” You only have so many hours in the day, and you need to focus on what you do best and use professionals or partners to handle the rest. If you try to do it all, you will fail at everything! It’s a simple equation: success = time + money. If you have little money to invest, you can certainly cer tainly pour more time into your success. But if you already have some cash, you can leverage that to buy some time and start earning more money sooner. Either way, you can get there if you’re willing to invest one or the other. Most people decide not to invest either. Well, if you do what everyone else does, you will have what everyone else has. One of the key drivers that send s end people to me for advice on starting a home business is my experience with doing business online. I spent thousands of dollars and hours on training and coaching to support my online businesses. These people realize that they can leverage my experience and education to produce results instead of sacrificing the same investment of time and capital. With few exceptions, you cannot build a million-dollar business by yourself. Luckily, as an entrepreneur, you will begin to master the skill of networking. As an independent business professional, you’re a leader, and you recognize your strengths and weaknesses. You will find other professionals and referrals to help you achieve your objectives. A natural leader knows how to leverage the knowledge and skills of others to the benefit of all involved. This is why not all managers are necessarily leaders and vice versa. AND it is one of the primary reasons I left Corporate America behind.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
70
You might just be a natural leader once you realize you’re not the smartest person in the room and don’t waste time trying to pretend otherwise. Actually, if you are the smartest person in the room, it is time to surround yourself with some fresh faces. No, instead, you want to influence the smartest people around you and leverage their skills, talents, and efforts. You might, in turn, provide something they need (income, skill, or association.) Are you beginning to see the importance of networking and creating connections regardless of your field of business? As a leader, you create these connections naturally because you see how the network as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts (in this case, the people!) In summary, to become a successful business leader, you don’t have to do it all or know it all. You just have to put yourself in touch with the right people, the right systems, and, preferably, do it at the right time. It’s a snap when you connect the dots. d ots. Connections grow exponentially. I would be absolutely nowhere today without having connected to certain individuals along the way. No matter how self-sufficient you are, you will need to leverage a network if you want to achieve success fast. Don’t underestimate how quickly your fortunes can change once you get started.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
71
Assignments Assignments for Chapter 4: Enhancing your financial IQ
1. Visit www.richdad.com to locate a Cashflow Club near you or to order the game. Contact me at
[email protected] [email protected] if you’re in the Phoenix, Arizona Metro area and would like to play with my club; it’s the second such club that came into existence. Unlike the numerous unofficial clubs, mine is officially supported by Rich Dad and comes with numerous perks for our members and an exclusive curriculum by Robert and Kim Kiyosaki. Attendance is free! 2. Start reading the financial press. Knowledge of finance will, in large part, determine your fortune in life, good or bad. You can only afford to neglect this skill if you can afford a good financial advisor (and they don’t work for peanuts!) 3. Brand yourself! Think of a good business name and make sure there isn’t someone else using it in your field of business. See if the .com domain name is available (I ( I recommend pcnames.com). When you have settled on a name, file a trade name application with your state government. From this point on you can file articles of incorporation with the help of a certified court-document preparer and form an LLC. Now you have a legal shield and a business entity that can open its own deposit and credit accounts! Now you can start thinking bigger.
Robert Kiyosaki (right) and myself at Rich Dad HQ (“The Rat” is a registered trademark of Cashflow Technologies, Inc.)
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
72
Chapter 5 A world of business owners – Demise Demise of the middle class
It’s hard to avoid reading headlines these days that tell us jobs are disappearing offshore and that with every decline in jobs, they don’t seem to come back in the same numbers. The age upon us is that of the entrepreneur. Like or not, my friend, it’s going to be about the 1099 rather than the W2 in the long run. Even though societal and economic changes can be perceived as painful or frightening, they don’t have to be. Well, that is if you’re anticipating them and know how to adapt to a changing environment. The shift you’re seeing today is the final squirm in the transition t ransition from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. If you were born more than 70 7 0 years ago, then heeding the advice to go to school and find a secure job made sense. Not today though. Your parents or grandparents also didn’t have a crippling consumer debt weighing them down and trapping them in the Rat Race. Credit cards were for travelers and those that knew how to manage their money. Back then, most people only purchased homes and cars after they had saved the money for them. Many people think their home is their biggest asset. But from an accounting perspective this home is actually the bank’s asset if there is a mortgage owed on the property. On the homeowner’s balance sheet, the home is a liability! Not knowing the difference between assets and liabilities is one of numerous reasons the middle class is struggling. They put their money into luxuries thinking they are assets, while they really are liabilities. With every increase in income, they buy more expensive homes and cars, trapping them in the th e Rat Race forever. On the other side of the quadrant, the rich put their money into real assets and pay for their th eir luxuries with the residual income. As a banker, I have seen too many people bury themselves with big mortgages and car loans because they think that’s what the rich ri ch do. I have seen thousands of credit records that belong to millionaires as well. Can you guess how they differ from a middle class person? They only carry debt when it is used to finance an asset that generates more income than the interest on the loan. Most of the time, their accounts are paid in full. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
73
The rich buy assets that appreciate and generate g enerate passive residual income. The income generated from the asset column of their balance sheet exceeds the costs of the liabilities in the expense column. The rich pay for their luxuries with their residual income. The middle class buys liabilities mistaken for assets, supported by their i ncrease their liabilities earned income. Whenever their income grows, they increase to match. Whenever Joe Worker gets a measly pay raise, he buys a nicer car and a bigger home. This delicate balance is that infamous Rat Race. The government and the big banks have Joe Worker convinced that his home is an asset. They just failed to tell him whose asset it truly is. is . In accounting you can easily tell an asset from a liability. One takes money out of your pocket, the other puts money in your pocket. Your home is an asset, just not on your balance sheet but on the bank’s. Having an entire population buying liabilities that they are told are assets is a recipe for financial disaster. The economic crisis of recent times is a testament to this and no amount of extra money the government prints for bailouts will make it go away. Lastly, we have the poor with a very simple balance sheet. They spend what they make and live paycheck to paycheck. Obviously the current cycle cannot be sustained and millions around the world are staring down a painful lesson in personal finance. Those that fail to enhance their financial intelligence will join the ranks of the poor. The poor get poorer because of what they teach their children and mostly what they are not able to teach them due to a lack of financial education. The rich will get richer because they teach their kids the laws of business and finance to groom them to exceed the achievements of the previous generation (read up on the Kennedy family and how they maintain the cycle of wealth). Between the two groups is a middle class in serious trouble. As the middle class fades, the divide between rich and poor is starkly widening. The danger in this is that a larger poor population will blame the rich minority for their predicament. To avoid potential societal upheaval, financial education is crucial. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
74
However unfortunate for the American worker, The Information Age is all but done turning his/her world upside-down. Economies are in a constant state of adjustment, and these adjustments react to things that were set in motion much earlier by a variety of factors. The global reallocation of jobs is a reaction to the sharp rise r ise in costs to large employers. e mployers. They are left with a choice: move operations abroad to cut costs or cease being competitive and slowly go out of business. I have been laid off twice in the past due to offshoring and outsourcing, so my family has dealt with this unpleasant and life-changing situation. Every worker is expendable, and I found that out the hard way – more than once, no less. My reaction to the sudden job loss was probably slightly different from most people. I decided right away that it was nobody’s fault, and no amount of whining was going to change things. I accepted the fact that my job was expendable, and so is yours, regardless r egardless of how important you think you are. Looking for another one doesn’t improve your position, and finding one is getting much harder. You essentially have two choices if you’re no longer able to find a white or blue collar job that suits your needs and fits your qualifications. You can accept a low paying service job, or you can choose to join the ranks of business owners and take control of your life. In other words, you work for the service, or you become the one that owns the service. Which seems more appealing? My past job losses fueled my desire for becoming an owner rather than a worker. If you don’t own the business, you don’t hold the cards . End of story.
So what do you do about it? Become a business bu siness owner and learn to invest. There is also some good news in all of this. Fortunately (and interestingly), the shrinking of the middle class has coincided with a tremendous t remendous growth in the number of wealthy households.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
75
In 1985, there were 13 billionaires and several thousands of millionaires in the U.S. Today, there are about 1,000 billionaires and more than 3 million millionaires in North America alone! The vast majority of them have built their wealth by owning their own businesses and through the investments that allowed them to make. Despite the growing gap between rich and poor, the rich as a group are perhaps growing at an even faster rate. Thanks to the Information Age, the business opportunities today outnumber the number of people who are able to recognize those opportunities. So, don’t become part of the ignorant throngs who will be fighting over the scraps left behind. The rich quickly learned to leverage technology and information, which has sped up business cycles over the last l ast few decades. We are racing from booms to busts faster than ever before, and those with less financial education are scared stiff because they do not understand what is really r eally happening. Do headlines about recession and losses worry you? Recessions are dramatic shifts in wealth. Will you be on the receiving or losing end of the latest shift? The rich know when to get into the markets and when to get out. Be it real estate or stocks, when prices go up it means the rich are already on their way out making millions along the way. The middle class jumps in hoping to ride the wave, then the bubble bursts. Suddenly, real estate and stock prices drop and the now cash-heavy rich are ready to buy again and the cycle continues. The latest recession – worsened by the housing bust – is notably different. It seems that the troubled middle class is finally being pushed to the brink of collapse. When the dust settles, this will be a very different economy.
Business options for the average Joe
What if you decide that you don’t want to risk becoming a statistic in the financial collapse of the middle class? What can you do? Robert Kiyosaki teaches us that we should strive to become business owners and investors if we want to become financially free. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
76
Since it’s next to impossible to become an investor without significant financial education and starting capital, we will stay in the arena of business ownership. So how can the average hourly-wage employee make the move to own and operate a business of his/her own? In essence, there are three major options for anyone looking to start a business: 1. Start your own C corp. from scratch. scr atch. Many never make it from small business to C corp., as this process requires the most research, stamina, and organizational skill of the three options, but the rewards can be phenomenal. phenomenal. This is the category category our first success fell under. under. Our eBay business was put together from the bottom up. Through trial and error, we figured out what worked and what didn’t. Sometimes this education came at a significant cost. Microsoft, Ford Motors, and GE may be titans of industry today, but they all had their starts as small businesses. These corporations were founded by entrepreneurs with exceptional determination and purpose. But make no mistake; they have all had their brush with ruin. The difference is in how they handled setbacks and disappointment. 2. Purchase a franchise. This option is out of reach for most people due to the required net worth to start. For example, a McDonald’s restaurant requires more than $1 million personal investment capital, and you must meet their stringent business qualifications. Once your business is up and running, you have to pay the franchisor a share of your profits. You work under an existing brand with its many rules, and all of the investment and risk is entirely yours. Results vary greatly here, but if you’re well-funded and devote great study to location and market research, you can achieve great wealth with a franchise. 3. Join a network or affiliate marketing opportunity. These businesses include MLM and affiliate systems where you work to market a product or service on a commission basis. These businesses require no prerequisites or any significant investment (usually a few hundred to a few thousand dollars will get you started.) Building an organization with this model in traditional MLM opportunities (think Mary Kay, Quickstar/Amway) Quickstar/Amway) does carry car ry risk, as you have little control over the distributors lined up under you. The Internet has also thrown the present-day MLM’er a few curveballs. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
77
Mike Dillard wrote a compelling article on this subject entitled “The Coffee House Letter,” which can be found at www.mlmpanic.com. www.mlmpanic.com. An expensive lesson
Since I mentioned that my wife and I worked with a traditional Multilevel Marketing (MLM) opportunity in the past, I thought it might be useful us eful to share our experience, as it also taught us some very expensive lessons. Hopefully, it will prevent you from having to make the same unnecessary investment to obtain this knowledge. We had been trying to build a business around an exotic juice called Monavie and had pumped at least $15,000 into it before deciding that we would never see a return on our investment. There’s nothing wrong with the product. I continue to use it today and recognize its health benefits without a doubt. But there’s something wrong with the way MLM works today. Back in the pre-Internet days, you could work an opportunity for three to five years and retire on the commissions from your down-line of recruits. You built relationships and fostered loyalty by supporting and training your rep’s. The Internet has ruined this functionality due to MLM’s “timing-effect.” This is what I mean by that: if you joined an opportunity early, and it took off, you were at the top of the virtual pyramid. Your recruits enrolled others and so on, and you took a percentage from the entire down-line. In a person-to-person world that method of network marketing worked just fine. Then the internet showed up and effectively bypassed all interpersonal relationships by creating instant connections that spanned sp anned the globe. Information travelling at the speed of light has its consequences. Alas we entered the age of the pre-launch. Hungry MLM-junkies are now scouring the web every day looking for the next opportunity launch, hoping it will boom so that they can ride the wave to financial freedom because everyone wants to get in on top . If only it were that easy. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
78
You see, this happens daily, and any schmoe with basic computer skills can start an MLM company and begin signing people up. They make some s ome serious cash with the modest sign-up fees (let’s say, s ay, $50 to join times 50,000 enrollees – you get the picture.) Many of them the m even get a few thousand souls to buy some products, and they’re done. A year later, they might consider themselves a big MLM stud and think they’re making some decent money. They start setting a retirement date and begin shopping for their dream home. Then, one of the business builders becomes impatient or unhappy and hops on another opportunity launching next week. Poof! The income evaporates. That said, there are some good companies out there with real products which have stood the test of time. Monavie is certainly one of them. But unless you are a veteran MLM’er with an existing down-line from a previous opportunity, you have one daunting task trying to build your business from scratch. It’s not impossible, and some fanatic networkers have done it. But even if you succeed, the risk of opportunity-hopping remains. Your best distributor or business builder could be poached by another MLM recruiter, and your days of financial security are over. If a successful MLM-er ever tries to recruit you (and they will try), they will always claim that they didn’t rely on existing contacts and down-lines to build their business. Don’t be fooled. If they ever admitted the truth, the entire opportunity would implode! New entrants would be discouraged from joining, and the income made off of their enthusiastic enrollment and product purchases would evaporate! Another thing that hurts most MLM products is simply si mply the cost of the products. It’s hard to sell a $45 bottle of fruit juice in a down economy, especially when your local big box store has an alternative for $15. I’ve had so many people try and love the product, but they simply can’t afford to drink it, let alone build a business out of it! You might also consider the fact that almost every MLM company requires you to purchase a monthly minimum of product to remain eligible for commission payouts. The profits these companies amass are largely driven by loyal distributors hooked into monthly orders (often billed as a “convenient” feature called autoship), rather than newly acquired customers! Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
79
If you don’t know what you’re doing, consumption-driven MLMs can bankrupt you. Some opportunities are downright pyramid scams and they can even land you in legal hot water. Be wary of those that don’t sell an actual product or service, such as cash-gifting schemes. Others will use false advertising and forged government records. In 2008 someone attempted to “poach” me (attempting to lure me from my opportunity to theirs) for a fuel-additive MLM opportunity. After some research and speaking with a compliance officer at the EPA in Washington D.C., I found the MLM company to be engaged in misleading and false advertising. As a result, the EPA persuaded the company to correct their website and marketing material. The MLM industry is a shark s hark pond, and if you’re the new fish, watch out! If you’re considering a networking opportunity, consider one with a 2/3-tier compensation plan where your profit is made up front at the point of sale and not dependent upon the risky business of down-line building. I’ve left this unstable business behind and found something that fits my interest in financial education. The commission per sale is significant, so I don’t have to rely on fluctuating volume for my income. I advertise and sell s ell the products online, collect payment through my own merchant account, and pay the wholesale price to the company. The difference is pure profit. No network marketing business is built to last forever, so – per Rich ’s Rich Dad ’s advice – much of this income is invested into assets that generate long-term passive income, like real estate. Remember: wealth is determined by cashflow, not temporarily earning (job, MLM, small business) or having (lottery, inheritance, and other one-shot deals) lots of money. If you’re still hell-bent on making it big in MLM, I sincerely wish you the best of luck. Great success and wealth can still be achieved by resourceful individuals. Just know that you are trying to fill a leaky bucket, and you will have to continuously recruit people to survive. Even if you manage to build a significant down-line through relentless recruiting, you still face the continued threat of attrition. You will have to keep actively recruiting new distributors to replace the ones who left. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
80
On average, new distributors last about three months before they quit. This is why MLM is no longer on the right side of the Cashflow Quadrant where income is generated passively; it is earned income these days. You will find yourself back in the S quadrant where you literally own a job, and it’s only a matter of time before burn-out sets in. i n.
Finding your sweet spot
Whatever direction you decide to take in the entrepreneurial realm, you’ll have to figure out your niche. Take some time to discover your interests and talents. If you choose an opportunity or business that you don’t enjoy, you’ll never excel at it. Also, take stock s tock of your skills and training. What can you still learn, and how can you leverage the skill and knowledge of others to pursue your goals? If all of that is in line, you’ll still have to find a business b usiness that has room to grow. So, it really takes a couple of core competencies to come together in order for you to find out where your niche is, or as I like to call it, your sweet spot . Take everything we have discussed in this booklet – which has largely served to help you figure out the human side of entrepreneurship – and slap it together with your idea of the ideal business for your situation. This should provide you with at least a starting point from which to hone in on your target business. I found my sweet spot after my MLM business left me with little return on investment. Before joining Monavie, I had already been blending my experience as a banker with my enthusiasm for working with the Rich Dad franchise in helping people enhance their financial IQ. In brief, my current opportunity basically offers financial education to entrepreneurs and anyone else who wants to take charge of their financial destiny. It just made more sense to me to connect my business, passions, experience, skills, and associations with a wealth mastery product line rather than fruit juice. I can’t explain it any better than that. A core lesson Mike Dillard teaches his protégé’s is to take one of their personal strengths and turn it into an expertise as it applies to their business. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
81
You have set yourself apart from the pack and have something unique and valuable to offer the community. People buy from and do business with those -leaders- who have something to offer that fits those criteria. As a guy, I like visuals, of course. I’m sure my female readers already got the picture, but let me illustrate this for the many guys out there still scratching their heads:
Let’s call it the 3 E’s of Success
Notice how there is an overlap in the middle? This is where all of the different factors come together and where you will find your niche. This doesn’t mean you can’t succeed if they don’t all meet at the center, but your niche, or sweet spot, is where your maximum results are made possible.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
82
Take a sheet of paper, and write out your three E’s. This will be very useful for the exercise at the end of this chapter. While some factors above are out of your control, the majority of them are things you can work on! Massive action
Is what you bring together to create cr eate worth striving for? If you never make the decision and take the time to figure out these things, t hings, success could elude you for your entire life. But great goals and ideas alone don’t equal results, and something worthwhile isn’t created overnight. Would you diligently invest and work for several months to a year to create financial freedom with a five-, six-, or seven-figure income for the rest of your life? Or would you prefer to stick with a job and a five- (six-, if you’re lucky) figure earned income and always keep working – from job to job, paycheck to paycheck? When your boss gives you a job to do, don’t you instinctively strive to overdeliver? Why is it that most people don’t put that kind of effort toward their own benefit? Aren’t you worth it? What price tag do you place on yourself? Maybe it’s different for you, but the catalyst for me was dissatisfaction. diss atisfaction. I made a definite decision on this issue several years ago and never looked back. I couldn’t accept that there wasn’t more to life than fighting traffic and gas bills, traveling every day to an office where I didn’t d idn’t enjoy working. When I added up the time spent there versus my quality time with my family or working on my own interests, I decided that my priorities were seriously messed up. You read that millions are working 50-plus hours a week or holding more than one job to get by. To top t op it off, almost half of us don’t rate our job satisfaction very high. Is that life? Whether you’re making 15K or 150K, there has to be a better way of doing things! I’m grateful I figured this out in my late twenties and not in my early sixties.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
83
So, it’s time you started asking yourself new questions. Ask yourself, “What really matters to me?” I frequently remind myself of a line l ine Tony Robbins drops into all of his books and programs: “When you’ve figured out your objective, immediately take a step toward its completion however small that step may be.”
If you don’t do this, your goals will end up on the back-burner yet again. Trust me – your goals are much too easy to forget, and life will inevitably get in the way. Focus on what matters – not the day-to-day stuff. Even if you like your job, can you say you truly love it? Isn’t something (just like someone) only worth sticking to when you love it? During trying economic times, you might find yourself losing your nerve and clinging to what you know (like your job.) But what if you could be impervious to economic upheaval? There still is security for some, but you won’t find many of them in the job market. Don’t wait for politicians to bail you out or for greedy corporations to suddenly give in and help the little guy. It won’t happen, so take matters into your own hands. Take massive action! My wife gave me a 1978 copy of People People Magazine for my birthday. It was published 30 years ago on the day I was born. It featured an article about the troubled healthcare system and included an interview with then-President of Blue Cross, Mr. Walter McNerney. I was shocked, amazed, and saddened that this article reflected the exact same sentiments and observations expressed today. In 30 years’ time, they have accomplished absolutely nothing. Not a shred of progress. This article could have been in the newspapers today with only the names changed. Don’t place your hopes with politicians or big business. Ultimately, their agendas don’t include your best interests. You are ultimately responsible for your successes, your failures, and how h ow you respond to them. Whatever happens, what are you going to do about it?
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
84
Assignment for Chapter 5: Creating actionable steps
1. Answer the following questions: What are you good at, or what could you become better at? Do you want more time for family and things you enjoy doing? What kind of business would you enjoy? What kind of income would you like to earn? Are there causes or institutions you want to help? How much time and money are you willing to invest in a life of financial freedom? Businesses require upfront investment of both if you expect to reap the benefits later. Write down a couple of answers, and if you find overlap, you might have just found your niche! • • • • • •
2. Start a business today! You are not an entrepreneur if you don’t have one. If you already have a draft dr aft business plan, then start taking action now. Seek out a mentor and don’t try to go it alone; remember to leverage! If this is your first venture, I realize you might be overwhelmed and intimidated, and that’s normal. But I also don’t want to leave you with your newly enhanced context and nothing to throw at it. We have to maintain momentum, so here is the deal… If you have no business plan or even an idea of where to begin, I will make you a suggestion. Actually, I am going to take t ake it a step further and share something no other guru or entrepreneur will likely show you (voluntarily anyhow). I am going to show you my business plan and the tools and systems I use u se myself to put Rich Dad ’s ’s advice to work for me 24/7. I have set up a website exclusively for the readers of this book at www.EasyBizSetup.com Why? To take away your final excuses! If you’re not ready to take drastic action though, don’t even look at it! This is really for serious s erious entrepreneurs only. If you’re still in need of some fine-tuning, you’d best stick with your training wheels before hitting the fast track. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
85
Final Thoughts
That was it! You made it, and I applaud your commitment! I hope you have enjoyed this quick read and perhaps had a few “ah hah!” moments. My voyage into entrepreneurship has been a life-changing one and I hope yours will be nothing less. Success in this arena boils down to education and persistence. Arm yourself with information because it’s important to have a plan B when your career takes an unexpected turn or your current job or business simply isn’t providing what you want or need in life, be it in terms of time or income. If you have a job, you are living on someone else’s terms – period. If I f you love that job, keep it! Life is intended to be abundant in every way, so if your job brings great fulfillment, it adds value to your life. l ife. Just be sure to have a plan B if your income solely relies on that job. The face of our economy is changing dramatically, and self-employment is becoming more of a necessity than a privilege for many – whether as an extra or even primary source of cashflow. One day, self-sufficiency will simply be the norm for many of us, and we’ll have to rely on ourselves for our o ur financial survival. Just look at how the government is pushing everything from healthcare to retirement into consumer-driven systems like HSAs and 401Ks. If you don’t take care of your business, there is nobody else who will! You are – like so many out there – looking for answers: a way out of an unfulfilling job, insufficient income, lack of time, poor health, or maybe all of the above. The good news is that there are plenty of answers for those willing to get out there and look for them. This little book barely scratches the surface of the topics t opics discussed, and I encourage you to delve into the works I’ve quoted and mentioned throughout.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
86
I maintain a list of recommended reading on my personal website at www.WorkForNobody.com. www.WorkForNobody.com. Bookmark it as a reference, if you’d like. Nobody ever became independently wealthy by following a guidebook or a certain magical scheme. But there are informational sources you can tap into and systems you can utilize to create your own path to success. The thing is this: if anyone were to come right out and tell you exactly what to do, you would be lost when your business required the next evolutionary step. You need to be able to grow and evolve as a person if you expect your business to do the same. If the conditions that make your business work today will change tomorrow, what are you going to do? Seek out the next guru? Or will you take action? Nobody is going to take you by the hand, but there are plenty of us out there willing to show the way. In the assignment for chapter 5, I showed you one way – by visiting www.EasyBizSetup.com. I give would-be entrepreneurs a glimpse of my business plan, so don’t tell me you still s till have nowhere to start. Once you get the ball rolling all you need now n ow is a winning attitude, determination, and patience to allow things to come to fruition. It all comes down to what you’re willing to do. Think of an apple seed that requires a lot of work and attention for the first years before you end up with a mature tree that produces apples. One day the tree’s roots go deep enough that it needs very little attention from you to flourish. You can stop working so hard, and its fruits can be enjoyed for many decades to come. Sure, it’s easier to work for someone else and trade the limited resource of time for apples than to grow your own tree, tr ee, and that’s why there are more employees than employers in the world today. Just remember that the easy road gets harder, and that the hard road gets easier. Which are you going to choose? Only if your context is ready to grow beyond the “tell me what to do” employee mindset will you achieve financial freedom. Hopefully, I was in some way helpful to get you closer to that point. Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
87
My final advice: Decide what you want. Be very specific.
Determine what you need to become to attain it. Believe you can. Decide on a course of action. Be afraid. Then, face your fears and do it anyway! Are you ready?
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
88
Disclaimer and terms of use agreement
The author and publisher of this Work for Nobody book and any accompanying materials have used their best efforts in preparing Work for Nobody. The author and publisher make no representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy, applicability, fitness, or completeness of the contents of this Work for Nobody book. The information contained herein is strictly for educational purposes. Therefore, if you wish to apply ideas contained in this Work for Nobody book or our website, you are taking full responsibility for your actions. Every effort has been made to accurately represent this product p roduct and its potential. Even though this industry is one of the few where one can write their own check in terms of earnings, there is no guarantee that you will earn any money using the techniques and ideas in these materials.
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
89
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
90
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved. Tiemen E. Staal www.WorkForNobody.com
91
