The Hard Way

Lessons I learned the hard way,

so you don’t have to.

Brad Lea
 Copyright © 2021 Brad Lea All rights reserved.

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 Dedication

I dedicate this book to the only two people that matter. Me

for writing it and you for reading it.
 Introduction

Life is what you make it. I learned that the hard way.

It’s simple, yet we complicate it. It’s easy, yet we make it

hard…at least most of us do. The question is, why? Why do
we seem to put difficulty into living when living is so damn
easy? I always told myself, “when I get rich, I’ll... [fill in the
blank].” I would always think about what I would do and how
I would act when I got “rich.”

Technically, I still do, but that’s not really germane to my

point. Here’s what is:

After many years of making crucial mistakes and learning

everything The Hard Way, I stumbled upon one of the most
valuable lessons I never learned... until much later in life.

It’s Always Better to Learn From Someone Else’s

Mistake.

I wish I knew this when I was younger! I would have saved

myself a ton of pain and a lot of money over the years. I, for
some reason, had to learn everything The Hard Way.

Anyway, that’s why I wrote this book. These are the lessons
I learned the hard way, so you don’t have to.

They say, “Leopards can’t change their spots.” I say, “Who

gives a shit?”
I’m not a leopard and neither are you. People can change. I
have and so can you– never forget that.

The Bottom Line is, if you want to succeed in life you must
change. Change is inevitable and absolutely necessary to
create Real Success in life.

The problem is most people refuse to do it, don’t know how,

or even realize that it’s necessary which is why most people
spend their entire life “chasing their dreams” and
“searching for happiness” when in reality, we build our
dreams and choose happiness.

I have always been one to question things, especially

authority. I never liked being told what to do, how to do it, or
what to think. I’m not sure why, I just never liked it. That’s
why I had to learn The Hard Way.

If you randomly came upon this book or perhaps a friend

gave it to you, allow me to introduce myself. My name is
Brad Lea, I have been learning the hard way for most of my
life. For whatever reason, I’ve always had to figure things
out for myself, and it has cost me dearly. Looking back, the
part that pisses me off the most is that I didn’t have to pay
the prices I paid or waste as much time as I did to learn how
to make millions of dollars, build my “dreams,” and become
a good human. Trust me, there is no honor in overpaying.

I was the type of kid that if you told me the fire was hot, I
would’ve had to get burned to believe you. You would think
that after a few times of getting burned I would have gotten
a little smarter and started to take people’s word for it, but
that was not the case.

I spent the next 40+ years learning everything the hard

way; getting burned over and over. This includes losing
friends, losing money, losing time, losing opportunities, and
most of all losing myself. Regretfully, it did not only cost me,
it cost everyone around me.

I must admit I’ve learned a lot, and everything I’ve learned I

know to be true. I won’t say I regret paying the prices I’ve
paid because it has helped shape who I have become, but I
will say that I regret not asking for help, seeking advice, and
investing my money more wisely along the way.

I guess I was too stubborn, too proud, and too insecure to

realize that the solutions and answers I needed were readily
available...all I had to do was ask. It took me way too long to
understand that.

Thankfully, I finally learned that I could avoid many of the

costly mistakes, wasted time, pitfalls, scrapes, bumps, and
bruises (as well as few heartaches and divorces) simply by
asking for help, seeking advice, and investing money more
wisely. Trust me, that is the easy way and there is no shame
in making things easy for yourself. In fact, I highly
recommend it. We get taught to believe that life is hard
and/or unfair, but it’s not. Life is what you make it. The goal
is to create Real Success as fast as you can so you can
spend most of your life on easy street. To do this, you will
need to learn some things, but ironically, you’ll most likely
need to unlearn some things too. You’ll need to reprogram
yourself and “reboot the hard drive.” It will be
uncomfortable and require you to change, so if you are like
most people who really don’t want to change and give up at
the first sign of discomfort, I advise you to close the book
and write off the 25 bucks you wasted. However, if you are
willing to pay the price (far less than I did) and do what it
takes to build your dreams, create real success and end up
with everything you’ve ever wanted, read on…
I realize there is a certain value and feeling of
accomplishment in learning things the hard way but if you
ask me, it’s not worth it. According to statistics, you won’t
make it anyway, unless you’re extremely lucky like I am, so
why pay such a high price if you don’t have to? It’s too risky,
time consuming, and quite frankly, painful. As long as you
learn and end up where you want to be there is no reason
that it needs to be hard. Anyone who tells you otherwise is
wrong. I am fortunate and have many multi-millionaire and
billionaire friends, clients, and acquaintances that are happy
as hell and living the life of their dreams and every one of
them would agree.

That’s what this book is about. It’s lessons I’ve learned The
Hard Way, so you don’t have to.

All I ask is this. If you get any value out of this book, plaster
that shit all over the internet.
 Chapter 1
Lose Your Patience.

Death is the best teacher. The problem is we can’t afford the

lesson unless you’re extremely lucky like I am.

I can almost guarantee that you were taught to believe that

“patience is a virtue.” Well, so was I, and so has pretty
much everyone else on this earth. It’s wisdom that’s been
passed down for generations. The problem with this
“wisdom” is it can be deadly, especially when it comes to
building your dreams and getting what you want out of life.
Now, don’t get me wrong. There are times when patience is
great advice. Like if you are getting to know someone and
feel like jumping in the sack with them, or when a girl says,
“wait here while I slip into something more comfortable.” By
all means, be patient…

But, when it comes to creating success and building the life

you want, do not be patient.

Patience is extremely dangerous when it comes to achieving

goals and getting what you want out of life. In fact, it’s not
only deadly to your goals and dreams, it can actually kill you
or somebody else.

When I was about two years old, I was extremely curious. I

would always want to investigate everything. I would
constantly be walking around getting into things and tearing
things up. I wish I could remember it for myself but I can’t
so I can only go on what I was told.
As the story goes, one day I was curious to see what was
underneath the kitchen sink. This wasn’t the first time I
wanted to investigate what was in there, but it was the first
time I successfully accomplished my mission without
parental supervision. As luck would have it, there were
cleaning supplies, dish soap, a few Brillo pads, and a bottle
of turpentine. I still wonder why anyone would have
turpentine underneath the kitchen sink or even what it was
used for, but it was there, and I was determined to see what
it was, and apparently what it tasted like. I was told several
times to stay out of there but didn’t listen. I remember
growing up getting spankings anytime I did something
wrong, so you would think I would have learned, but I didn’t.
Don’t feel bad, I wasn’t abused but when I got spanked it
was usually with a leather belt that my dad had on. He
would take it off, grab me by the hand and proceed to
blister my ass. I would try to evade by running and ended
up just going in a circle trying to cover my ass with my
hand. It never worked, not once. I had no choice but to take
the very painful consequences of not doing what I was told.
Perhaps this is what started my dislike of being told what to
do.

I digress… Anyway, I got under the sink when my parents

weren’t watching and drank the turpentine. I was quickly
found and rushed to the hospital.

When my parents ran in and started screaming for a doctor,

they were approached by a nurse who told my dad to calm
down. He was obviously a bit frantic and kept demanding to
see a doctor. The nurse insisted that my Dad be patient and
remain calm.

Thankfully, my dad wasn’t the type to follow directions

either. He refused to calm down and have patience and
decided to stop trying to convince the nurse I needed help
and walked directly towards the door to the E.R. He kicked
open the door and started yelling for a doctor or someone to
help. Upon hearing the commotion, a doctor came over to
see what this guy was yelling and screaming about and saw
a man, holding the lifeless body of a two-year-old.

Now, I’m sure the doctors were busy and so were the
nurses, but in that situation, was having patience the best
advice? I think not. It may have been an inconvenient time
and I’m sure there were other people that needed attention,
but at that particular moment, my dad wasn’t thinking that
patience is a virtue. Don’t wait for things to get dire before
you learn this lesson; lose your patience.

Again, it probably comes in handy in certain situations, but

when it comes to building real success, attaining your goals,
and getting what you want out of life, throw it out the
window! When you want something in life, you need to lose
patience. Go after it with every ounce of energy you’ve got,
as if your life depends on it.

I understand that things take time and you can’t run around
throwing a tantrum every time you don’t get your way, but
when it comes to building your dreams, reaching your goals,
and getting what you want out of life you need to
understand that patience has no place in the matter. It will
only cause you to rationalize why you don’t have what you
want and make it more acceptable. Don’t allow that to
happen. If you want more, and I’m assuming you do, do
more. The more you do the more you’ll get. Remember that.

Most people are taught to have patience. That “things take

time” and “good things come to those who wait.” Not
necessarily. Patience causes people to rationalize not having
the things they want and pulls them into “remaining calm.”
It is a built-in mechanism that we all have to seek comfort,
so we justify having patience so we can avoid the
discomfort caused by taking massive action. We use it as a
crutch to do less work, less planning, and spend less time
doing the things that are uncomfortable which are
necessary in getting what you want. Without focus and
attention things wither and die. With focus and attention
things grow and develop; this is a universal truth. The more
you focus on something, the more energy you put into it,
the more it grows. If you put extreme focus and attention on
something for long periods of time versus an occasional
glance, the difference is astronomical.

In order to build your dream life and acquire Real Success as

quickly as possible, you must understand that having
patience is not going to do anything but make you feel
better. Do you want to feel better or do you want to get
what you want?

Listen, having patience is not always a bad thing, but when

it comes to getting what you want it will never pay off. Trust
me. I used to have patience just like I was taught, and I had
no clue that it was inadvertently causing me to rationalize
doing less work than I should’ve been doing. It caused me to
justify not having the things I wanted by allowing me just a
little bit of comfort knowing that “things take time.”
Naturally, if I was doing less work than I was capable of and
spending less time focusing on my goals, the longer it would
take to reach them. It’s not rocket science yet so many
people miss this very simple fact that if you want more, do
more. Don’t complain or get frustrated because you don’t
have the life you want when you are basically choosing not
to have it. When it boils down to it it’s just a choice. People
spend their whole lives chasing after success and settling
for less than they want or deserve mainly because they
chose to. Isn’t that crazy? The whole time I was bitching and
moaning that I wasn’t rich and successful, but it never
occurred to me that I was choosing not to be.

You must unlearn that “patience is a virtue” and come to

the realization that everything is a choice. Instead of using
patience as a crutch to justify not having what you want,
make the choice to get what you want and put every ounce
of focus and energy towards it. If my dad would’ve chosen
to have patience, I wouldn’t be here today, and you
wouldn’t be reading this book.

After the doctor saw me, he told my dad that there was
nothing he could do. My dad went nuts and refused to
accept that. He grabbed the doctor by the throat and said,
“You need to try!” He refused to have patience and accept
the circumstances. He increased his level of intensity and
took massive action, regardless of what the experts were
telling him. He went against all of the advice from his past
and demanded that he gets what he wanted so he did. That
is my point. You need to lose your patience and choose to
get what you want. You must block out all of the noise and
advice telling you to have patience and that it’s okay “if
things take time.”

Both the nurse and the doctor thought I was gone and there
was nothing they could do. If not for my dad demanding
they try and losing his patience, I would have been a distant
memory. After I was revived, the doctor told my dad that if
he would have waited even 5 minutes that it would have
been too late. Upon entering the hospital, I was flatlined,
within a few minutes of my dad losing his patience and the
doctor doing whatever he did, the goal was acquired, and I
was back in action.

I literally had to die to learn this lesson; patience is not a

virtue. When it comes to becoming massively successful
and getting everything, you want out of life in the quickest
time possible patience will kill you.

Thank God my dad wasn’t a doctor, otherwise he would’ve

had “patients.” (Get it? ;))Having patience would’ve cost my
dad a son and I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. I
can’t imagine the pain of losing a child. Fortunately, my dad
didn’t have to either… but it was close.

Listen, nobody will blame you for getting upset in situations

where a life is at risk, especially when it’s your child, but
you should have the same urgency when it comes to
building your life and getting what you want.

You wouldn’t listen to anyone telling you to have patience if

your child was dying in your arms and you shouldn’t listen
to anyone telling you to have patience when your goals and
dreams are doing the same. You should lose your patience
and kick the door down. Choose to get what you want and
to raise the level of your intensity, focus, and attention
when you start to rationalize and justify why it’s “okay” to
calm down and do less than you should.

If everything I just said wasn’t enough to convince you that

patience is dangerous, here’s another example where it
almost caused another death.

A few years into my first marriage, yes, I said first, it almost

happened again. (There has been a total of two marriages,
by the way, not counting the Russian girl).

About four months after my first son was born, my wife-at-

the-time was carrying him to the car in what we found out
(The Hard Way) was a faulty baby holder/car seat. As she
was lifting him up to rest him on her knee so she could open
the car door, the handle broke causing him to slip out
backwards and fall to the pavement. He dropped about two
and half feet, directly on his head.

I wasn’t there, but she told me that he didn’t cry and there
wasn’t even a cut or a bump. I was like, “Yeah! I got a little
warrior for a son! He didn’t even cry. That’s my boy!” He
seemed fine, no bumps, no bruises, right? Not even a little
blood, so there was no reason to panic, but thankfully she
still rushed him to the hospital.

Upon arrival, she was told by the admitting staff that she
should have a seat and be patient. There was a 30-45-
minute wait. Thankfully, just like my dad did 23 years
earlier, she tossed patience to the side and told the person
at the desk that he landed on his head and that she urgently
needed to see an ER doctor. Again, she was told to have a
seat and to be patient. They pointed out there were several
others that had more serious injuries and they would get to
him as soon as they could.

Well, there it was again: that virtue they call “patience.” My

wife-at-the-time told the nurse to basically pound sand. She
marched past the desk, walked up to the E.R. doors and
kicked them open and started screaming for help. Sound
familiar?

Again, after hearing the commotion a doctor came to see

what was happening, heard the story and decided to order a
CT scan, or something like that, a brain scan. Within 10-15
minutes, my son was getting prepped for major surgery. His
brain was swelling on the inside and if they didn’t do
something immediately to stop it, he would die.

After eight hours of surgery, we were told that he was still

alive, but might not make it through the night. We were told
we would have to “wait and see.” We were told to hope and
pray that everything goes well, because it was very possible
that he wouldn’t make it. It was a long night.

Every 30 minutes or so we would ask how he was doing and

if we could see him. Now, can you guess what they told us?
To be patient! Not even 30 minutes earlier, the brain
surgeon had just explained to us that if we would have
waited even 5 minutes in the waiting room, let alone the 45
minutes the “experts” instructed her to wait, he would have
certainly died and we would have lost my son.

In case it’s not clear, patience is NOT a virtue, it’s a

weakness. It can cost you the things you love, and it will
most certainly cost you the things you want. Having
patience can cost lives and it can cost you your dreams. If
you want to succeed in life, become impatient and increase
your level of focus and intensity beyond anything you’ve
ever imagined. Doing this will cause you to do more and
take the necessary actions sooner to get what you’re after.
You need to amplify your actions, intentions and intensity,
not have patience. You should be very concerned that you
haven’t achieved your goals or acquired your target rather
than leaning on and justifying that things take time. You can
never get what you want faster than by focusing every
waking moment on the attainment of your goal.

By the way, if you look up the word patience, it says, “The

capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering
without getting upset.” Which is cool, in some cases, I guess
but when it comes to getting what you want, trust me, you
do not want to have or tolerate the capacity to accept delay.

Instead, do the opposite. Choose to become intense and

increase the level of your actions. Use every ounce of
energy you have and focus on getting what you want. That
is what will get you to the finish line the quickest. I wish I
had known this growing up. There were so many times
where I would think to myself, “have patience, things take
time. Relax, Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

You want to do more, talk more, ask for more, demand

more, sell more, love more, and have more. You want to put
all of your focus and energy towards building Real Success
and refuse to tolerate anything less. That’s the way to get
what you want out of life. You have to demand it and more
importantly, expect it.

That is the “secret” that everybody continues to look past.

You get what you tolerate. If you want something, tolerate
nothing less. Incidentally, if you do not want something,
then simply don’t tolerate it. You get what you tolerate.
Simple, right? If you list out everything in your life that you
do not like, then simply stop tolerating everything on the
list, it will either cause the things on your list to go away or
you will learn to find new appreciation for them. Either way,
it will work.

Patience is not a virtue. The faster you learn this, the better
off you’ll be. Sometimes it comes in handy, and sometimes
it doesn’t so how can it be a virtue? Look up the word
“virtue” and see for yourself. It means, “high moral
standards.”

In my experience, patience would have killed me and my

son. Fortunately, neither my dad nor my ex-wife believed in
having patience, so my son and I made a full recovery and
have grown up without any related issues, other than having
a smart mouth and a distaste for turpentine.

When it comes to your dreams and goals, do not have

patience unless you want to see them die. You need to be
impatient if you want to succeed. You cannot just sit around
being patient and waiting for things to happen.

I had a friend once who would always say, “How will

everything fall into my lap if I’m not sitting on my ass?” It
goes without saying, things don’t fall into your lap; you must
work and focus with intensity and urgency.

You need to get impatient and make things happen. You

need to lose your patience when you experience delay,
trouble, or suffering. You need to be impatient when things
aren’t going your way and there is delay getting what you
want.

This will save your life when it comes to creating real

success. Trust me, I’ve tried having patience before. I
worked my tail off for 10 straight years and the whole time, I
kept thinking, “Have patience, it will happen, things will get
better!” They didn’t.

At the end of 10 years, I had damn near the same thing I

had when I started. And then I decided to get mad and said,
“Forget being patient!”

Who in the world wants to be patient? The only thing

patience ever got me was pissed off. I got tired of waiting
and justifying why I didn’t have what I wanted. All I needed
to do was be patient, right? Wrong. I finally got tired of
being patient and I became impatient.

From the day I became impatient, it was less than a year

when I made my first million. All of sudden, once I became
impatient, things started happening. Why? Because instead
of tolerating it, I raised my level of intensity, focus and
actions... I got pissed, which caused me to push harder,
make more calls, ask for the money more often, close more
deals, and not accept anything other than exactly what I
wanted.

People will tell you to have patience. They will tell you that
good things come to those who wait. I will tell you that
those people don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground.

Good things come to those who make good things come. It

will not happen for people who sit around waiting for it to
happen, unless you’re extremely lucky like I am. To get what
you want in life, demand it. Expect it. Get fired-up when you
don’t see things happening fast enough. Get angry about
the fact that you aren’t where you want to be or haven’t
reached the goals you’ve set for yourself.

I don’t care how old you are. If you are a 23-year-old and
worth 5 million dollars, cool, it still applies. Of course, if
you’re 23 and worth $5 mil, you probably already agree and
use the same tactics.

Now, with that being said, obviously there are things that
take a certain amount of time. You should be aware of that,
but that doesn’t mean to be patient. It means what it says:
be aware that things take time. Then do whatever you need
to do to take time out of the equation! Move as quickly as
possible, take chances, push harder, and think bigger. Think
bigger. Do more. Get better and scale.

Don’t be patient, be intense and take focused action. People

tell you to be patient because they don’t know what else to
tell you. They don’t have the answers or know how to go out
and create the life they want with any urgency, so they
make themselves feel better by claiming that they’re being
patient. They’re not telling you to be patient because they
made millions of dollars being patient and they want the
same for you.
Both mine and my son’s life were saved by being impatient.
I have made millions of dollars by being impatient, and I am
telling you this because I do want the same for you.

Be impatient and go get what you want! If you don’t have

your dream life already, regardless of age raise your
intensity and get laser focused. We do not have much time;
life is over fast. Do not be patient. It can kill you, the people
you love, and most of all, it can kill your dreams.

The Bottom Line: patience doesn’t pay, it kills. If you don’t

want your dreams and goals to die, get impatient now. Do
more, get better, and keep doing more...then, do some
more again. Success doesn’t just happen if you wait around
being patient. Success isn’t something you find; it is
something you create. You have to go out and create
success. You can’t do that if you’re sitting around waiting
patiently. Replace that patience with intensity and take the
necessary actions to build the life of your dreams.

This brings me to another thing I learned The Hard Way. To

create success, you need to know what it looks like. More on
that in another chapter.
 Chapter 2
Tell the Truth.

Have you ever met someone that would lie even when the
truth sounded better? That was me. From the age of six or
seven, I lied about pretty much everything. In retrospect, I
think I did it to fit in and feel like I “belonged.” I didn’t
realize at the time but lying would end up teaching me one
of the most valuable lessons I have ever learned…no lie. I
was about six or seven years old at the time. We were living
on a hill in a small town called Cottage Grove, Oregon. 1793
E. Taylor, if I remember correctly, but that’s neither here nor
there. It was a small house situated between a bunch of nice
big houses. My dad was a millworker, so we didn’t have
much money. I remember that the neighbors were all rich,
or so I thought. Now that I know what rich actually is, they
weren’t but at the time and compared to us they were,
that’s for sure. Even though I was very young, I felt like we
didn’t belong in that neighborhood. I could feel the
disappointment and sneers coming from the parents of my
friends almost as if we were ruining their neighborhood.
Sometimes, I could even sense that they didn’t want their
kids playing with me either or so I thought. Maybe it was
intuition or maybe it was insecurity, but whatever it was it
was real. I could feel like we didn’t belong and that nobody
wanted us there. I don’t know if anyone else in my family
felt that way, but I did and that made me start telling lies in
order to fit in.
There was a doctor living across the street and the owner of
a grocery store chain living in the house to our right. They
had a swimming pool, which at the time was the coolest
thing ever. Some of the kids from the neighborhood and I
would sneak over and use it when nobody was home. We
were surrounded by all the “rich people” and their kids were
all my friends, so we would always be outside playing.

All of the other families were, what I call, “beaver cleaver”

families. The kind of family where the mom and dad were
always home whenever the kids were. They are the kind of
family that always ate dinner together, played together in
the yard, told their kids they loved them, took them to
school, and tucked them into bed at night. The kind of
family I always wished mine was. Moms who always made
the best snacks, baked cookies, and passed out kool-aids to
all of the neighborhood kids. You know, the perfect well-
mannered family with the perfect well-behaved kids. They
were all around us and I wanted to be one, badly. I could feel
the neighbors’ disapproval of a broke, blue-collar family
living on the same hilltop as them. I always thought they
looked down at us thinking, “Low income, low class.”

Our family was the opposite. My dad was never home, never
played with us, never told us he loved us, and never gave us
a hug or at least not that I can remember. He thought
children should be seen and not heard. In fact, when he and
my real mom got divorced, I was only two and my two older
brothers, my sister, and I got sent to a foster home to be
adopted out. That was my big chance to get into a “real
family,” but my grandmother told my dad to come and get
us, so he did. Let’s just say we were no “beaver cleaver”
family. Most times we were left alone while my dad and
stepmom were either working or out drinking so I had to
learn how to fend for myself. This is probably why I just
started making shit up. I started lying about everything.
Looking back, I think it was my way of trying to fit in. I was
trying to compensate for feeling ashamed of being poor and
not having a good family like all of my friends. I did it to
make myself feel better about my insecurities. I would lie
about things to make my friends think we were rich like
them. I did my best to fit in by making up stories and lying
about anything and everything.

I remember telling all of my friends that we were only

staying in that house until our mansion was finished being
built and that my dad actually owned Disneyland! I would
say anything to convince them that we belonged in their
neighborhood and that I was worthy of being a friend. I also
told them my dad owned a bunch of real estate and even
showed them the deed cards from our Monopoly game to
prove it.

I began lying about everything. Needless to say, they found

out and all of my lies and stories caught up to me. After
that, I don’t remember much. I spent most of my childhood
getting hated-on, laughed at, mocked, and avoided. It
wasn’t fun. It literally robbed me of my childhood. Years’
worth of opportunity and potential memories were all gone
because I was ashamed of the fact, we weren’t rich, and my
dad never gave me any hugs or told me he loved me. I
mistook our lack of money for a lack of class. I thought since
we didn’t have a nice house and nice cars that we weren’t
worth anything.

I thought since my dad never really paid much attention to

me or told me he loved me like all of the other dads that we
weren’t a good family. I remember doing everything I could
to get my friends to think we were a good family too. Even if
it meant lying! I just wanted to be accepted.
What I didn’t realize, until it was too late, was that it was
back-firing. I was doing the opposite. I was literally lying so
much that it caused all of the neighborhood kids, my
friends, to start to dislike me. They started to talk behind
my back and pretty much avoided me. Before I knew it, I
was blacklisted.

Nobody wanted to hang out anymore, play cops and

robbers, or even admit that I was a friend. Even the parents
knew and stopped letting me come over. So, instead of
having memories of a happy childhood with lots of love,
running around, playing with my friends, and doing things
like playing tag and having pinecone fights, I remember
being alienated. I remember being mocked, ridiculed and
avoided. I remember watching them all playing outside, but
when I tried to play with them, they wouldn’t let me. I was
the one they ran from and threw pinecones at to keep me
away. Every time I would get close to talking them into
being my friend again, I would get caught in another lie and
it would start all over. Ultimately, I was labeled a liar, and
nobody really liked me very much for quite a while. It wasn’t
until I moved to another city and got a fresh slate that I
started making friends again. I learned several valuable
lessons that have made a huge impact on me and they are
lessons I learned the hard way. I wish someone had
explained to me that lying was going to ruin my reputation
and cause me a lot of heartache and pain, but I probably
wouldn’t have listened anyway.

Let me tell you this now–tell the truth! Lying will only get
you in trouble and eventually cause you problems in the
end. Tell the truth. Telling lies and being fake always comes
back to bite you in the ass, and always at the most
inopportune times.
Another lesson I learned was to let shit go… but that is for
another chapter.

I want to make sure that from this day forward you

understand that lying although most people do it, is
something you need to stop doing. It will do miracles in your
life, but it is fairly difficult for people to do because we lie for
many reasons and it comes so naturally to us.

We lie to make ourselves feel better, to make others feel

better, to get what we want, to fit in, to avoid getting in
trouble, and so on. Have you ever lied? Of course, you have!
The question is how many times? We catch ourselves lying
to ourselves and others on so many occasions that
eventually, we start believing it. Worse, we tell so many lies
for so many years without being aware and it causes us to
dislike ourselves. When we dislike ourselves, we tend to
make choices and decisions that end up making our life
worse and not better. It is conditioning to our subconscious
that then makes sure we never get too far ahead as a
punishment for lying and cheating ourselves and others.
Think about it. How many times have you procrastinated?
That’s lying. Cheated on a diet? That’s lying. Lied to your
mom, your dad, your boss, your friends, the cops, yourself?

We need to stop lying if we want a chance in hell to build

the life we want. I lied to get others to like me, when it is far
more important that we like ourselves. When we don’t like
ourselves, we limit ourselves. We tend to make decisions
and choices that lead nowhere but frustration. The funny
thing is, most times we aren’t even AWARE OF IT. We
develop an ego and rationalize why we aren’t where we
want to be or have what we want to have, but in reality, we
just don’t like ourselves, so we limit our results and rewards.
We lead ourselves exactly where we think we belong, which
is nowhere special. I learned that I need to like myself.
Most people live in the past. They focus on the things that
have happened to them to try and navigate the present and
future. If we live in the past, we can’t enjoy the present or
look toward the future. Living in the past makes it almost
impossible to build real success because we aren’t putting
any focus on the now. If we can learn to live in the now, let
the past be the past and put more focus, energy, and
attention on creating success and building the good.

What’s interesting is I’m glad I learned it early. If I hadn’t

learned these things until I was older, I would have paid a
much bigger price than a few childhood memories.

Once I was labeled a liar, that was it, there was no taking it
back or changing it. You cannot take back lies. You can come
clean after you lied, but it will never be as good as telling
the truth in the first place. That is always true.

As I went through this and got older, I learned some other

things. I learned to be myself, no matter what. If someone
doesn’t like me when I am being me, then I shouldn’t be
around them anyway. There is no need to be sorry or sad
about it. People who naturally like you will draw closer and
those who do not will drift away. That’s perfect, don’t try to
stop it even if it hurts.

For years I would try to stop people from leaving my life

when that was exactly what was needed. Looking back
clearly, I wanted to cause myself pain and anguish. Maybe I
didn’t think I deserved better. Why did it take so long?
Because, for some reason, I had to learn the hard way.

Once we let the laws of nature takeover, we begin to see

how things are supposed to be. We want enemies to go
away, we want people who simply do not like our “flavor” or
belief system to vacate the area.
Ideally, we want our circle to be filled with people who
encourage, love, and believe in us, right? So, why do we try
so hard to keep people who bring us down around? Maybe
it’s because, deep down we don’t like ourselves, but that’s
another chapter.

For now, just trust me. You want to be authentically you

regardless of what other people think. Do not worry about
who likes you and who doesn’t. If someone doesn’t like you
(assuming you are a good person and do the right thing)
then allow them to leave your circle and focus on the people
that do like YOU, especially yourself!

I may have learned The Hard Way to be authentic, but I’m

glad I did. I believe that it is one of the most important
factors in finding real success.

I spent my early childhood trying to make people think I was

“good enough” and “cool enough,” only to look back and
see what a mistake that was. There are full-grown people
doing it today. I hope you are not one of them and if you
are, stop now. I had to deal with this mistake until my
parents decided to move to another town just to get a
chance to get a clean slate and start over.

Learn now to figure out who you are, what you believe, and
what you stand for. To be authentic, you must know who you
are and what you believe. Too many people don’t and end
up following what others believe and tell them to think,
rather than to find themselves and own what they find.

What if you don’t like what you find? Then change it. You
can change, I can change, we can all change if we want to.
Don’t beat yourself up about it, either. If there’s something
about you that you feel needs to be improved, change it and
make it so.
We can change anything we want. Don’t think limited and
don’t limit your beliefs. It’s not rocket science, even though
there are many who think it is.

If you learn to love who you are and remain authentic, the
right people will come into your life and they will stay.
Ironically the right ones will also get upset, offended, and
leave. Let them.

The thought of being “authentically you” is invigorating,

liberating, and quite often intoxicating. People may call you
arrogant, but they don’t know you. They don’t know how
giving and caring you are. They are just seeing in you the
shortcomings they see in themselves.

To be authentic simply means to trust that you are right. I

may not always make the right decision, but I will always
make one. People who fail to make decisions, fail.

If you want to begin to “be authentic” or are getting a little

fired up about acting a little more like YOU, simply then do
it. If you remain authentic, soon the laws of nature kick in
and the right people come, the right people go, and boom
you are in sync with the world and it stays that way.

Look, unless you know, like, and trust yourself, it’s very
difficult to get anyone else to. In this world, you will need to
have the skillset to get people to know, like and trust you,
point blank. Anyone who can’t will work for those who can,
so you’d better get on it if you haven’t already. This is why I
created Closer School, by the way (more on that later).

Whatever you may have been taught or currently believe, I

urge you to consider that what I said is true. If we find
ourselves and like what we find, we’re in pretty good shape
regardless of what people think.
I think half of the battle is to get to know ourselves, like
ourselves, and begin to improve as soon as possible, but it’s
never too late. Most people never will, but you’re not most
people, are you?

The Bottom Line: Lying never pays in the long run, it always
catches up to you. Instead, be authentically you. Tell the
truth and always do the right thing. You are “good enough”
already. You were uniquely created to be the way you are,
just make sure you’re focused on finding the real you and
staying true to yourself.

Don’t worry about lying to impress others. If you need to lie

or act a certain way just to be accepted, those are the
wrong people to be around. Being authentically you is the
most freeing feeling in the world. It’ll draw the right people
to you and repel the right people away, who shouldn’t have
been around you in the first place. Love yourself and respect
yourself and others will, too.

Be yourself and learn to accept your shortcomings,

personality flaws, and whatever else makes you, you. If YOU
don’t like the person you are, then change. Change what
you don’t like and keep what you do, but most importantly
be you or you will ultimately be building something that will
come down sooner or later.
 Chapter 3
Like Yourself.

One of the most important lessons we can ever learn is how

crucial it is to like ourselves and not fear the judgement of
others. It cost me a ton of time, embarrassment, and money
to learn this The Hard Way. I was always worried about what
other people thought. Was I cool? Was I good enough? Was I
worthy?

I spent many years struggling through life, lying, cheating,

stealing, and ultimately paying dearly for not learning this
sooner.

Deep down we all have a force inside of us that can either

guide us to the promised lands or deliver us to hell. It has
real power. That force has a voice. You hear it all of the time
when you think inside your head and reflect on things. All
throughout the day, if you listen, you will hear a voice inside
your head telling you what to do and what not to do. It will
tell you who to like and who not to like. It will literally talk all
day, every day. That voice is you. So, that means you have
the power to make all of your dreams come true or come
crashing down. Believe it or not, you have the power to
create or destroy your dreams. For years I caused myself a
ton of problems and didn’t even realize that I was doing it to
myself. Crazy, right? I figured out later in life that it was
because I had the wrong mindset and technically didn’t like
myself. I am not sure if you have ever felt the same way,
but I know many have.
Imagine if you had a friend that would constantly lie, cheat,
and steal from you. How long would it take you to kick that
friend to the curb and cut him/her off? What if that friend
was you? How many times have you lied to yourself? How
many times have you procrastinated doing something that
was important to get done? We lie, cheat, and steal from
ourselves constantly and it eventually builds up to
resentment. Yes, it is possible to resent yourself and that
resentment causes you to stay small. Why? Because, to say
it simply, you want yourself to fail. You don’t think you
deserve respect, trust, love, or money. How do we cut
ourselves off for being a terrible friend? We can’t, so instead
we just punish ourselves through self-sabotage. Any time
things are starting to go well, we do something to screw it
up. It’s that voice. It gives us limiting beliefs and causes us
to make bad choices. If you think about it, life boils down to
choices; the choices we make determine the roads we take.
The roads can be filled with fun and laughter, love and joy,
or they can be filled with bumps and bruises and pain and
suffering. The choice is ours.

We literally have the power to get whatever we want by

simply choosing to, yet we choose to struggle. Why? I
believe it’s because we don’t really like ourselves very much
after all of the years of self-abuse. The lies, the
procrastination, and the negative comments we hear from
ourselves and others. It erodes our self-worth and self-
confidence. We become convinced that we aren’t really
worth much. We learn to dislike ourselves and question our
ability to win. We become insecure and lose confidence in
ourselves and eventually it causes us to accept less than
what we want or are capable of because deep down we
want ourselves to suffer. It sounds a bit strange, but I
believe it to be true. Some people like themselves more
than others, which explains the different levels of success
and happiness. So, wouldn’t it make sense to become a
good friend to the person who can make all of your dreams
come true? Wouldn’t it make sense to be besties with the
person who can give you anything and everything you want
in life? Of course, it would, but how?

I call them the Sacred Six. The six things you need to do in
order to repair the relationship you have with yourself, after
all those years of letting yourself down and screwing
yourself over. I believe that relationships are the new
economy and they’re the new currency, but the absolute
most important relationship you will ever have is the one
you have with yourself.

As I said, most people procrastinate, lie to themselves, let

themselves down, eat the wrong foods, fail to work out, beat
themselves up, and let outside influences knock them down.

So, when you go through life letting yourself down, lying to

yourself, beating yourself up, and letting others knock you
down, you are actually programming your subconscious
mind to manifest limitations into your life.

Why? Because deep down you don’t feel like you deserve
any more than you’re getting. You don’t feel like you
deserve more money, better relationships, a nicer house, or
more love and respect. Not liking yourself causes you to
make poor choices and have low self-esteem and in most
cases, you’re not even aware you’re doing it; it is
subconscious. That literally means that it is below your
awareness.

Think about it. How scary is that? We could go our entire

lives and not even be aware that we are hurting ourselves
because we are hurting ourselves subconsciously. You don’t
have to be a rocket scientist to know that a problem is very
difficult to fix if you are unaware of the problem. This is why
I am telling you this and now you are conscious of it. Now
you are aware and conscious of a subconscious problem,
which means it can be fixed.

Lucky for you, me, and everyone else we can reprogram the
subconscious with the right information to cause it to work
in our favor. We can use it to help repair the relationship we
have with ourselves and rebuild our confidence and self-
worth.

The Bottom Line is this: YOU NEED TO LIKE YOURSELF and

not care about what other people think! You need to have
confidence and self-worth to get what you want in life. You
have to like yourself and believe that you deserve more
than you’re getting. The only reason you don’t have more is
because you don’t think you deserve more.

Here is how, this is The Sacred Six:

Step 1: Apologize and Forgive

Yourself

Just like any relationship you want to repair first you would
apologize for all the shit you pulled. So, go ahead, apologize
to yourself for all of the past transgressions, lies, and
dishonesty. Apologize for the many times you made a
promise to yourself but never kept it or the multiple times
you hurt your health by drinking and eating the shit we
know we shouldn’t drink or eat. It doesn’t have to be a long
drawn out apology, but it does have to be sincere, you must
genuinely be sorry. If you are hearing that voice tell you that
you’re not sorry about everything and this exercise is really
stupid, don’t worry, that’s because you haven’t forgiven
yourself yet. You need to know that regardless of what
you’ve done or what you currently believe, you deserve a
second chance as long as you are truly sorry and ready to
make a change. Then, you need to openly and honestly
forgive yourself. You need to forgive yourself for all of the
mistakes, misses, stupid things you’ve said, mean and
selfish things you’ve done, people you’ve hurt, and
whatever else it is. Remember that everyone deserves a
second chance, including you, so forgive yourself for any
and all past mistakes. This is the first thing you need to do.
Apologize for all of the ways you let yourself down and
screwed yourself over whether you knew it was bad for you
or not, and then completely forgive yourself. Give yourself a
perfectly clean slate. Now comes the second thing you need
to do.

Step 2: Commit

This one is so simple. You simply have to commit to do what

you say you’re going to do from this point forward. End of
story.

To commit means to pledge or bind; give in trust. It doesn’t

mean you go from “yes” to “no” when things get hard. It
means you follow through and you do what you say you’re
going to do 100% of the time, no exceptions.

If you truly think about the idea of always doing what you
say you will, you might feel a bit anxious or begin to doubt
your ability to actually follow through. That is just you
beginning to take some accountability for your actions and
sometimes it causes a little doubt or fear. Relax. You are the
only one that gets to determine what you commit to, so just
be careful what you agree to do. Once you realize that you
are the only person who can decide what you commit to,
you’ll start to feel a little more comfortable about it.
Regardless of how you feel you must commit to do
everything you say you will from this point forward, no
matter what.

This step will start to work miracles in your life and begin to
build a solid relationship with yourself. Following through on
everything you commit to will build so much self-esteem,
self-worth, and self-value you won’t believe it. Your mind
starts to realize, “Hey, this person is serious. He/she does
what he/she says every frickin’ time.”

Can you imagine how that’ll change the game for you? Can
you see how, by knowing that you are a person who follows
through and gets things done you become someone worth
loving and trusting?

By the way, the opposite is true, too. If you don’t do what

you say you’re going to do (that’s never happened before,
has it?), it’s going to chip away at your self-esteem, your
self-worth, and how you value yourself. It can easily cause a
downward spiral and worsen your relationship with yourself.

Make certain to do what you say you will. Don’t agree to

things so easily because everything you agree to is a
potential deal breaker. Too many people are too quick to
agree and say “yes” to things and then they let themselves
down, which causes more damage than anyone realizes.
Don’t let that be you. You have a choice of what you commit
to, so choose wisely and always keep your word.
Step 3: Rack Up Some Wins

The subconscious mind is a powerful thing. It can cause us

to think a certain way without us even being aware of it. It
operates 24 hours a day and seven days a week, it has
never missed a beat. It remembers everything that we ever
did and every word that we ever said or that was said to us.
It remembers every smell and sound that we’ve ever
encountered, as well as every picture or thought we’ve ever
had. It stores everything and it operates non-stop. The best
way to start programming your mind to be successful and
believe in yourself is to start winning. And the best way to
start winning is to set small goals that you achieve and win.
That’s a lot different than what we’re taught, right?

We’re taught to set big goals and “shoot for the moon” and
all that…the problem is the way our minds work, when we
come up short that we tell ourselves we’ve failed. Your mind
starts telling you that you’ve failed, you’ve lost and,
therefore, you don’t win.

How’s that going to help you build your self-value and self-
worth? It’s not. Look, your mind doesn’t know the difference
between a big win and a small win. It doesn’t know the
difference between $1 million and $1. To your mind, a win is
a win and a loss is a loss. That’s all it knows.

If you set a big goal for, say, $1 million, and you come in at
$900,000, that’s a loss. A miss is a miss and is recorded as a
miss in your mind. You form a new memory as someone who
misses and who loses. If you’re shooting at a target and you
miss by an inch or a mile, it’s a miss. A miss is a miss, so
save your bullets! If you’re going to take a shot, make sure
you hit your target.
Even though hitting $900,000 like mentioned above might
be great, your ego starts screwing up your subconscious. It
starts rationalizing, “Hey, you did pretty good. You got
close!” That can’t happen, that’s when it’s time to tell it to
shut the hell up because what’s really going on is, you’re
rationalizing your miss. You’ve lost, your subconscious
knows it, and it’s rationalizing failing so you don’t change.

If you want to counteract that, start racking up the wins. Set

five to ten small achievable goals every day that you know
you can accomplish. Walk an extra five minutes, eat half
your french fries, and get up just ten minutes earlier, this
way you will start racking up the wins. Set small goals and
then get them done. It doesn’t matter what they are or how
small they are, just make sure you set them, do them, and
start showing yourself that you can win.

If you’re working on your health and you’d normally wake up

and eat four breakfast burritos, eat three and half today.
Whatever it is, set little tiny goals and write them down and
do them. When you do, your mind is going to recognize
those as a win, and you’ll start seeing yourself as someone
who wins. You’ve spent years eroding your self-confidence,
this will begin to reverse that and actually start making you
more confident. You will begin to feel better about yourself
and find that you want to make bigger and bigger goals,
however, remember to rack up the wins. Anything you say
you’ll do; you must do in order for this to work.

Do you see how these first few sacred steps are starting to
come together? First, you need to forgive yourself for all the
times you’ve cheated yourself, screwed up, and let yourself
down. That gives you a clean slate. Then, you need to
commit to doing everything you say you will. This begins to
repair the relationship and demonstrates that you have the
power to control your actions. It proves to you that you are
worth more and you’ll start to get more, and not to mention
expect more.

This is not an overnight fix. You have to do this consistently,

every day for at least 60-90 days before you’ll start to feel
really good about it and feel a difference. The problem with
most people is they give up too soon and end up proving to
themselves that they are in fact, not worth it. Power through
it and do not give up and break your word to yourself. This is
vitally important. You can actually get more insecure and
damage your self-confidence by doing that. Imagine if that
“friend” that you gave a second chance to started pulling
the same old shit they promised not to do? You would kick
that dude to the curb faster than you did the first time and it
would be next to impossible to get back in your good
graces, so just make sure you don’t do that to yourself. Stick
to doing what you say you will, and you will start to feel a lot
more secure and confident about yourself almost magically.

You will know when it starts to work because you’ll start

sitting up a bit straighter, walking a bit taller and feeling like
you deserve a bit more (and you do). You start feeling like
you deserve a little more respect, a better body, a nicer
house, more success, better relationships, and so on. You’re
also teaching yourself that you keep your commitments and
that you achieve goals. You are showing yourself that you
are a winner. Get in the habit of winning and it remains a
habit. That is how you start to rebuild the confidence you
chipped away over the years and likely caused a lot of limits
in your life. Think abundantly because there is nothing but
abundance in this world and there are no limits. Once you
believe that, it will be true. Pretty darn good place to be, if
you ask me.
Step 4: Get Rid of the Idiots

Once you start feeling like you deserve a bit more, you’ll
start carrying yourself differently. You’ll also start hearing
people say things like, “Oh, you’re too cool to hang out with
us now?” “What, you think you’re too good for us or
something?” “You’ve changed!” “I think I liked the old you
better.”

Contrary to most people’s belief, this is a good thing. That’s

how you know it’s really working. It also reveals all of the
negative people that you need to get rid of in your life. Step
four is all about weeding out the negativity and filling your
mind with new, positive and encouraging information. I used
to have friends and family members that would always
doubt me. Whenever I said I would “get rich,” they would
just blow it off as wishful thinking. Not one of them ever said
an encouraging word to me, but the last time I talked to
them, they mentioned that they always knew I would make
it. My point is you can still talk to people you care about, but
you must mute out anything they say to you that is limiting
or negative. You do not want any weeds in your head. Think
of your mind as a garden. If you planted a garden full of
vegetables and allowed weeds to invade and choke out the
growing vegetables you wouldn’t produce any vegetables,
right? If you did, they wouldn’t be very big.

On the other hand, if you took the time to pull out all of the
weeds as they pop up, the vegetables would have nothing
competing for the nutrients they need to grow. When we
think about the past, we get depressed and when we think
about the future, we get anxiety. So, why not live in the
present? Anytime you encounter negativity, whether it be
on the news, on the radio, on the TV, or sitting next to you,
take mental note and eliminate the source. Trust me, you
will thank me later. When we allow drama and negativity
into our lives, our lives become dramatically negative. Do
not get trapped by a circle of people who want you to stay
the same. Change is imperative to grow and to grow you
must change. When we start to change, people close to us
might not like it and sadly those folks have to go (or get
muted).

It took me a long time to learn this because I genuinely liked

people and didn’t want anyone in my circle to leave, but as I
started to feel better about myself and began to do what I
said I was going to do, the more I noticed the shit talkers. I
was too busy wanting everyone to like me because I didn’t
like myself. I wouldn’t pick up on the negative vibes because
mine were negative. You could say I was unaware. I was
allowing people to make me doubt myself and put limiting
beliefs into my subconscious. This is why it is vitally
important to fully execute on this step. You have to
eliminate all of the friends and relatives that are negative
and stop listening to the headlines. When I say “eliminate”
what I mean is get rid of or mute out. I realize that there are
times when the negativity is coming from someone we love
or simply cannot disconnect with for whatever reason, but
those people need to be muted, at least. Preferably, if you
can, you should just stop all communication with anyone
who is constantly negative or putting you down. poison. It is
imperative that you get rid of all negativity and self-
doubting beliefs that have been put in your head. It doesn’t
matter who thinks you can’t do something as long as that
person isn’t you. If it is, you’d have a better chance of
playing for the Yankees than you would achieving your
goals.

The coolest thing about the fourth step is that the people
will identify themselves, so you don’t have to become
Sherlock Holmes. As you begin to notice the various people
who talk negatively to you, about you, and around you, take
mental notes and get rid of them as fast as you can without
causing drama.

Don’t be surprised if it’s your spouse either! A lot of times it

will be the closest people to us that are holding us back and
filling our heads with negative shit. If a spouse or loved one
identifies themselves as a source of negativity, you need to
choose. Which one will you sacrifice because, if you don’t
sacrifice for what you want, what you want becomes the
sacrifice.

You will also see some “acquaintances” show up on the

guest list and start commenting too. People may not always
be directly negative, but they aren’t positive or supportive
either, so to be safe, weed them out. If they aren’t
encouraging you and supporting you, then you need to
accept that and get rid of them. I would rather be alone
than around the wrong people. The wrong people will bring
you down and keep you small like them. Even if they’re
close to you or it’s hard, it doesn’t matter– the negative has
to go. This includes your own negative self-talk too. Catch
yourself when you have limiting thoughts and correct
yourself. As you begin to repair the relationship with
yourself the easier it will be.

If you truly want to succeed in life, you need to be

surrounded by people that love and encourage you; those
who believe in you and want you to win.

Even if you don’t agree with the people coming in or out of

your life, let it happen. Sometimes God (or the universe or
whatever you choose to call it) puts people in your life that
need to be there and takes people away that don’t. You may
not know why or understand, and you may not even agree,
but just let it happen. Just be authentic and trust the
process.

Anytime I was sad about breaking up with a girlfriend and

was feeling down about it, my dad would always say, “cheer
up, the 8:15 should be coming any minute!”

He said to me, “growing up, girls will come and go just like
buses. If you miss the 8 o’clock, relax, the 8:15 should be
here any minute.”

Here is what you need to takeaway;

You need to be free of all negative people and all negative

things. Start by identifying the negativity, the weak people,
and haters and block it all out. All of it.

Protect what you let into your mind. Always. Get rid of all
the negative stuff and stop justifying and rationalizing this
abuse! You might say, “Oh, but they’re important to me...I
can’t get rid of them.” You got to get rid of those people. If
they whine about it, then that’s on them. Besides, they
should realize that you’re improving and want to do it
themselves, not laugh at or fault you for trying. What they
do is not your responsibility. Other people’s opinions are
none of your business.

If you’re in an environment that screams negativity, you

need to figure out how to get out of it now. And if you can’t
get out of it now, figure out a plan to get out of it as soon as
possible while muting everything out in the meantime.

Keep all negativity out of your mind. Once you do this, you’ll
start to see that you have more room for more knowledge,
as well as focus and attention to put on more important
things.
Step 5: Map Out & Visualize

Your subconscious mind hears what you tell it to hear and

sees what you make it see. For example, if you’re constantly
thinking, “I’m tired of being broke,” your subconscious mind
will prove you right. It hears “I’m tired” and “broke” and it
works all day and night to make those things true. Now,
most people will tell you to visualize and say where you’re
going or where you will be. That’s wrong and it destroys
your subconscious mind’s ability to help you.

Think about it. If you say, “I am going to be rich,” what is

your subconscious hearing? It’s hearing “I’m going to be”
not “I am currently.” If you’re going to be something, that
means you are not that thing now. Stop this “I’m going to be
rich” or “I’m going to be in incredible shape” crap. People do
this all the time and it does so much damage to their paths
to success because it’s telling them, “you’re never going to
get there.” Stop it! And stop telling yourself that you are
broke and/or seeing yourself as broke.

It’s my belief that your subconscious mind is there to make

you correct. If you keep saying “I’m broke” or “I’m going to
be rich,” your subconscious mind will make sure that is true
and accurate.

What do you do instead? You visualize where you want to be

but visualize that you are already there.

The important part is that you get clarity. Do not use future
tense to describe what you want or where you are. Instead,
use present tense and act as if you are already in
possession and EXTREMELY grateful for it!

Gratitude is massively important, but we will cover that a

little bit later.

If it’s a relationship, visualize exactly what you want down

to the way it smells and try to feel what you think it would
feel like. Think about where you’re eating, what she or he is
wearing, where you live, when and where you travel, etc. All
of those things need to be crystal clear in your mind’s eye.
Think about the power of that versus complaining about all
of the shit you don’t have yet.

Whatever we focus on we get. It’s the way we’re built and

the way our minds work and how we filter information.
You’re always going to find what you’re looking for, so you
better darn well be looking for the right things. Start looking
for the things you want in your life and start visualizing your
life with those things in it.

Visualize who you are, where you live, how much money you
have, and what you’re doing. Everything! Make sure you
paint a clear picture where you see every detail and don’t
let anything get in your mind to pollute that.

Does this make sense? If not, go back and read it again

because I promise you, this is critical. You want to have a
crystal-clear picture of what your life will be like when you’re
where you want to end up and then you want to see
yourself, you want to picture yourself and visualize yourself
in that life today. See running your hand along the car you
drive, feel sitting down in the seat. Picture your garage
opening as you drive up to the house you own. If you have a
private jet, what does the interior look like? How many
screens are there, what’s stocked in the galley especially for
you, etc.?

Make it the present.

I’m telling you; this is one of the most powerful things you
can do to manifest real success. Some of the most
successful athletes visualize every play, every “at bat,”
every throw, every run, every shot, and every step.

The most elite military teams in the world do the same.

They visualize every aspect of their mission in “real time” in
their heads before they even leave the base. So do fighter
pilots. They “fly” their mission in their chairs before they
ever actually get in the plane. The richest, most successful
businesspeople I know have told me countless stories of
using daily visualization to attract what they want in life. It
works.

Let me ask you… Don’t you think if everyone at the top of

their game visualizes, that you should? I think so.

How long do I have to do it? I get that question a lot.

Do you know why the rain dance works? Because they keep
on dancing until it rains. Quit quitting (there’s that
commitment thing again) and start visualizing, keep seeing
yourself in the life you want until you get it.

When you make that commitment, God, the universe, or

whatever you want to call it, comes into play and makes shit
happen. But you have to do it and do it right.

Step one, forgive yourself and start clean. Step two, commit
100% to doing everything you say you’re going to do. Step
three, rack up the wins. Step four, get rid of the idiots and
the negative things holding you back. Step five, visualize
you as the person you want to become like you are that
person today.

Step 6: Seek New Information

Every day you need to be seeking new information.

Remember, we can’t delete old memories, we can only
replace that information with new information. Seeking new
information is how you shift your beliefs and change to
become the person you need to be to get where you want to
go. There is no shortage of information out there; your job is
to make sure you’re searching for it and taking it in each
and every day.

Let me ask you, what are you trying to accomplish? Are you
trying to be a millionaire, earn $1 million a year, fix a
relationship with a spouse, start a business? What is it? I
don’t know what it is for you right now, but I do know that
there is one reason and one reason only why you don’t have
it: You don’t have the information you need to make it
happen. That’s it.

I can also tell you that all of the right information you need
is already out there, you just have to seek it out. The one
thing we don’t have a shortage of today is information. That
means there’s no excuse.

Look, you want to keep doing all of the other things we’ve
talked about, but you also need to start feeding your mind
new information– the right information– so you can
reprogram it to become who you really want to be (that
person you’re visualizing you are every day).
If you want to make $1 million a year, you need to seek out
information on doing that every single day. Find people who
have done it and study what they’ve done. Learn how to
implement it and then go and do it. You can run around and
work hard all day, but if you aren’t seeking and getting the
right information, it’s all going to be a waste.

You should always seek specific information for what you’re

trying to accomplish. Hopefully that’s obvious now. But
don’t limit yourself. Everyone you meet every day knows
something you don’t. You can learn from anyone and
anything. Figure out who they are and what they’re doing
and take in that information.

When you seek new information each day, you broaden your
perspective on everything. You become more grateful for
the little things, you start to see how you can help and
contribute to others, and you start to become that person
you see yourself as in the future.

It all starts with broadening what you see and how you
understand the world. The more you learn the better you’re
able to adapt to what comes your way and be ready ahead
of time. Think of seeking out new information every day as
building up a reserve of knowledge and perspective that you
can call on at a moment’s notice.

It’s about being proactive and not waiting for information

and knowledge to come to you. It’s about seeking it out and
broadening your understanding of life and the world in
general. You’ll be amazed at what all you can discover when
you commit to seeking new information.

The Bottom Line: If you want to change what you’re getting,

change what you’re doing and the only way to do that is to
change your beliefs. We do the things we do and act the
way we act because of what we believe to be true, whether
it is or not. So, to change it, we need to get new
information.

Think about the last time you changed your mind. Why did
you do that? It was because you got new information that
changed your previous beliefs. That is what we want to do,
but we want to do it every day. You should be an avid reader
and seeker of knowledge. We only change our minds when
we get new information, so seek it out on a daily basis. More
on this in the next chapter.
 Chapter 4
Change Your Perspective.

I want you to understand one thing; the ability to shift your

perspective is insanely valuable. As I grew up, I was always
told that I wouldn’t amount to anything. It wasn’t always
blatant or rude, or succinctly put, but it was understood that
I was never going to amount to much. When I spoke about
being rich and having everything perfect, I was corrected on
how life really works. According to everyone around me, life
was hard. They tried to get me to believe it too. It wasn’t on
purpose but more of a lack of parenting skills. I had nobody
to teach me the lessons that would have made my life much
easier. For the first 30 years or so I probably believed that to
be true however, with a little bit of time I realized that it was
just a belief that I picked up from my family and those I
hung out with. Thankfully, I realized it wasn’t true. What I
eventually discovered was that it was ultimately just a
perspective. Our perspective is the way we see things. You
can be in a certain situation that seems insurmountable and
decide to give up, or you can be in the exact same situation
and see it as a welcomed challenge. That is perspective.
The good news is that we can shift our perspective and
when we do, we can turn a problem into an opportunity.

Fortunately, you can change your perspective about

anything, which means you can achieve just about anything
too.
People seem to complicate it too much. Stack a lot of wins
and soon enough you’ll be winning, right?

The problem for most people is their perspective. Most

people do not see things the way they need to in order to
win in life. It is too easy to blame others and complain.
Doing that is far easier than doing the work and building
what you want out of life, right? Wrong.

Believe it or not, it is actually easier to get what you want

because all you need to do is change your perspective and
doing so is not very hard…

Well, I take that back, it used to be hard until I figured out

how to do it.

Imagine if I gave you a million dollars cash out of the blue.

You’d be all pumped up, right? You’d think of all the
problems you could solve or all the things you could do for
yourself and your loved ones. You would feel enthusiastic
and nobody could rain on your parade, at least for a little
while. Overall, it would be an incredible feeling of relief and
enthusiasm, correct? Well, what if I said, “I’ll give you a
million dollars, but you can’t wake up tomorrow?”

Unless there’s something wrong with you, you’d say, “No

way! I’d rather wake up tomorrow than get a million
dollars.” Well, then that means waking up is worth more
than a million dollars to you. And I would agree, but most
people don’t wake up with that perspective. The point is, it’s
all about perspective, and so is life.

Too many people walk around thinking life is so hard. Well

that’s just their perspective - that life is hard - and when you
think like that, it will be hard. But, if you change your
perspective just a little bit, you’ll have an advantage over
everyone else and you’ll change your life for the better.
The perspective that people develop over the years tends to
stick with them. It becomes their “view” and it ultimately
determines whether or not someone wins or loses. The
point? You better develop a perspective of gratitude. A
positive outlook on life and every challenge that comes your
way. Otherwise, you can get trapped in a life where
everything is miserable, and nothing seems to work out for
you.

This starts early for us, too. Here’s a great illustration:

Picture two kids, one rich, and one poor. They are both put
in separate rooms filled with shit. After a while, you notice
the rich kid is pissed, sitting in the corner pouting, yet the
poor kid is as happy as could be. Two kids in the exact same
situation, but one is happy, and one is not. If you were to
ask the rich kid, “Why are you upset?” he’d reply, “You
locked me in a room full of shit, what do you expect?” On
the flip side, if you asked the poor kid, “Why are you so
happy?” he’d tell you, “With all this shit, there must be a
pony in here somewhere!” What’s the difference?
Perspective. Pure and simple.

The perspective we have determines our experience and

ultimately our beliefs. It determines how happy we are, or
how happy we aren’t. Lucky for you (and me), we can
choose our perspective.

Do you believe you’re in a room full of shit or that there has

to be a pony nearby? Same situation but a different
perspective and two very different outcomes.

Change your perspective and you’ll begin to be happy in

situations that normally frustrate the hell out of most
people. Have gratitude and be thankful for the fact that you
even woke up and got to live another day! Why are you so
easy to get excited over a million dollars, but not be that
excited simply for waking up in the morning? You already
agree that it’s worth more to wake up, so put things into
perspective! Wake up every morning excited to start your
day regardless of what it might bring or things that you
have to deal with. You can either wake up and dread the fact
that you have to take care of things or you can wake up and
be excited that you get to take care of things. Let’s say you
have car payments and rent due, plus your car is running
very well. If I were to tell you that this was your last day on
earth, you would beg to have those problems. You would see
things differently. Instead of dreading the car payment and
rent, you would feel lucky to have the opportunity to be late
on rent or get your car fixed. When you put things in the
right perspective, everything becomes easier, and almost
seems like an opportunity. You will literally get excited when
things happen that would make most people upset or
depressed.

Everyone will tell you you’re crazy and will never

understand how you can find joy in bad situations, but that’s
because they don’t understand how easy it is to do the
same.

A small shift in your perspective will cause you to have a

much easier time building a life where you find REAL
SUCCESS.

If perspective is so critical, it would make sense to start your

day off with it, wouldn’t it? I developed a technique that
puts everything into perspective quickly when you start
your morning with it. I call it the “Million Dollar Morning”
because waking up is worth a heck of a lot more than a
million dollars.
The Million Dollar Morning starts by waking up with
immense gratitude. The kind of gratitude you would feel if
someone handed you a million dollars with no strings
attached. Just cool, hard cash that you could do whatever
you want with.

Think of the excitement, the enthusiasm, the relief, and the

joy you’d feel if someone handed you a million dollars. You’d
be pumped! And if you don’t think you would be, increase it
to $10 million or $100 million. It works for everyone at some
point.

So, how come every morning when we wake up and open

our eyes, knowing we just got a gift more valuable than a
million dollars, we don’t feel that same enthusiasm and
excitement? We can agree that waking up is far more
valuable than getting a million dollars, but we don’t act like
it. Why? Because most of us take life for granted and we
develop the wrong perspective. We wake up cranky and
complaining. We wake up dreading the day in some cases
and fret about all of the things that may not be going as well
as we would like. We lose appreciation for simply waking up.
We have to change our perspective and realize, “Boom! I
get another day! How awesome is that?” It wasn’t always
easy for me to remember that. I would wake up many
mornings with a negative attitude and to put plainly, the
wrong perspective, so to help remind me of how lucky I was
to get the gift of life each morning I put a sign on my wall
that I had to look at as soon as I opened my eyes that said,
“Congratulations!!! You get another day, bitch!” As I awoke,
for a split second I would start to think negatively about
being broke and having a million things to deal with and
then the second I saw that sign, I remembered how lucky I
was to have the opportunity to live. If you have the same
problem, make yourself a sign to remind you. Whatever it
takes because it is vitally important for you to realize how
lucky you are to have another day and to be extremely
grateful for it.

How would it feel if every morning you woke up you felt

excited and fired up to go to work, pay the bills, deal with
problems, take the kids to school and handle brain damage?
How would it feel to appreciate and look forward to the
challenges and troubles in your life?

When you awake with real gratitude, it sets up your day

perfectly. Be truly grateful that you get another day and it
will automatically adjust your perspective and instantly
things that used to cause stress become opportunities and
you will approach them differently. Every morning you wake
up, simply realizing that you just received a gift worth more
than a million dollars should do the trick.

When you wake up grateful, life instantly gets better. Your

attitude gets better, your energy level increases, your
perspective shifts, and you start to see opportunities
everywhere.

It works. Having that immense gratitude shifts your

perspective and puts it in the right place which is vital to
living your dream life.

Since I came up with the Million Dollar Morning, I’ve

continued to add to it and develop it to stay focused on the
things that are important to me.

Here is my morning routine. I wake up with extreme

gratitude and the right perspective and then focus on four
things before I do anything else; my health, my
relationships, my money, and my mind.

These are the main pillars of creating real success and

should be focused on first, before anything else each and
every morning.

Do this consistently for three to six months and I guarantee

you it will change your life. You’ll be more fit, you’ll have
more friends, you’ll have more money and you will be
smarter than you’ve ever been.

Health - 30 minutes minimum.

So, upon waking up, focus on your health. That means get
your body moving and your blood pumping. Regardless of
what situation you’re in you can always run in place or do
some push-ups. The key is to spend time each morning
focusing on your health. The reason I start with health is
because I realize how important it is to have it.

Health is the most important of the four. If you ever got sick
or lost your health, you would easily give up all of your
money to have your health back, correct? I mean, you can’t
very well be happy, rich and successful if you aren’t here or
feel like hell.

As part of the million-dollar morning, spend at least 30

minutes doing something to get your heart rate going and
get your blood pumping. Do a little cardio, hit the gym,
whatever it is, do it. Then eat something healthy. It’s that
simple. I hear all of the reasons that people can’t do that. “I
can’t afford a gym membership.” “I don’t have time.” “I
have a back issue.” “I’m going to start tomorrow.”

Stop it. If you want true success, I can guarantee you that
your health is going to be required to make it all worthwhile.
If you can’t afford a gym membership, get up and do air
squats and push-ups. Run in place, do jumping jacks and
move the weight of your body up and down. Stop making it
harder and more complicated than it is. Stop making
excuses as to why you can’t do it or putting it off. Make the
decision to get it done before you do anything else. If you
have no time, get your ass out of bed earlier by an hour or
two. Did you know that if you wake up two hours earlier
every day that you would get an extra month in your year?
True. While most people only get 12 months out of the year,
simply by getting started two hours earlier than normal you
will gain an entire month during the year.

Take care of your health first. Then focus on building

relationships.

Relationships - Five people a day

I believe relationships are the new currency. They’re the new

economy. The more you have the better off you are. I always
say, the more hands you shake the more money you make.
So, as you know when you put energy and focus on
something, it grows. When you ignore something it withers
away, so every morning I want you to identify at least five
people you want to build a relationship with and send them
a text, email, letter, or video saying something positive and
nice. It doesn’t matter what it is. Every day you send out
five positive communications to people and you will see
those relationships grow stronger. That’s a fact.

Tell them anything positive and let them know you care. Tell
them you love them, miss them, appreciate them, whatever
sends the message. What you focus on grows and what you
ignore dies. Focus on building relationships and they will
grow. Ignore relationships and they will die.

Each morning your task is to identify five people you can

text or email throughout the day and you’ll see your new
economy grow and your relationship capital payoff big time.

Money - Five things that drive

revenue

When I talk about adding “money” to your Million Dollar

Morning, I’m talking about the things that drive revenue.

Too many people never want to focus on money. We have

been taught it’s bad, it causes problems and it cannot buy
happiness. Nobody ever wants to talk about it. When we do,
we get ridiculed or told that “money isn’t everything.” Trust
me, I have been broke and I’ve been rich...rich is better. You
want to focus on your money. It is not a bad thing. If money
makes you an asshole, you were an asshole before you had
money. Money only magnifies who you are. Stop
rationalizing why you don’t have any or believing people
when they say it’s not important. It is extremely important
and will prove to be extremely valuable to you when it
comes to building your dream life. So, why not focus on it
every morning? After you focus on your health and you put
some attention into building your relationships, focus at
least 15 minutes on identifying at least five things that will
drive revenue THAT DAY. Write down five things you need to
do before you go to bed that will drive revenue. Maybe it’s
“I’ve got to contact five people today,” or, “I’ve got to
prospect five new clients before bed,” or “I have five
presentations I need to do today.” Write down five things
that will drive revenue and don’t go to bed until you’ve done
them.

Like relationships, what you focus on grows. If you focus on

revenue, revenue grows; your money grows. A lot of people
don’t focus on making money because they’ve been
brainwashed into thinking it’s the root of all evil or it makes
you a bad person somehow. That is simply not true. Money
is a good thing! In order to reach our full potential, we must
have access to things. Things like travel, culture, books,
mentors, health clubs, equipment, etc. and to get access,
we need money. Money will allow you to have more choices
and options and trust me, that is a good thing. Get your
head right about money and get started focusing on what
drives revenue now.

Mind - 15 minutes a day of new

information

I believe our mind is more powerful than our body. After all,
our mind controls our body and it can be developed, just like
working out develops the body. How do you develop it? You
enter new data and new information every single day. You
learn and discover.

Imagine your mind is like a computer where you need to

enter new data to make it smarter and faster. You need to
seek and enter new information constantly. So, after you’re
done focusing on your health, relationships and money,
focus on developing your mind. Spend at least 15 minutes a
day reading a book, taking a course, studying the
dictionary, heck, even reading the shampoo bottle.
Whatever it is, just do something on purpose and
intentionally seek new information.

What kind of information should you seek? Well, it depends

on what you want to change or improve. You can focus the
information on whatever topic or interest you have
regarding the things you want to change. Just make sure
you seek out new information every single morning so you
“feed your computer” consistently. That’s the lesson. That’s
the bottom line.

That’s all there is to it, that’s your Million Dollar Morning. If

you apply this for a consistent period of time, you’ll wake up
a millionaire, and that is guaranteed.

The Bottom Line: wake up every day with immense

gratitude that you are alive. Realize you received a gift
worth more than million dollars, get excited, and focus on
four key areas.

Focus on your health, your relationships, your money, and

your mind. Do this, even if you have to train yourself to do
it, and soon it will become a habit and you will start to look
at things a little bit differently.

This is a lesson I had to learn The Hard Way. I didn’t fully

understand this principle until I was about 40-years-old. If I
would have applied this earlier, my life would have been far
better and a lot more fun!

I’ve heard it said, and I believe it by the way, that 94% of

what you worry about will never happen. If that’s true, why
are we always worried about what might happen? We let
worry consume us and, more importantly, distract and
prevent us from living in the now and making choices that
lead to success and happiness.

If you live in the now, it’s a much better place than the past
and the future. Here’s what I mean: nobody wants to die,
but are you actually dying right now? No! There are people
sitting at home right now worried about dying. They are
absolutely terrified, and they let it drive their thoughts,
moves, and what they ultimately do.

People do the same thing financially too. They worry and

say, “I’m not going to be able to make my car payment.”
Well, do you have your car now? Do you have your payment
now? Almost always the answer is “Yes.” If so, what in the
world are you worried about? If the answer is no, how does
it make sense to worry? You should be out looking for ways
to get the money to pay it. If you focused on solutions
rather than worry, you would find the solutions. The problem
is most people worry and that’s what they focus on. What
you focus on grows. Focus on solutions and you will soon
realize there’s nothing to worry about.

Fear and stress affect your health, your thoughts, and your
whole life. Stop worrying about what’s in the past and quit
fearing the future. Begin focusing on living in the now.
“Now” is where all of the opportunities are, it’s where
happiness is, and it’s the time you can control and choose
what you want out of it.

The problem is, most people don’t live in the now. They live
in the past or in the future where they’re stressing over
what happened or fearing what might happen. The past is
gone, and the future isn’t here yet. There is only right now.
In fact, as soon as you say “now,” it is technically in the
past. That means that living in the “now” is hard to do, but if
you fully understand the concept of it, your awareness alone
will start to help you do it.

If you can live in the now, all of your problems go away.

Think about it. What are you worried about? What was
giving you stress and anxiety when you woke up this
morning? It all goes away if you leave the past, leave the
future, and live in the now.

You cannot change the past. That is a fact. If you cannot

change it, what the heck are you thinking about it for? It’s
over! You really can’t change the future because it hasn’t
happened yet. The thoughts, choices and actions you take
will determine your future, so if you want a better future,
then make better choices, take action and focus on the
things that will make tomorrow as good as it could be.
“Tomorrow” is just an idea, it’s just a thought, it’s not a
place today. It is a blank canvas that you get to paint in any
manner you want. Unless you don’t believe that, then you
have issues. Trust me when I tell you this...the choices you
make determine the road you’ll take. Literally, you have the
power to become anything you want, and it’s all based on
the thoughts, choices and actions you take today, in the
now.

Right now, is the only time and it’s where you need to live.

Look at it this way: imagine you know that you have to

report to prison for a year in 30 days. You have 30 days to
get your affairs in order and then report to the prison to do
your time. What do you think most people are going to do?
They’re going to sit there and worry about going to prison
instead of realizing they’re free today. Who knows what will
happen between now and then? They could be worried
about the future, but how will it help? The only thing that
could help is to focus on the now. Enjoy being free today,
get prepared to better handle the time. Save money, make
arrangements, and spend time with loved ones.
Theoretically, you could even die on the way to turn yourself
in. The point is STOP WORRYING about shit. I always ask
myself, “What’s the worst that could happen?” Nine times
out of ten I get the same answer; nothing. Most times the
worst thing that can happen is nothing.

The point is most people tend to think in the past or the

future. Everybody does it, but if you want to really win and
you want to really succeed and be happy, you have to figure
out how to live in the now and do it with gratitude.

Personally, I have spent so much time worrying throughout

my life. I’ve been upset about this person or that person,
sad about this relationship or that relationship, wrecked
about losing this or losing that, complaining about this or
that, scared of this and that, and here’s the crazy thing…
most of that stuff never happens. That’s the way worry
works, right? It feels real when we’re thinking about it. It
feels certain to happen. In reality though, it almost never
does.

All of that worry, fear, anger, complaining, stress, and

bitterness about the past and what could come in the future
caused me to miss so many opportunities in the now!
Worrying doesn’t pay, it costs you. There is so much
freedom that comes when you live in the now.

Work in the Now

While living in the now can free you in your life, the power
really comes in when you start working in the now.

I talk to people all the time who tell me, “Brad, I’m so busy”
and “Brad, I can’t get anything done. I have so much to do.”
I hear it frequently from clients, employees, neighbors,
family, and people at the store.

When I hear people say they’re too busy, I always tell them
to write down everything they have to do. I have them write
a big ol’ list and see that they are indeed swamped.

I’ll start going through the list with them and asking, “OK,
let’s look at this one. What do you have to do on this?” They
always say, “I gotta get that done. I’m waiting for so and so
to get back to me.” “Fair enough,” I say, “But isn’t that three
days from now?” So, you’re busy waiting? This goes on for a
few rounds as we go down the line and you know what we
find?

They are “busy” waiting on something or someone half of

the time. They are simply worrying about the things they
will eventually have to do, not focusing on the now. Focus
on what you need to do right now, and you will only have
one thing to do; the most important one. If you just focus on
the now, you will only have one thing to do at a time and
you will do it better than ever before because you are 100%
focused on it. Nothing from the past or the future would
distract you or take any attention away from your focus.
Sounds badass doesn’t it?

Take a lesson from this and look at your list of everything

you have to do. What on that list do you really have to do
right now? Cross off anything else. If there’s anything left,
that is your “to do” list. That’s where your effort and focus
need to go and what you should be spending your time on.
Stop worrying about anything else.

Imagine all the time you’d have to work and be productive if

you didn’t spend that time worrying about things in the past
or things in the future. It’s insane.

“But Brad, I have a deadline.” Believe it or not, I’ve heard

that a time or two. If you’re worried about a deadline, you’re
worried about the future. Quit worrying about it and go do
whatever you need to do in the now. I would bet that you
won’t miss your deadline.

Look, I believe in preparation. 100%. If there are things in

the future that you need to work towards, that’s great. But
do so by having a plan and breaking down the actions so
you know what you need to be doing (and not be doing)
right now.

If you’re preparing for a big pitch in three weeks, you don’t

need to deliver the pitch now. Maybe you need to do a step
of that now. If that’s the case, then do it. But don’t worry
about the future yet, just worry about the now and what you
should be working on immediately.

When you string together enough “now’s” towards a future

goal, you put yourself in a position to nail that goal. And
what does that do? It gives you a win, and it gives you
confidence. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

Keep this really simple: just worry about right now. If you
boil everything down to “right now,” everything becomes
easy to deal with and crystal clear.

Clarity comes from asking, “What do I need to do NOW?” If

you don’t need to worry about something now, then don’t.
Use that energy to focus on the things you need to do now!
The Bottom Line: live and work in the now. You can’t change
the past because it’s gone, and the future isn’t here yet.
Sure, you have hundreds (maybe thousands) of things that
you “have to do,” but get rid of anything that doesn’t need
done now.

Worry, stress, fear, etc. cause nothing but pain and wasted
time. You’re happiest now, and you’re most productive now,
so why would you want to live somewhere else? You
wouldn’t! Embrace the now, because that’s where
everything happens.
 Chapter 5
Gauge Yourself.

Creating real success requires constant adjustments.

Throughout life you will have times where you get lost and
distracted. This will only cause delay and cost you
unnecessary frustration. I spent many years trying to figure
out why life wasn’t going the way I wanted it to, or why I
wasn’t getting what I thought I deserved. After 40+ years, I
started to see a pattern. Everything that ever caused issues
or held me back from achieving real success boiled down to
five main areas. Once I realized this, I created my “Life
Gauges” and it has worked wonders in my life.

Anytime you feel like you are not getting what you want,
zero in on five key areas and I can almost guarantee you will
find your issue and resolve it. All of the issues that keep us
from creating massive success can be traced back to these
five areas.

Take a piece of paper and write down five words.

MINDSET

MAP

MOTIONS

MEASUREMENTS
MONEY

Draw a box around each one. From now on, look at those
boxes as your life gauges.

Each box will be the reason you win or lose in life. You must
keep an eye on all of the gauges. I strongly encourage you
to focus on each and every box until you are where you
want to be and then continue to revisit them over and over
anytime there is trouble or you can’t seem to figure out why
you’re not getting everything you want or deserve.

Your mindset, your map, your motions, your measurements,

and your money. I refer to them as my Life Gauges.

The first box, MINDSET, is the most important one because

it will either stop you from winning or be the main reason
you do. Why? Because if your mindset is messed up it will
cause many other issues in the other areas and make life in
general much more difficult. Your mindset is basically what
you believe to be true and it heavily impacts your choices
and decisions. What are your beliefs? Do you think in
abundance or scarcity? Do you think positively or
negatively? Do you have certainty or doubt? Most people’s
problems stem from having a poor mindset. This is why it’s
the first box. You need to read on a daily basis and learn
new things to feed the mind and hopefully change your
beliefs. If you are doing the million-dollar mornings, then
you will seek new information every day before you even
leave the house. Trust me, it will pay off big time and quickly
become a habit that causes you to accelerate the time it
takes to do this The Hard Way. Over time, you tend to learn
things that cause you to change your mind and stop the
behaviors and habits that were holding you back. It’s called
experience. What if you were able to accelerate the time it
takes to gain experience? You can read! Devour anything
you can get your hands on and become an avid reader. I
never used to read books or try to learn new things and it
cost me dearly.

You will find that most of the problems can be traced back to
the mindset box.

Are you not making as much money as you want to? Why?
Perhaps it’s because you don’t know how. Perhaps it’s
because you don’t think you deserve it, because deep down
you don’t like yourself. Either way, the way to fix it is to get
your mindset right and whenever you hit a bump or find
yourself stalled, be sure to see if it is a mindset issue and
seek information about that subject. Soon you will find that
you have made a slight adjustment and you’ll be on your
way.

Now, since your mindset is made up of your opinions,

beliefs, and perspectives it is quite possible to change them,
but in order to do that you need new information. New
information will cause new beliefs. For example, at some
point in your life you probably couldn’t imagine getting paid
what you do today yet as you slowly started to see and
believe it was possible, you did. This happens both ways. If
you don’t think things are possible, they aren’t. Do you
believe that you can earn over a hundred million per year?
No? Then, $100 million a year is not real to you, and if that’s
the case, I can almost promise that you will never make it.
Have you ever heard the saying, “life is hard?” I cannot tell
you how many times I have heard someone say that. “Life is
hard! Get over it.” “Life is hard! You better get used to it.”
So, we are now expecting it to be hard and what do you
know? It happens, life seems hard. But that’s not real.
What’s real is that life is not hard. Life is easy. Your body
automatically takes care of most of it. Your natural survival
instinct causes you to do whatever you need to do in order
to stay alive. So, technically, life is pretty damn easy. You
are programmed to survive. Who keeps saying it’s hard? I’ll
bet whoever said that first had a hard life. Coincidence? I
think not.

What’s the point? You can’t rely on what you’ve been taught
in the past to be true. You must seek out new information on
a regular basis so you can start to find yourself and form
new beliefs.

The next box is your map. Your map is necessary to get

where you’re going. If you were going to travel across the
country and wanted to reach your destination as quickly as
possible, would you want a map with very little on it or as
complete and detailed as it could be? Obviously the more
detailed and clear the map is the faster and smoother your
journey will be. The same goes for life. The main problem I
had in the past is I didn’t really know what success looked
like, thus making it harder to create. I had a blurry map at
best, but never really understood the value of getting a
better map. Fortunately, I found my way, but not before
learning this. In order to get what you want you must first
know what it is. If you ask the average person what success
looks like to them, they will likely look up and try to think
about it. Most people have never taken the time to really
consider exactly what they want out of life and determine
what “success” looks like to them, which is why most people
never create it. Instead, they drift through life hoping that
one day, “they’ll catch a break” or end up happy.

You have to know what it looks like! That’s your map. Your
map is basically what success looks like to you. Where do
you want to be and how fast do you want to get there?
If you had to find somebody in a crowded room and you had
no idea what they looked like, how hard would it be to find
them? Wouldn’t it be much easier if we were to find out
exactly what they looked like, what they were wearing and
anything else we could learn before starting to look? Exactly.
So, this is your map. You need to put some time in and really
determine exactly where you want to go. Think about what
kind of house you want and exactly what’s in it. What kind
of cars would you like? Describe your perfect relationship.
Are you fit or fat? How much money do you have?

The more detailed the map, the better the chances of

arriving, not to mention how long it takes to get there. If you
don’t know exactly what you want, figure it out and write it
down. The more specific the better. I don’t care if you want
a private jet, but you better know everything about it. The
color of the seats, the carpet, and everything!

Once you have your map, the next box comes into play.

The motion box is essentially what you’re going to do every

day to get what’s on your map. It is so easy to get what you
want if you know what it is because then you can determine
what motions, or actions are necessary to move you
towards them. Your “motion” box is your daily habits. What
are you doing every day? How do you spend your time?
What are your habits? If we can form the right habits, we
can go anywhere we want to go. Habits are formed by
repeating the same actions many times and can be broken
by simply stopping the actions. If habits can be formed
and/or broken at will, and our habits will move us either
closer to our goals or farther away, then that means we
have the power to use them to our advantage. It is mind
blowing how many people go through life and have no clue
that their habits are what’s causing them to fail. I wish
someone had explained this to me at a very young age. I
would have formed habits to get me everything I ever
wanted. All someone has to do to get anything they want is
determine what it is and then form the habits required to
get there. Pretty simple, right?

If a certain level of fitness is on your map and you eat a

donut, is that moving you towards the destination on your
map or away from it? See how easy it is to see when you’re
doing it this way? If you have a specific amount of money
that you want to have in the bank on your map, and you
decide to spend money on something non-essential, would
that be moving you towards your destination or away? Trust
me, once you get these done you will start to see that life is
a series of choices and the best choice makers are the ones
who win, plain and simple. Your habits are a choice. Choose
to form habits that move you towards your destination on a
daily basis and break all of the habits that move you away.
It’s not rocket science, unless you make it that way. The
motions you take will either help or hinder you, so master
your motions and form habits. If you don’t know what habits
to form just use the Million Dollar Morning to start and you
will be amazed at how fast, you’ll be able to figure the rest
out.

The next box is measurements. This one is crucial too. The

measurement box is basically your optics. It’s what tells you
if your habits are working and to what degree. You need to
inspect what you expect, so you can make minor tweaks
and adjustments along the way. It will also tell you how to
accelerate or decelerate the progress and when to do so.

You measure the stats on whether or not the motions you’re

taking are effective. If they aren’t, change them. If they are,
repeat them. If you want to go faster, do more of it and if
you want to go slower, do less. Again, pretty simple if you
think about it. The biggest problem is people rarely measure
what’s working and what’s not. They don’t monitor their
day-to-day motions (actions) or even plan them. They just
keep getting up day after day hoping they will eventually
arrive at some nice place. That is what I did for the longest
time. Once I discovered the Five M’s I was on a fast track
and had perfect clarity due to the measurements I put in
place. It helped me realize where my time, money, and
energy were being wasted. As soon as you see what you are
doing every day and you are keeping track of it, you will
start to get a clear picture of the things you need to start
doing, keep doing or stop doing and then it’s just a matter
of making a choice. If for some reason you find yourself
doing stuff that moves you away from your map destination
and you continue to do it, go back to the mindset box. What
is causing you to hurt yourself? What is causing you to do
things that you KNOW will hurt you? I can guarantee you
that it’s a mindset issue. Now, with the Five M’s, you will
know exactly where to look and what to do to fix it.

The last M is for money. The question you want to ask

yourself for this box is where does it go? I could have put
this in the measurement box, but since money is so
important, I decided to give it its own box so I could focus
on it more. The more you focus on something, the more it
grows, so considering I want my money to grow and to grow
as fast as possible, I figured I had better make it a main
priority. This box is pretty simple. Where is your money
going? If the average person tracks where their money
goes, they will see if it is being wasted or not. In most cases,
it is. I was a notorious waster, I made money, but blew
every bit of it trying to foolishly impress people. In fact, if I
had all of the money back that I spent trying to impress
people, it would be impressive. All of the bottle services, the
fancy dinners, and expensive cars were a complete waste.
They didn’t get me anything but less money. I assumed
people would like me more or think I’m cool, but what I
didn’t realize was that the only person that needs to like you
is you. If I had liked myself, I wouldn’t have felt compelled to
blow a bunch of money in an attempt to be liked. It never
worked and ultimately made me dislike myself even more. If
I had learned this lesson sooner, I would have invested the
money into cashflow real estate or at least assets that
generate a return. I counted one day and figured I’d have an
extra ten million if I hadn’t showed off and blown the money
I’ve blown.

To avoid these mistakes, simply track where you spend your

money and see where it goes. All money that gets wasted,
redirects into investments that generate returns. It took me
roughly 40 years to become a millionaire and I can
confidently say that if I would have done the money box
from the age of 18, I would be worth more than 100 times
what I am. It is that important.

I wish I could go into detail on where and how to invest your

money, but that is a book of its own. I’ll just say this, invest
your money into things that you can rent out for more than
it costs to own and maintain. There are many places to put
your money that will pay you far more than the bank. The
key is to get rid of all your extra money by investing it. If
you keep it in savings, you will always find a reason to use it
and it will likely go away. If you get rid of it and it returns
with more money, soon you’ll have a full-time job getting rid
of your money. Believe it or not, that is a good thing. I
always say, if you want to get rich, stay broke. That just
means to take aloof your extra money and invest it into
things that produce an ROI.

The last thing I will say about the money box is to always
pay close attention to where your money goes. The better
you are at directing it towards the right things, the less time
it will take you to get where you’re going.
 Chapter 6
Win! Win!

I was about seven or eight when I started to discover what

money was. I didn’t know much about it, but I knew one
thing: I wanted some.

I didn’t see much of it, but I’d seen it around here and there,
so I decided to ask my dad how to make some. He said, “You
have to work for it.” That’s pretty much all he ever told me
about money and finances, the rest I had to learn myself,
The Hard Way.

After my dad told me that I had to work for money to get

money, I asked if he had any work I could do. He told me
“No,” but he did give me permission to knock on some
doors in the neighborhood and see if there was any work I
could do for some spare change. Off I went.

I quickly got to the bottom of the hill where, as I remember

it, there was a white house with a large yard and all kinds of
weeds popping up. It was an absolute jungle and I knew I
could help get it under control. My grandpa was always
gardening, and he had taught me many times how to pull
weeds from the root with one twist of a finger, so I felt
particularly qualified for the task.

Anyway, I go up to this guy’s door and start knocking. He

answers the door and I ask him if he has any yard work, I
could do to earn a little pocket change. He replied, “Sure, I’ll
give you a quarter for every weed you pull out of my front
yard. How about that?” He then warned that some had
thorns as he handed me some old gloves and a five-gallon
bucket. I took the bucket and the gloves and headed out
towards the yard. Looking back, I think he must have
assumed that since all the weeds had thorns and thistles, I
would pull a handful and collect a few bucks and be on my
way.

Thanks to my previous experience and specialized

knowledge bestowed on me by my Grandpa, I knew how to
get them out without getting stuck by the thorns. So, off I
went to earn a few bucks. After about an hour or so I had a
bucket full. I went and dumped it out by his door so we
could count them and headed back out for another bucket.
Well, after a few more trips he decided to come out and see
how I was doing. Upon opening his door, he saw a huge pile
of weeds and me walking towards him with another full
bucket. He said, “how ya doing?” I said, “fine.” He said, “It
looks like you got them all!” I said, “Nope, just getting
started.” As he glanced over at the pile I already had going,
his face changed a little bit. He went from happy go lucky to
a bit more concerned. He said, “Hold up there little man and
let’s take a look at the pile you have over here.” I said,
“OK.”

After what seemed like an hour, he finally counted over 800

weeds laying in that pile. I had over 800 weeds lying in a
pile with roots and all and I still had a full bucket.

He clearly didn’t like what he was seeing and quickly

became a bit short and rude. Almost as if he was pissed. He
went from totally cool and pleased that I was riding his yard
of thistles, to a complete dick inside of five minutes. What
the hell happened? He went inside the house and told me to
wait. After a few minutes he came out with money and paid
me what he owed me as he took the bucket out of my hand
and snatched back the gloves. He said, “You’re done. I can
handle the rest.” Then, he walked back into his house and
slammed the door closed. I didn’t understand why I got
fired. I did an outstanding job and worked hard. Why was I
not promoted? Why didn’t he beg me to stay and keep
going? I couldn’t figure it out until I was much older and
reflected back on that situation.

I believe that guy just wanted to help a little kid make some
side money for the weekend and didn’t anticipate this young
“whippersnapper” costing him $250 bucks. Ultimately, it
pissed him off and ruined the relationship.

I didn’t really understand it at the time, but it makes perfect

sense now. He fired me because employing me caused him
pain.

If employing you, or doing business with you, causes

someone pain, you’ll eventually lose their business. If any
relationship, business or otherwise, is not mutually
beneficial to both parties and is considered to be a “win-
win,” then it won’t last. Always make sure you make win-win
deals. Knowing this is a huge advantage and will save you
tons of time rebuilding relationships, finding new deals and
always having to start over or rebuild. Unless both parties
win in a transaction, then it is only a matter of time before it
ends. So, be smart and only make deals that benefit both
parties. It doesn’t matter what it is, a business, relationship,
partnership, always looks to have everyone’s best interest
at heart.

Obviously, there will be times where you need to be a little

more firm in your position, but if it isn’t a win-win, it simply
won’t last, so why do it in the first place? If you always
create win-win situations, you’ll have a much easier time
making deals and keeping them, and that’s what it’s all
about. Anything else is just killing time and wasting brain
cells.

Fast forward to now, I’ve built an eight-figure business on

the back of this lesson. That’s your proof this is true.
Hopefully, someone reading this in 2120 will be affected as
deeply as I have from learning this lesson The Hard Way:
bad deals don’t last, point blank. Period. Creating a good
deal for all parties involved is key to longevity, and it’s more
fun. If you believe that, then making any other kind of deal
is foolish. So, why do we do it? Why do we approach things
sometimes with the old “WIIFM” (What’s in it for me)
attitude? I think it’s because we have been taught to “get
what we can get when we can get it.”

I used to think that way. I always thought that unless I was

getting the best end of the deal, I was losing. I used to try
and get it all. If I left any money on the table I would be
pissed. All I cared about was making money for myself and
what I was going to do with it all. I didn’t care one iota about
anyone or anything else except myself. I just wanted to get
money, become rich and live the rest of my life like a boss!

If you can stay focused on those core beliefs, you can’t go

wrong. That foundation gives you the ability to build long
and build strong. If I could do it all over again knowing this, I
would have been three times more successful (at least) and
in a third of the time.

Win-win scenarios are the ideal arrangements because they

last, and they can be considered REAL. It boils down to two
kinds of people, and which kind you want to be. People that
value money over relationships and people who value
relationships over money. I suggest you be the latter.
If you value money over relationships, you will soon have
neither. I wish I had learned this earlier. It is one of those
things that you eventually learn over time, but only after
you lose deals and relationships because you valued the
money more than you valued the relationship. If you can
manage to always factor the relationship first, the money
seems to get more abundant. Why? Because people will end
up buying more from you or giving more to you than they
would have if the relationship ended, so why let it end?

Focus on and nurture the relationship and let the money

handle itself. Trust me, it will. Value relationships over
money and you will always have both. Enough said.

The Bottom Line: Whatever you do in life needs to be a win

for everyone involved. Business or personal, deal or
relationship, all parties should come out ahead. If they
don’t, it won’t last. Leave everyone better off than you
found them.
 Chapter 7
Learn to Sell, Close, Influence,
and Persuade.

I can tell you this... learn how to sell. Learn how to close,
persuade, and influence people. Make it a top priority. If
there is one thing that I would say has contributed to my
success more than anything else it has been my ability to
sell, close, and persuade people. I can sell just about
anyone on anything and it has been the single most
valuable skill I have ever acquired. When you have the
ability to get people to do what you want them to do you
can do just about anything. I think I have always had an
innate sense that has allowed me to quickly figure out how
to sell. When I was seven years old, I had to sell candy bars
for my school. They would send us all home with a box of
“The World’s Finest Chocolates” and tell us to sell them to
our friends and family. Some kids would go outside their
circle of friends and families to try and sell more than the
next kid, but most would just sell a box or two to their
families and call it a day...not me...

I sold my family members as much as I could, then got them

to take the order forms to work and ask all of their friends to
buy them too. While I was waiting for those orders to come
in, I decided to go door-to-door. After about four or five
houses I realized that it was going to take a lot of work to
sell them one-by-one. Some houses would buy one or two
and some would buy five, but none were buying the whole
box. So, I decided to try a sales pitch at the tender age of
seven. I think it was then that I realized that humor and
being unique were critical to getting people to buy from you.
You don’t have to be extremely smart to be a good
salesperson, but you do need to be likeable. Likeability is
the number one reason people buy from people, so when
you add humor to get them laughing and come up with a
creative way to make your presentation you increase your
odds dramatically. Therefore, as I walked to the next house
and thought about what I could say, I just came up with it. I
knocked on the door and asked, “Do you know the phone
number of a good roof repairman?” While I hid the box of
candy bars behind my back, they would look confused by
the question and ask, “What do you mean?” I would then
bring out the candy bar and say, “Because when you taste
one of these you’re going to go through the roof!”

As the person at the door started laughing, I would bring the

whole box from behind my back and hold the single candy
bar in the left hand and the entire box in the right hand and
extend them towards the customer as if they were already
theirs and BOOM. Box after box after box, people were
buying them up. I couldn’t believe it; I was killing the game
and it was only the first day. I had people buying several
boxes at a time and ended up selling more candy bars than
any other kid in school. In fact, they gave me all of the
unsold candy bars that the other kids couldn’t sell and had
me go sell them. I sold every single one of them. For the
first time in history the school sold every single candy bar it
was shipped. Normally, the school would just ship back all of
the unsold candy bars at the end of the promotion but not
this time, they didn’t have any to ship back. I sold every last
one of them. I didn’t necessarily realize that I was good at
sales and that it would be instrumental in making me rich,
but I did realize that people seemed to respond well to
humor and creativity.
If you have plans or desires to become successful or at least
you want to live a life with more positive experiences than
negative ones, learn to sell. Most people fail to realize they
are in sales regardless of what they do in life so you might
as well get good at it. We’ve been selling since the day we
were born. The way we communicated and sold people
changed and developed over the years, but you were selling
and closing people, nonetheless. The difference between a
good salesperson and a bad one is the bad ones don’t know
they’re doing it. Why not intentionally develop the skill if it
is that instrumental in life? That would be like going hunting
without a gun or going to war without a weapon, are you
nuts? Get a gun. Preferably, the biggest and baddest gun
you can get! Trust me, there will be many situations that
occur in your life where your ability to sell will make the
difference between winning or losing. Theoretically it could
make the difference between living or dying too; just
because you’re alive doesn’t mean you’re living. Think
about that. Are you really living? Do you want to? Then
wake up and realize that life is about relationships and
relationships are sold. To get good at anything you must do
it over and over again as it will be the difference between
winning or losing. Have you decided to win yet? If you have,
then learn to sell. You can use this skill set to get laid or get
paid and you can use it to avoid getting your ass kicked or
to get out of sticky situations. As I look back on life and try
to identify what truly made the biggest difference, the
ability to sell, close, and persuade people has stood out the
most. Too many people make the assumption that sales
mean you have to be pushy and/or a “slick talker” when
that is not the case. It blows my mind how anyone could
NOT be in sales. Even if I held down a steady job for the
security and comfort knowing that I could pay rent, I would
also find a part-time gig where I could sell something and
make commissions. There are people who are afraid of sales
because it is commission based. They can’t swallow the risk
of not getting paid when it is merely a possibility, which
really means they don’t have any confidence in their ability
to sell. Why? Selling is purely presenting solutions. Why
would anyone have a problem presenting solutions?

Many years later I was about 17 and decided to get a “real

job.” I didn’t even think of getting a sales job because I was
from a blue-collar family who taught me that hard work was
the way to make money. If you wanted to make money you
had to get a good job and work your ass off 10 hours a day. I
didn’t know any better. I was taught a “good job” was one
that required work boots and gloves. You would get up early,
pack a lunch, and come home late. If you weren’t dead tired
it meant you weren’t working hard enough. The only way
you could get a “real job,” was to get one that paid you an
hourly wage. Minimum wage at the time was $3.35 an hour,
so when I landed a job for $22 an hour you can imagine how
excited I was.

I had no idea that sales were even an option. It was foreign

to me and my family because everyone had a blue-collar
job, and nobody had ever been paid commission before so
the only way we knew to make money was an hourly wage
job. So, I got one.

I applied with the forest service because they needed

people to help with forest fires and work in the mountains. I
grew up in Oregon, so forest fires were something that
happened every year plus my grandpa was a logger and my
dad worked at the lumber mill. I figured it was a slam-dunk.
I would get a job fighting forest fires and look like a stud to
all my friends and family. How much better could it be? I
was getting a “real job” that paid $22 an hour and I would
look like an instant badass because I was going to fight
raging fires up in the mountains. It checked all of the boxes;
got up early, come home late, dirty, and tired. I was “in like
Flynn.”

I was told to meet them in a parking lot at 4:00 AM to ride a

bus up to the worksite. I was there about fifteen minutes
early wearing full long john’s, Levi’s, a flannel shirt, and
steel-toed work boots. I looked like I was ready to fight some
fires and put in a hard day’s work up in the mountains. I was
also tired as hell because it was 4:00 AM which meant I had
to get up at 3:00 AM to get there on time. This should have
been my first sign...

After a two-hour ride, we arrived at a worksite way up in the

mountains. The trees were burnt, and the air was thick with
ash and smoke. I got off the bus and assumed I would get a
flame suit or something and then be shown to the raging
fires. I was new, clean, and clearly not aware of what was
happening. All of the other dudes were older, dirty, and
obviously experienced. We got off the bus and everyone
scattered. A guy walked up to me and told me to follow him.
We walked over to a tent and he told me to grab something
that looked like a big backpack with a hose and a nozzle
sticking out of it and put it on my back. I picked it up and it
was heavy as a mofo. It had to be at least 50-60 lbs. I asked
what it was, and he said it was called a piss bag. It was a
rubber backpack filled with 8-10 gallons of water and it was
used to squirt on shit that was still smoldering from being
on fire. Here I thought I was hired to fight forest fires, look
cool and be a hero, but it turned out I was hired to be a
lowly “pissbag operator.” That should have been my second
sign...

A pissbag operator was the lowest job on the totem pole. My

job was to walk up and down the mountainside looking for
stumps and shit that was still burning with embers. There
were no fires around, just blackened burnt out tree stumps,
a little smoke, and an occasional smoldering ember or two.
The air was thick with smoke and I could feel it in my eyes,
ears, nose, and throat. I had arrived in hell. The guy told me
to get moving and pointed up the mountainside, which
looked to be at least a mile, straight up. I didn’t really say
anything about the heavy-ass bag of water he had me put
on my back because I didn’t want to get fired. I just asked,
“What happens if I run out of water?” He said, “You will, and
it will be about ten times a day. You just come back down
and fill it up.” This should have been my third sign...

Well, what did I know? I was just a kid who decided to get a
“real job” and make some money, so I started making my
way up the mountain to look for something to squirt water
on. Stumps, bushes, anything on fire or glowing red with
embers. I guess they were worried that the embers would
cause more fires, so they wanted them all snuffed out and
hired me to do it. After about 20-30 minutes, I was only 50
feet up the mountain and the pissbag was empty, so I
started back down the mountain to get more water. It was
treacherous. Trust me, I got poked in the eye, scratched,
twisted my ankle, and couldn’t breathe very well. It was
miserable. I was hot as hell, I couldn’t see very well from my
eyes watering from the smoke, it was the worst. I finally got
through the day and ended up back on the bus headed back
down to town. I was dirty, hungry, thirsty, tired, and sore. It
was everything I was ever told a “good job” should be. I had
arrived. It was the longest day of my life.

I got up at 4:00 AM every day and did that for the entire
week and then as luck would have it, I got a little patch of
poison oak on my arm. If you know what that is, you know
you don’t want it especially up in the mountains where you
are hot and sweaty and have no way to deal with it. It is
itchy and miserable and when you scratch it puss seeps out
and causes it to spread. After about ten minutes into the
day, I decided to tell my supervisor that I had poison oak so
I might need a few days off to deal with it so it wouldn’t
spread. He started laughing and pulled off his shirt to
expose his entire body covered in poison oak. He said, “It’s
part of the job! Now get back to work.” That was it. I stood
there looking dumb founded. I couldn’t believe that this was
the only way to make money and have a “real job.” I
thought for a minute and blurted out, “I’m not doing it.” He
said, “What? What did you say?” I said, “I quit. I’m not doing
it.” He said, “You know how many people want your job right
now? I suggest you shut the fuck up and get back to work.
You should feel lucky to have this job!”

Now, I am pretty lucky, but I’m not stupid. There was no way
in hell I was going to work with poison oak, so I just told the
dude to give the job to somebody else.

Everyone I knew was disappointed in me for quitting. My

dad told me that I was crazy to quit a job like that. He said
most men didn’t make that kind of money, let alone a kid
and that I would regret quitting for the rest of my life. He
said, not only did I quit the best job I was ever going to get,
the whole town would know that I was a quitter. *Limited
thinking* and what’s worse is he was trying to get me to
buy into it.

Within a week or so, the poison oak healed up and I was

ready and determined to get another job, so I did what
everyone else did and opened up the newspaper. As I
opened it up to the ads section, I noticed an ad that said,
“SALESMAN WANTED.” They were looking for a car
salesman and after the beating I just took; I was happy to
give it a try. I went in for an interview and they were all
dressed in suits. There were brand new cars all over the
place and everything was clean. I always liked dressing nice
and I thought, why not. After getting the job, they told me to
pick out a car. “What?!” I asked. The guy said, “Go pick out
a car to drive and bring me the stock number.” I said, “What
do you mean?” He then explained to me that as part of the
job I get a brand-new car to drive. I couldn’t believe it. I just
went from being expected to work with poison oak to
wearing a suit and getting a free car to drive. It was
unbelievable. I knew right then and there that sales were
better than “hard work.”

Hard work is not the answer. It doesn’t pay, and the harder
the work (physically), the less likely it is you’re going to get
rich. That’s a fact.

To be clear, I’m not talking about getting a labor job,

working your way up and buying the company. That is
always a possibility, but it’s not likely...

Likewise, I’m not saying that you don’t have to put in the
work, just that it’s not smart to go the hard work route.
You’re much better working smart than you are hard.

This is the stuff you need to unlearn. Hard work doesn’t pay.
Getting a “real job” has nothing to do with the amount of
physical labor and pain attributed to it. If you want to be
successful, hard work isn’t the answer, smart work is.

After I quit, I immediately started thinking two things; first,

everybody working there was dirty with big, scraggly
beards, all roughed up, and I was just a young kid. There
were grown men working there who had been there for
years doing the same job. The second thing I started
thinking was that in no way was hard work the answer. That
is what you need to take away.

Think about the people you know. Look around next time
you go out and see for yourself that hard work is not the
answer. In fact, the people that work the hardest believe it
or not are usually the lowest paid!

Don’t be fooled by statements of, “You gotta work hard.”

Sure, you have to do the work, but working hard is not
necessary if you know how to work smart and stop believing
that “hard work” requires exhaustion and blisters. When it
comes to being successful in life, you don’t have to have
body aches and pain. Working smart should get you
energized and enthusiastic when you put in the work.

Can you see the difference? When you’re working smart,

you’re putting in the work, no doubt. But it’s not back-
breaking work, it’s not pain, and it’s not exhaustion. Stop
listening to the “hard work” myth that everyone’s going to
try and teach you.

It took me a long time to learn that hard work is NOT

required, nor is it desired. If you think about it and you
check it out yourself those who work the hardest are the
brokest. The ones who are paying them are making the
most money and they are not doing the work. That is
considered working smart.

Look, if you get a job you should always do your best and
give 110% effort. But hard work? Hard work is not required.
Smart work is required.

After I told a few people I was going to sell cars, they said I
was crazy because it was “straight commission” and I
wouldn’t make any money. Even after they saw my new car,
my FREE new car they said I was stupid and should get a
“real job” or “not to call them when I was broke.” It was
crazy.

Needless to say, I kicked ass. I got to wear a suit, smell good

and stay clean. There was no smoke, pokes in the eye, or
carrying around 50-60lb bags of water up and down a
mountainside. It was like heaven compared to what I just
experienced, and I never looked back. My first month I made
$6,000 and the rest is history. Thank God I didn’t listen to
my friends or family or I might still be working for an hourly
wage and believing that hard work was the only way to
make money. We are told that “hard work” is required to
succeed, but it’s a lie.

By the way, this was the first “real job” I had in sales. It led
me to learning the skill and mastering the game. I have
made millions with it and you need to learn it too. The worst
thing was getting ridiculed for being a salesman and being
told I wouldn’t make any money, but I learned to stop
listening to other people’s opinions every time I cashed a
check. I would talk about how listening to other people and
worrying about their opinions will cost you a fortune.

We are all in sales whether you know it or not. From the day
we are born we are selling. We sell someone on giving us
food, giving us love, and changing our diapers. We continue
to sell every single day of our lives. We sell our kids on
cleaning their room, we sell our spouses on where to eat or
what to do. It is all sales. Life is sales. Too many people think
they are not in sales when we all are. The difference
between a good salesperson and a bad one is the bad one
doesn’t know they’re doing it. If people would realize that
they are in sales, then they would get better at it and get
more out of life. I am especially amused by the people that
say they hate salespeople or that they could never be in
sales, because they already are, they just don’t know
they’re doing it. This makes their skill level bad and them
unaware of the true value of embracing and mastering the
game.
Sales mastery has brought me millions and forged a lot of
great relationships, both in and out of business. Teaching
people how to sell was why I started my software company
that makes millions per year and is also why I started Closer
School. (www.closerschool.com &
www.closerschoollive.com) Anyone can learn to master the
art of sales and anyone who does will be in a much better
position to succeed in life. Having the ability to sell, close,
and persuade people is the ultimate skill if you truly want to
succeed. I had to learn it The Hard Way but learned it,
nonetheless. You could take everything I have away from
me, and I could get it all back simply by having the ability to
sell, close, and persuade people. Too many people will go
through life thinking they can’t do it or that they “don’t have
what it takes” when it’s just a matter of learning the steps
and techniques. Mastery is possible for anyone who actually
wants to learn it. There are many people who teach sales,
including me but not very many realize how powerful the
skill is and go through life making little to no money
because they don’t take the time to master it. Go to
CLOSERSCHOOL.com and start there but trust me, you need
to start. You need to learn how to sell, close, and persuade.

The Bottom Line is this...if you want to get everything you

want out of life you are going to need other people. There is
no such thing as a self-made millionaire. Every single
successful person on earth has sold somebody on
something. Dealing with other people is absolutely
necessary in acquiring your dream life so why not learn how
to get people to do what you want, go where you want,
think what you want, and say what you want? Every
successful person sells somebody on something to be
successful so why not get extremely good at it? Every
successful business makes sales and every successful
marriage does too. No matter what you are doing in life,
sales is a part of it, so why not accept it and become
extremely good at it? There are too many people living life
completely unaware that they are in sales and it causes
them to suck at it. If you suck at sales it is only because you
don’t know you’re doing it. The skill will prove to be your
most valuable as well.

Note: Anyone can master the art of sales. I would

recommend that you begin regardless of age, race, or
gender. The sooner you get skilled at sales the sooner you
will be able to sell, close, and persuade people on anything
and everything you want whether you are “in sales” or not.

Nowadays, you also need to establish a personal brand and

master marketing by using social media. Without social
media and a personal brand, you are fighting an uphill
battle. The concept of building a personal brand is foreign to
many people. It was to me at first but once you figure out
how easy it is you only regret not doing it sooner. If you are
already aware of how valuable a personal brand is when it
comes to driving leads, relationships, and ultimately more
revenue, then I have a chapter dedicated to this subject.

Selling is something you are going to do on a daily basis

regardless if you are getting paid for it or not, so why not
become very good at it and use it to ALSO make more
money? I wish I would have known this when the social
media platforms started showing up. Hell, I wasn’t even
smart enough to pick up on it in the beginning even after
seeing what was going on. I spent too much time thinking it
was “lame” or a waste of time. Until I really saw the power
of it, I never gave it a second thought. I got all of my
information from the news or from someone who was on
social media.

Trust me when I tell you this...

LEARN TO SELL!

YOU ARE ALREADY IN IT, it’s just a question of whether you

recognize it and how good you are, and that’s the truth. Just
like the best athletes in the world or the best fighters or
entertainers, good salespeople recognize they are in sales
and become great at it.

If I didn’t have the ability to sell, I wouldn’t be anywhere

near where I am today and that’s a fact. I’d venture to say
that’s true for just about every successful person out there. I
should know, because I’ve met most of them and closed a
lot of them on doing business with me.

Only the lucky ones learn the power of being able to sell,
persuade, influence and close before it’s too late.

For every person on the planet, this is true today. Everything

good starts with being able to get someone to see your
point of view or believe what you believe. The most valuable
skill in the world is being able to sell and close and it’s also
the highest paid. The only question is whether you want to
own that and get good at it, or if you’ll settle for something
well below your best. That’s a choice you have to make but
make it right and it’ll be the most profitable choice you ever
make.

Since I took that sales job, every step of my life has been
selling somebody on something. From selling the guy who’s
now my partner and Chief Technology Officer on creating
the first version of LightSpeed VT for no money and a piece
of the pie to closing some of the serious greats of our time.
The point isn’t to brag, it’s to show you that possessing the
skills of sales, closing, and persuasion is everything.

If I could convince everyone of one thing, it’s that you need

to learn to sell, close, and be persuasive. Why? Because you
are a salesperson whether you like it or not. You were a
salesperson from the day you were born, and you’ll still be
to the day you die.

You may not have a “sales job,” but you’re selling all day
regardless. You’re selling people on where to go to dinner,
your personality, your ideas, everything. You are in sales
from A to Z, so you might as well get good at it, don’t you
think?

When you get good– and I mean real good– you find that
ultimate comfort zone. That safety net everyone’s always
looking for in life. When you can sell, you’ll never be without
a job or income. You can be in any city in the world and be
successful. When you know you’re good, you’ll find you are
never afraid to take risks, start a business, or get 100%
commission (which is where the real money is).

It’s all about being able to communicate. Heck, I like to say

that communication is so vital that it should be called “Key-
munication” because it is essential to everything you will
ever do. The highest form of communication is being able to
effectively sell, close, and persuade.

The better you get, the more likely you are to get everything
you want in life. The difference between great salespeople
and so-so salespeople is that the great one’s embrace being
in sales and never stop learning.

You learn from good content, repetition, practice, and

accountability. So, if you want to be at the top of the pack,
don’t you think it’d be wise to do what the people at the top
do?
Learn to Listen

If you want to be great at sales, and communication in

general, you have to learn to listen. If you’re not actively
listening to your prospect to find out what they want, where
they’re coming from, and what’s important to them, you’re
just telling, not selling. Telling is spitting features and
benefits. Selling is more about asking the right questions
and then listening to the answers. You need to be listening
so you can use that information to build value in your
product or service.

Think about it like this: let’s say you sell furniture and a guy
walks in and needs a couch. You start telling him about all
the great features, how durable it is, and how long it lasts.
How do you know that’s important to him? What if he just
got divorced and has to provide a couch to his ex? Guessing
you just lost him...

Instead, you should have asked him what brought him in

today. Find out what he’s looking for and if there’s any
special considerations. Ask if it’s for him or someone else.
What’s most important to him? Durability, comfort, color?
Get his budget and what he’s looking to spend and learn
about his past purchases, including what he liked and didn’t
like.

If you did this, don’t you think you’d have a much better
chance of closing the guy? Ask questions and listen and
you’ll automatically be a better closer. It’s simple to do, but
so many salespeople miss it.
Relationships are the New Currency

In any sales encounter, and any interaction you need to be

thinking about building the relationship. Relationships are
the new currency and the new economy. There’s nothing
more valuable than relationships.

My whole business is based on relationships. If I didn’t have

the relationships, I have with the people I have, I wouldn’t
be where I am. The value I provide and the effort I put into
building connections; I can call just about anybody with one
dial for what I need.

That didn’t just happen one day. It took years of diligent

follow-up, persistence, and providing value. It did teach me
that those who develop and cultivate good relationships
have the ability to get everything they want. The catch is
you need to make friends and be friends, but not just
friends. All relationships are valuable, and you really want
relationships that have influence and that can get you more
customers and sales.

How do you do that? You find the people you want to

connect with and bring a ton of value to each encounter.
Every time you interact, you should be helping them move
forward towards their goal(s) or at least letting them know
you care about them and are there for them. If you’re
struggling to find out how, one of the best books ever
written on relationships is How to Win Friends and Influence
People. You’d be wise to read it if you haven’t, and wise to
read it again if you have.

If you want high-quality, lasting relationships, they need to

be built on integrity and ethics. No matter what, you always
stand by your word regardless of the costs and always do
the right thing. Even if it costs you money– a lot of money.

Why? Because, at the end of the day, you’ll be a lot better

off. No relationship is worth tossing away for short-term
gain. Think of it this way: you may have heard some
variation of how you’re the average of the people you spend
time with. If that’s true, and it is by the way, then you want
to be around others who bring that average up. Those
people don’t mess around with people who lack integrity
and refuse to keep their word.

While good relationships can skyrocket your career,

business, or sales, bad relationships can destroy your
confidence, progress, and chances of success. Toxic people
and “drainers” suck time, energy, focus, and your positive
mindset from you. Weed those people out as mentioned in
the sacred six. I have a rule; I’ll bend over backwards for
someone, but I won’t bend over forwards. Feel free to live
by that one, too.

Make time each day to invest in your relationships. Set daily

tasks on your phone or schedule it on your calendar,
whatever you have to do. Reach out to your connections
and see what you can help them with and then actually help
them. Show them you care, and they will care about you.

When you build the relationship in a sales encounter, you

set yourself up to sell them a thousand times, not just once.
You can be a jerk or lack integrity and get a sale, but you’ll
never get a repeat sale from that person. Having strong
relationships in sales is one of the most valuable assets you
can have.

As you build up this asset, keep in mind it’s not who you
know, it’s who you can bring value to. Those are the
relationships that will grow like crazy and make you money.
Why? It’s simple– it’s because you can be an immediate
benefit to those people and in turn, they will reward you
with their time and friendship and ultimately referrals and
business. Just worry about serving them and not them
serving you.

So, go out there and build your tribe. No matter who you
are, there are thousands if not millions (and maybe even
billions) that will buy into you, as long as you’re authentic
and real. That being said, don’t be weird. Don’t call them
every day with no purpose or stand outside their house until
they talk to you.

The Bottom Line: If I didn’t have the ability to sell, close,

and persuade, my life would not be what it is today. It’s the
same for you, or at least it can be. It doesn’t matter who
you are or what you do, you are in sales, so you better get
good at it. Lucky for you, selling is the highest paid
profession in the world.

Relationships are the new currency, so focus on building the

relationships you can bring value to and that have the
influence and connections to get you what you want. Never
forget to listen, both to what people are saying and what
they’re silent about. You won’t build a more valuable asset
in this world than your ability to sell and close while building
relationships.

Being exceptional at sales isn’t rocket science. It’s about

mastering the activities that make a great salesperson and
closer and then knowing and following the steps. Sales is a
series of attitudes and steps and when done right, you can
dominate your field.
What Makes A Great Salesperson and
Closer?

Every great salesperson shares five attributes that can be

developed, refined, and mastered. Each build on itself and
the others.

Be Positive. Negative and pessimistic salespeople

don’t last. Why? No one likes to buy from “downers”,
but everyone likes to be around people that lift them
up and come with energy and excitement.

All good salespeople believe they can get any deal done.
They believe there’s a path to success and a win in every
situation. They may not always get it, but they believe it can
happen and they believe they can be the ones to do it.

Have Confidence in Your Abilities. Sales is about

being certain and helping your prospect become
certain. It’s pretty darn hard to do that if you don’t
have confidence in yourself and your ability to sell
and close. That’s why every great closer knows he or
she can close anyone.

How do you build that confidence in your abilities? You start

by making sure your relationship with yourself is solid and
that you keep your commitments by doing what you say
you’ll do. Think of the sacred six.

To build your “sales confidence,” you need to seek out the

right information. If you’re not confident, it’s because you’re
not winning. And if you’re not winning? That means there’s
something you don’t know. So, get the right information and
train with repetition and practice. If you do that and
implement the information you will not have to worry about
your confidence or winning ability anymore.

Be Quick to Notice and Understand. The best

salespeople constantly pay attention to the details
and look for clues “between the lines.” That means
they notice things others don’t and are quick to
understand the significance of it and how to use it to
get a deal done.

Great closers are also well-rehearsed. This means they know

what they will say and when and know their response to
every objection and statement the prospect might make. If
you have to be thinking about what you’ll say in the middle
of every interaction, your mind won’t be free to notice and
understand those little things that can help you get the deal
done.

The good news is you build those skills through training,

repetition, practice, and role play. Why would you learn from
practicing on real customers instead of learning ahead of
time? Great salespeople prepare before it’s time to execute.
That’s why they win.

Be Intentional. If you examine top salespeople, you’ll

notice that they are nearly all intentional. Everything
they do is on purpose and deliberate; there’s very
little that happens or comes from them that’s not
planned.

If you’re spending the entire sales encounter in a reactive

state, you’ll find it very hard to be in control. If you’re not in
control, it’s going to be a lot more difficult to get what you
want and close the deal.

The good news is that when you train and practice with
repetition you start making things second nature. It’s as if
everything you do and say happens automatically. Great
closers understand that doing the right things the right way
on purpose, automatically, and significantly increases their
success.

Be Prepared. In sales, anything can come at you. The

extra few seconds it takes to think and react can cost
you the deal. What do you do to make sure that
doesn’t happen? You make darn sure you’re prepared
and ready for anything.

Whatever industry you are in, there are undoubtedly specific

questions, objections, comments, etc. that your prospects
make. You need to know what these are and be prepared
with your responses and strategies to keep them moving
forward. When you do, you’ll be ready for anything.

The four attributes of great salespeople boil down to being

prepared, empathetic, positive, and confident. When you
think about it, you’ll realize that those all fit together and
build off of each other.

Get well trained, practice regularly, know what and when

you’re going to say and do, and your confidence will
automatically increase. Once you’ve mastered your role
your confidence will increase, and you will start winning
more. And let me tell you, when you’re winning all the time,
it’s really hard to not be positive.

Too many people think of selling as a natural talent you

either have or you don’t. There are absolutely some people
born more inclined to being salespeople and closers, but
many of the best I know have been taught to be great. In
fact, every top salesperson I know has consistently trained
and developed themselves until they mastered sales– and
the training has never stopped.
Sales is A Process

Selling is nothing more than a series of steps and

interactions. Anything that has steps can be learned; if
something can be learned, it can be mastered.

Once you learn the steps then practice, drill, and rehearse
them over and over again, you become effective. This will
undoubtedly increase your confidence and skill level, and as
your confidence and skill level increases, so does your
winning.

A sale can be broken down into seven steps, two or three of

which most salespeople ignore. That’s good news for you
because if you choose to master what others ignore, you
become multitudes better. Masters make the big bucks so
get to where you’re smooth with them all.

The Steps

Preparation. Professionals prepare, and their paychecks

show it. Most salespeople aren’t professionals in practice
and too many are just “in sales” and don’t take the time to
prepare and master the game. How can you expect to win if
you skip the first step? It blows my mind how many people
don’t prepare.
You’re not like most people, are you? You’re willing to do the
work and prepare yourself both mentally and physically to
close and win. Mentally, you need to believe in yourself and
your abilities, just as I mentioned above. Prepare yourself
that not everyone of your prospects will close and that half
of the people you talk to won’t be right for your product or
service. Do not let that mess with you and remember, there
are seven billion people on the planet. You can make a fine
living with half.

Physically, be prepared to introduce yourself, gather

intelligence, build value, ask for the sale, close deals, and
indoctrinate your new customers, including asking for
referrals. In other words, be prepared to execute on all of
the steps of the sale.

All else being equal, prepared people always outperform

unprepared people, so get prepared.

Introduction. If you’re going to sell someone something, you

have to meet them first, whether in person, over the phone,
or online. There’s no reason to be shy or make this more
complicated than it needs to be. You’re simply introducing
yourself, getting their name, and making a friend.

All relationships start out the same way: one person

introducing themselves to another. Since relationships are
the new economy it makes sense to get good at meeting
people, doesn’t it?

Set a goal to meet a number of people each day. It could be

five, one, ten, or fifty, it doesn’t matter. Just get in the habit
of meeting someone new each day. All you’re doing is
starting a new relationship, some will take, and some won’t.
Those who do very well may buy from you, whether now or
in the future.
Gather Intelligence. If the best salespeople pay attention to
the details and benefit from it, you’d do well to do the same.
You can only find the little “clues” and pieces of information
to help you close by asking questions. I call it “gathering
intelligence” because that’s what it is. You’re not just
getting random information; you are gathering useful and
intelligent data that can help you lock in the deal.

When you’re asking questions, look for both the pain points
(what’s creating their problem or problems) and what they
value (and might be willing to pay for). This allows you to
leverage these details later when you’re presenting your
product or service.

Just remember that gathering intelligence is an exchange,

not an interview or interrogation. Come up with 10-15 good
questions and make sure you listen to the prospect’s
response. Get what you need and then go on to build value.
Don’t ask too few questions, but don’t ask too many, either.

Build value. To be sure, you should master all of these steps,

but if there’s one you really want to nail, it’s building value.
Why is that? The only way to make a sale is to raise the
value of your product or service beyond the prospect’s
value of money. Pretty simple, but not always easy.

You need to know everything about your product or service.

If you’ve been in your industry for more than a few months
and you aren’t an expert in what you offer, you have a new
task. While you’re at it, become an expert in what the
competition is offering, as well as the alternatives the
prospect has.

When you’re building value, make sure you stay focused on

solutions, because that’s what people buy. The only reason
prospects will part with their money is because they believe
what you’re offering will solve their problem. Don’t forget
that.

Done right, you build so much value in your presentation -

tying in their pain points and desires you learned gathering
intelligence - that the prospect is clear on what you offer.
That makes the next step easier, so long as you actually do
it.

Ask for the sale. It’s absolutely crazy to me how many

salespeople fail to ask for the sale. Heck, I even believe
most salespeople will double their sales overnight if they
just start asking for the business.

Asking for the sale is about bringing up the money. It’s

where you ask something like, “So, can we earn your
business on this?” or “Ready to get started?” It doesn’t
matter as much how you ask so long as it’s clear that you
are asking for the business.

Regardless of what you do, just don’t fail to ask for the sale.
Sometimes they will say yes, sometimes they will say no or
something other than yes. When that happens, it’s time to
bring in the closer, which should be YOU.

Close the deal. If you can close the deal, you can make
millions, maybe even billions. There’s no higher paid skill in
the world than being able to step in and get the sale after
the prospect says no.

If someone buys after your presentation, you’ve sold them.

If they buy after saying no (which is anything other than
yes), you’ve closed them. I’ll be honest, being a killer closer
is one of the hardest skills to master, but it’s worth it. Lucky
for you, I created an entire school to teach you how to do it.
If you want to rise to the challenge, visit the links at the end
of this chapter.
Closing is a mind game; you want the prospect to buy
something and they don’t want to. You’re not trying to
overpower them or use high-pressure techniques; you’re
helping them get to the bottom of why they don’t want to
do whatever it is you’re trying to get them to do and then
get past it.

The best way to close is to get to the real “why.” You do that
by asking questions to find out what’s keeping them from
moving forward. Once you get to the real why, you want to
understand the problem and then solve it. You keep
repeating until the deal is closed.

I call this “identify and isolate” and it’s the number one
thing you can do to get through to the close. You’ll learn all
about it in Closer School (see below).

Once the prospect is closed, it’s time to bring them on and

indoctrinate them so they stay around and refer others to
you like crazy.

Indoctrination. The best customers and clients are ones that

stay around and refer you to others. Too many salespeople
think that when the prospect signs, the sale is over. In
reality, it’s just the beginning of a potentially profitable
relationship and a much easier career.

Let your customers and clients know that you’re there for
them forever, that it’s not a one-time deal. Show them that
you’re thankful and grateful for their business. Do this right
and it starts a very profitable relationship.

Finally, don’t forget to ask for referrals. Most salespeople

chicken out here or want to wait for *them to experience the
product* for a while first. The earlier in the indoctrination
period you ask, the better. Then go close that referral and
start again, only with a little more money in your pocket.
Master these seven steps and you’ll be on your way to
dominating. The better you are at selling, closing, and
persuading, the better life you’ll lead. All sales boils down to
solving problems for others. People have problems and you
have solutions. Salespeople who get this make a great
living. Closers who get it, make a killing.

By the way, people always ask me, “What’s the difference

between a salesperson and a closer?” It’s pretty simple. If
the salesperson does the job right, you may not need a
closer. The closer comes in when the prospect says, “No.”
That is why closers are so valuable - because they are the
ones that create the “yeses” that get the sale.

If you’re a salesperson, you’d do well to have the knowledge

required to be able to turn into a closer when needed. That’s
the best way I know to increase your income fast. The other
good news? When you become a closer, you become a
better human, too.

The Bottom Line: Learning to sell is the number one thing

you can do to create the freedom, security, and life you
want. Have a positive and a “can do” attitude, build
confidence in your abilities, be well-rehearsed and quick to
understand, operate with intention, and be prepared and
ready for anything.

Sales is a series of steps, and all steps can be learned and

mastered. Study the seven steps, practice them, and put
them into practice. Become an expert at sales and become
a world-class closer. There’s no better way to get what you
want in life.

PS - If you want to be a master at sales, closing and

persuasion, remember, I created Closer School, which is my
virtual interactive training system and “Closer School Live”
which is my weekly call where I answer, and coach people
live. It is the best place to start and finish.
www.closerschool.com
 Chapter 8
Do more, Get Better...Scale.

Look, we have been told all our lives that we just need to
work hard and be consistent and everything will work out,
right? Not always. Sometimes we will repeat the same
things over and over and expect something different to
happen. It’s called insanity. People unfortunately like to
complicate shit. I, fortunately, like to uncomplicate it.

The Bottom Line is this…. If you want something

different...you MUST do something different. That doesn’t
sound like rocket science to me. How about you? If someone
wants to change what they are getting, they must simply
change what they are doing. It is a universal law. Just like
LIKE ACTIONS cause LIKE RESULTS, the opposite is also true;
a different action will cause a different result. So, let’s use
this logic to make more money. Listen to how I apply the ‘Do
More, Get Better, and Scale’ (DMGBS) formula to make more
money regardless of how much you are currently making. If
you are making money but not as much as you’d like simply
do MORE of whatever it is, you’re doing for money and you
will have MORE of it. If you want less money than do LESS of
what you’re doing, make sense? I know it sounds a bit
elementary and a touch facetious, but I ask because I want
to make sure you realize how simple this technique is and
how it works every time. If you just get one thing out of this
book, get this...sometimes things are so easy we miss them
because we are looking for something hard or difficult. We
are assuming it must be complicated otherwise we would all
be rich, right? Making as much money as you want is easy.
All you need to do is apply the DMGBS formula to anything
you are already doing and BOOM! You will not only see
instant proof that this formula works, but you will also now
possess the exact formula that I have used to build an 8-
figure and growing company. The DMGBS Formula is for
growing and scaling your company and/or your personal
income to any level you can imagine. Feel free to use it, test
it, and try to prove me wrong. You will soon see this is a
universal law that if I would have known a long time ago, I
would have been a billionaire by now. However, I didn’t have
anyone to explain it to me as simply as this.

To Get More, DO MORE.

If you do more of what you’re currently doing to make

money you will undoubtedly make MORE money than you’re
currently making, so if you want more than DO MORE. It’s
that simple.

Figure out exactly what you’re doing to make money and

then do more of it.

“But, Brad...that’s way too easy!” Yes, it is. There are three
things you can do to make as much money as you want. Do
more, get better, and scale. The DMGBS formula is (do more
+ get better + scale).

To do more you simply increase everything you’re doing that

contributes to generating money. More calls, more ads,
more sales, more handshakes...more. The problem is people
don’t want to spend more money or more time or they make
an excuse that they don’t have enough money or enough
time. Either way, it’s just an excuse. You can always make
more time by hiring someone and having them do whatever
it is that makes you money. The key is to identify what is
actually making you money and duplicate it. Then do the
opposite for the things that aren’t making you money. I say
to duplicate and defecate. Do more of what works and stop
doing the things that don’t. Get rid of them. It seems that
it’s just a matter of taking the time and to do the work it
takes to really define the tasks that are making you money
and the ones that are not. Once you have a clear answer on
what makes you money, simply do MORE of those things
and stop doing the other things or hire someone else to do
them if they are critical tasks.

You don’t have to be the person doing everything, you just

think you do.

After that, you would want to GET BETTER at all of those

things. You do this by consistently studying, practicing, and
learning new and better techniques to do the job. Most
people think they know everything or are in no hurry to
learn something new. They then get comfortable and just
“go with the flow” ...even a dead fish can do that! How
about challenging yourself and your team to GET BETTER? I
would create a culture of learning if I were building a team
where everyone had to agree and be into personal
development. Why would you want to hire or work with
anyone that didn’t want to get better? The only way to get
better is to train at it. Training effectively means we must
have four key ingredients: Good content, Repetition,
Practice, and Accountability. Without any one of those
ingredients, you don’t have a training program, you simply
have an exposure program. If you need any help creating or
implementing a training system, reach out to me at
www.lightspeedvt.com. That is what we specialize in and
have all the know-how and tools to get the job done.
At any rate, we must continue to get better at what we’re
doing. We can’t stop learning and hope that we will continue
to develop our skills and understanding of the role. Neither
can someone who works for us, so make sure that you focus
on getting better and you demand anyone who joins your
team to do the same. I wish I would have known this in the
past. As I built a training company, it took me 15-20 years
to reach eight figures. If I would have known this ahead of
time, it would have taken me three, tops! I know it sounds
crazy but stick with me. If you increase your positive actions
and activities you will increase the results, so that’s the DO
MORE part, but when we GET BETTER at the things we or
our teams are doing, we get MORE because we are better at
doing them. They either get easier and less costly to do or
we become more effective and we maximize the
profitability. That’s step two, GET BETTER. Get better at
what? Everything! In fact, you should be the best at
everything you do. Imagine how it would feel being the best
in the world at something. It is an amazing feeling and it
leads to another key factor in the game of success– and that
is confidence. The more confident the person the more
success they will experience. Now, after a while if you
actually apply the DMGBS formula you will be very busy and
making a lot more money, but now comes the last part;
SCALE. To scale you need to focus on two things; people and
technology. You scale simply by replacing yourself as the
person who does the work, or you scale by duplicating the
amount of people doing the work. You duplicate the effort or
work. You contribute with a person or with technology. It’s
that simple. You want to hire and train people to do what
you were doing for less money than you were getting paid
to do it. It’s either that or you pay for technology to do what
you were doing for less money than it was costing you to do
it. It is as easy as that.
The thing that I didn’t realize until much later was to
document everything and create systems and processes.
Systems and processes that are well documented and easily
trained are critical. Too many companies and especially
start-ups just build the business and then go back and try to
document everything. This is a mistake. Document roles and
responsibilities, systems, and processes so that as you grow
you have everything you need to properly onboard and train
new team members; the best time is before you do it or
while you’re doing it. To try and write out systems and
processes after the fact is ten times harder and usually
never gets done correctly. If you are a solopreneur or a
Fortune 500 company, you would be much better off if you
documented all the steps, techniques, and processes that
allow each person to do what they do. To try and bring
someone new up to speed on five years’ worth of
experience is difficult, let alone 25+. I spent thousands of
hours training and developing my team and I wrote none of
it down. The craziest part is I was building a training
company and STILL didn’t learn to systematize until 12
years into the game. I would be a nine-figure company if I
had done this in the first place. Even if you have to slow
down to document your systems and process, I would highly
suggest you do. You cannot scale properly without an easy
and consistent way of developing new people and growing
your business. You don’t want to do what I did. I tried to do
everything myself, and then got bottlenecked because I
couldn’t do everything. Once I was smart enough to realize
this and hired people to help, it took me forever and a day
to get them trained. It was nuts. After I really started to
figure things out, I realized I needed to hire a lot of people
and had to rely on the people I trained (or exposed) to train
them. Now I was getting diluted information given to my
new people and had no way to tell. This was disastrous. I
cost myself millions by not documenting along the way and
using the training system I was promoting. Thankfully, I
eventually realized that to scale my company properly, I
would need to have everything determined, documented,
and trained effectively. After learning The Hard Way, I
eventually started to eat my own cooking and my business
doubled. My headaches were reduced by 500%, my time
was less taxed, and my energy and enthusiasm surged!
Don’t learn this The Hard Way. If you take the time to build
something make sure to document everything along the
way. If you are trying to get more, do more, get better, and
scale then demand that everyone in your world does the
same.

DO MORE + GET BETTER + SCALE = GET MORE and this is

THE DMGBS Formula

I have personally made millions using this formula. Anytime

I wanted more money I would simply do more of what I was
doing that made money and continually made the effort to
get better at it. That always doubled, tripled, and
quadrupled my revenues. Then, I hired people or used
technology to help me DO MORE, GET BETTER, and SCALE.
You can try like hell to make that NOT work and you will
come up empty handed every time. I will offer a full refund
for this book if anyone can apply the DMGBS formula to any
money-making situation and have it NOT double, triple, or
quadruple their money. It is fool proof and it works every
time.

Now that you know how to do it, start immediately. As you

start to talk to yourself about it, do not allow your inner
voice to start rationalizing as to why it won’t work. It’s too
simple. I have heard them all. You need to keep things
simple and not allow yourself to complicate it. We, as
humans, like to create problems for ourselves because
without problems and challenges we die. Isn’t that
interesting? If we actually found this “blissful place” where
we had no issues, no problems, no challenges, no
pushback...we would get soft, bored, and die. Literally. So
many people are trying to get comfortable and lessen their
problems, when in fact, problems are essential to our health
and survival. Coincidentally, problems are also where the
opportunities are, but most people try to avoid problems
while seeking opportunities. If there are no problems there
are no opportunities, remember that. Whenever you notice
a problem or become aware of one make sure to get very
interested in what it is and how to solve it. Worst case is you
get really good at solving problems and acquire rhino skin to
help you get through future problems. The best case and
most likely case is that you will find opportunity in every
problem. If you want to make a million dollars, solve a
million problems; you are paid in direct proportion to the
level of problem you solve for. The problem is most people
don’t know what they solve for and run from the
opportunities to find out; you want to confront problems
head on and as fast as you can. This is why your perspective
is critical. You can allow problems to kick your ass or build
your ass up, which one sounds like a better option? Are you
beginning to see why I always say, “this ain’t rocket
science.” You want to make more money? Do more, get
better, and scale. You’re welcome. ;) This may be a good
time to snap a pic and post something online about how
mind-blowing this book is! ;) Don’t forget to tag me:
@THEREALBRADLEA

Now, since you are now going to be looking for problems

and hopefully finding a bunch of them, don’t you think it
would be a good idea to be ready for them? I call that being
prepared.
 Chapter 9
Be Prepared.

If there is anything I know, it’s this– being prepared is better

than being unprepared. People who are better prepared
than others have the advantage in most cases. Being
prepared is the key. Preparation is like having a gun in a
knife fight; the key between getting your ass kicked and
kicking ass. So, which of those sounds best? Pick one…. it’s
just a choice. I would assume that if you’re like me at all you
would rather kick ass than get your ass kicked, so listen up
to this chapter because preparation will prove to be your
best friend, weapon, and ally.

When most people go through life, they don’t look at it like

it’s a game. They are just living day-to-day and they take
things as they come. I was the same. I used to wake up, get
ready, and just deal with whatever came my way. I was
pretty good at it, but after looking back it cost me massive
amounts of time, money, relationships, and pain. The simple
fact I wasn’t prepared cost me on many occasions. I
remember a time where we had a huge presentation with a
company called ‘Yum Foods.’ I had a buddy who got the
meeting and so we flew out the night before so we could get
“prepared” to go in there and crush the meeting and close a
multi-million-dollar contract. Upon arriving at the hotel and
stashing our luggage we were to meet at the lobby bar and
come up with a game plan. Yes, the day before the meeting
was my idea of getting prepared for it. I mean, we had a
whole evening to talk, plan, and come up with the best
strategy to close a multi-billion-dollar deal that owned Taco
Bell, Pizza Hut, and other major household companies. Why
would we need more time than that, right? The best time to
get prepared for something is the second you become
aware of it...and in most cases, that’s too late. That is why I
now believe the best time to get prepared is daily. You want
to prepare DAILY so that IF and WHEN something comes up
you are as prepared as you can be.

Back to the story...so, we all met in the bar to talk about the
opportunity we had the next day. Who was going to be
there, what we were going to say, and so on. Well, we
couldn’t do that without grabbing a drink, right? We began
to throw back six-seven drinks each and proceed to get shit-
faced until they closed the bar. In the morning, I didn’t
remember anything about the night before except that we
had the meeting coming up. I set my alarm for one hour
before the meeting because I assumed, we would be in bed
early so we could be fresh and ready. I didn’t know that we
were going to drink up a storm and stay out late. I woke up
with a terrible hangover and felt like shit; I smelled like a
brewery and couldn’t do anything about it. It was coming
out of my pores. I was in the worst possible situation and
had no way to help myself. I was about to walk into a huge
meeting smelling like an alcoholic, still a little drunk, beet-
red eyes, and sick to my stomach…. but I was READY!!! I
was ready to pitch my ass off and close that deal! In fact, I
was the one who encouraged us all to drink. My buddy who
got the meeting arranged was trying to take things seriously
and get prepared for it. I was the “Shit, I was born ready”
guy. I was the best closer on earth and didn’t need to get
prepared. I was prepared, in my mind anyway. I didn’t need
to take the time to focus on planning, due diligence,
homework, and strategies! I felt I could just show up and
knock it out of the park. Wrong. I blew that opportunity and
it probably cost me millions of dollars. However, because I
am also a very optimistic person, I can also say that that
lesson has made me millions back, so it’s even. I lost
millions learning it and I have made millions since learning
it. BE PREPARED. Do not get cocky and think that you have
everything ready. It is better to assume that you don’t and
continue to prepare for the opportunity. Is there such a thing
as over-prepared? NO. Don’t listen to the bullshitters that
will try to get you to believe that. There is no such thing as
being “too prepared.” The more prepared you are the better
off you are in every situation. Trust me on this. Whenever I
train people on sales and closing, I begin with the steps and
the first step is preparation. Most people start with making
introductions, but if you ask me it is too late if you are
already meeting the person, so the first step is preparation.

Look at what you want to do in life and make sure you are
constantly working on being prepared for all of the things it
entails. Most people fail to get prepared or stay prepared
and they let opportunities pass them up on a daily basis.
Opportunities are everywhere if you are looking for them
and are PREPARED to take advantage of them. I can’t tell
you how many people major opportunities had (like I did
with ‘Yum Foods’) right in front of them and didn’t even
know it. Others realized the opportunity but failed to act on
it or execute because of a lack of preparation and
confidence. In my case, I recognized the opportunity and I
took action, but failed in execution due to my irresponsibility
and failure to really PREPARE for that meeting. Now I guess I
could have prepared and still lost the deal, but the mental
damage I caused myself over the years that followed cost
me big. That shit chips away at our self-esteem and
deteriorates our confidence and that costs us in many ways.
So why not just learn the lesson here? Be aware that
preparation is something you need to focus on daily. Any
time you know you are going somewhere or are going to do
something; make the first question you ask yourself; HOW
CAN I PREPARE FOR THIS? Boom. If you just do that, more
often than not you will start to think about things you could
do to prepare ahead of time and make your chances of
success that much better... and what’s crazy is your success
rate will go up! It works like magic, kinda. The more you
focus on being prepared for things, the more you will be
prepared for things and when you are more prepared your
success rate skyrockets. Do you want to be more
successful? Then, be more prepared. Simple.

Remember that we like to complicate things so as you are

learning this stuff, keep an open mind. Otherwise, you may
cause yourself to doubt that it can be this easy to generate
good things in your life. Great relationships, great careers,
great experiences, and great opportunities are ALL more
likely the more prepared you are to handle each and every
situation you might find yourself in, so why not be
prepared?

How can we be better prepared? Things like good credit and

money in our pocket. Do you think those things might come
in handy? Yeah! So, figure out what you need to do to make
sure you walk around with at least $1,000 dollars cash on
you at all times and at least $50,000 in available credit... AT
ALL TIMES. If you cannot do that then you are NOT
PREPARED FOR LIFE and you need to make a plan to GET
READY. Are you taking it seriously? Are you aware it is just a
game? If you were going to compete or play a game, would
you want to prepare? Would you want the advantages? The
maps? The special codes that unlock more powerful
weapons? That’s preparation. If you have bad credit, you’re
not prepared, and you’re screwed. I mean not totally
screwed up because I built everything with bad credit, so it
can be done, but I don’t advise it. Trust me– the difference
between a 480 score and an 840 is night and day. Your
credit is a major, major advantage or in many cases a
disadvantage. You can easily get credit fixed and re-
established, so if you have bad credit and truly want to fix it,
hit me up in the DM and I will send you to someone who
CAN fix it. You MUST fix your credit and maintain good credit
in life. Without good credit, you technically can’t be a good
person. That’s right...I said it. Because to be a good person,
you have to do what you say you will and, if you said you
would pay them, then you must pay them. If you don’t have
the money, then work for them or make arrangements with
them, but whatever you do, fix your credit, and stop making
deals you can’t keep. You must DO what you say you will
and PAYING an agreed upon debt is included. Usually if you
have bad credit it is because you failed to pay someone you
promised to pay– it’s as simple as that. So rather than try to
justify why it’s bad just stop doing it and fix it; do not try to
navigate life with bad credit. It is ten times harder to try and
win when you have to use cash only. When you have bad
credit, you can only use cash or will pay huge interest rates
and that is a huge disadvantage. How did a chapter on
preparation turn to fixing your credit? Because that is being
prepared. What if a deal came up where all you needed was
good credit and $500 bucks, but you couldn’t qualify? You
could blame the reason your credit sucks, but it boils down
to you not being PREPARED. You failed to take initiative to
get that shit handled BEFORE you needed it. That’s being
prepared. So, not only does it apply directly as I write this
sentence, I can’t help but to think about how bad credit has
cost me for YEARS!!! I was held back and dragged down so
many times due to not having the credit to take advantage
of an opportunity. I had bad credit because when I was 18,
they gave me a store credit card for $2500. I had no clue
how I was going to pay for it, I just knew it was good for
$2500 worth of clothes at a store called Meier & Frank. I
liked clothes so I figured I could pay the minimum payment
if need be, so off I went. I maxed out the card and had the
bomb wardrobe hanging in my closet within a day of getting
the card. Well, when the bill came, I didn’t have the money
to pay it. They wouldn’t hire me nor was I prepared to get a
job, so I couldn’t pay. Once that credit card hit my credit, it
was over for “borrowing” from that day on. I had to pay
everything in cash. I had friends who made less money than
I did, but they drove nicer cars and lived in nicer places
because they could finance cars, furniture, and other shit. I
couldn’t and had to get by with using just cash until I
realized how important credit was. Then, after I fixed it,
massive doors and opportunities began to show themselves,
relationships flourished, confidence returned, and my
credibility grew over the years. Your credit is your
reputation; you HAVE to fix it. Again, if you have bad credit
and you want to FIX IT (and you do!) then shoot me a DM or
a message and I will send you to my guy. Just know that it is
possible to have great credit and life is massively better
when you do.

Back to being prepared...having good credit and some

money in your pocket is an easy example to use, but the
question you need to ask yourself is, “How can I get
prepared for this?”

Then, figure out what “this” is...meaning, whatever it is you

want to be prepared for. Life? A fight? A job interview? A
date? A game? Whatever. You just want to make sure that
you are prepared for as many things as you can be and how
to do that is to always ask yourself that question. This will
cause you to constantly think about how to be prepared and
you will accidentally start doing something, thus becoming
more prepared for life’s situations and better off in any
situation. There will be many times where this information
will come in handy and I can promise you that by the time
you are 60, if you make it that long, you will learn this one
way or the other. It is just a fact of life that most people wish
they had known when looking back on life. I have spent time
with old people at old folks’ homes and I’ve asked many of
them their regrets. Most of them talked about things where
preparation would have been the solution in many of their
cases. Believe it or not there are many people that are
unprepared for everything and they struggle so I didn’t want
to take any chances. I could make this a 500-page chapter
talking about how many times I was unprepared and caught
in a bad situation, but I need to get this book finished.

The main goal of being prepared is simply to improve the

quality of your options. The more prepared you are, the
better the options you have to choose from.

Just in case you don’t know where to begin preparing, allow

me to give you a few I started with and why.

These are just a few areas or situations you want to be

prepared for.

Physical - Situations where your strength,

appearance, and or conditioning is instrumental in
possible outcomes. There will be times you get in
fights or need to protect yourself and others. There
will be times where your stamina is called upon.
There will be times where you are being judged
based on your appearance that will determine what
opportunities you get access to.

Financial - Situations where your cash reserves and

credit standing are instrumental in the quality of
your options. There will be times you need money.
There will be times you need credit. The quality of
your choices are heavily dependent on your financial
standings. Become as prepared for this as you can.
Skills, education, resources, and access are heavily
influenced by your financial situation. The quality of
people you have access to is critical and this will also
be affected. Usually great people aren’t looking for
someone with shitty credit and no money. Get
prepared by working, making money, and properly
investing it.

Emotional- Situations where your emotional stability

is instrumental. There will be times friends and
family let you down. There will be times where your
emotions get the best of you, so get prepared to deal
with life’s experiences and the emotional
rollercoaster that life provides. The more mentally
strong you are, the more emotionally strong you are.
Emotions are extremely critical to living a successful
life, so take special care here and get prepared by
studying and seeking new information on a regular
basis. Understand human behavior and study
psychology to try and better understand yourself.

Spiritual - Situations where your beliefs, faith, and

resolve are instrumental in possible outcomes. What
do you believe in? It can make the difference
between winning big and losing big. Do you believe
in a higher power? Are you a higher power? Wouldn’t
it make sense to get prepared? What happens when
we die? What do you want to happen when you die?
Who gets what? What do you want them to do with
you and your belongings? What do you want them to
say about you or how do you want to be
remembered? Are you prepared? Do you want to be a
burden for people or a blessing? Being prepared to
die is one of the most important ones because we are
all going to do it. If you are not ready to die, then hit
me up. Message me and let me know because this
one is critical, and I can help you get prepared. The
reason I keep saying to hit me up or message me is
because I can help people in a lot of ways, but I can’t
write it all in this book or it will become an
encyclopedia. If you are not prepared to die and want
to have a REAL FINANCIAL plan to leave a legacy, hit
me up because I can help you. My contact info will be
all throughout this book, but you can always hit me
up on social media. @TheRealBradLea - or find me at
www.bradlea.com.

I could come up with more, but I think you get the point. Life
is going to come at you. Why not be prepared? I know it
sounds easy enough, but are you constantly asking yourself
how you can be better prepared for things? If not, then I
suggest you do. More importantly, I suggest you GET MORE
PREPARED, not just think about it. Be intentional in
preparation because the better you’re prepared, the better
you’ll do.

Your mind is more powerful than you probably give it credit

for. It can also be your best friend that drives you to
success, or it can be your worst enemy. Knowing that– don’t
you think it’d make sense to make it work for you and not
against you?

Most people let their mind work against them. It’s not their
fault because most likely it’s that they’ve been taught
wrong. They’ve been taught that the mind is simple to
control and it’s what you think about that determines what
you get. While there’s some truth to that, what’s more
important is what’s going on in the part of your mind that’s
hard at work when you’re not thinking.

One of the most impressive things about your mind is that it

has a conscious part and a subconscious part. While you’re
actively aware of what’s going on in your conscious mind,
your subconscious is working overtime to make what goes
through your head a reality. (Hence, “sub,” meaning below,
conscious.)

This means that everything you think and believe to be true,

your mind works to make it true, whether it is or not. That’s
bad news if you let it run like most people do but it’s good
news if you control it and feed it the right information like
successful people do.

So, where do you start? You need to believe that everything

around you and everything that happens to you is within
your control. How you react is always under your control.
And if that’s true, which it is by the way, then the outcome
will always be up to you. That means the outcome is
predictable.

If you control the outcome by controlling your reaction, why

waste time ever getting mad at anyone? Just react as best
as you can when things happen. You get to decide how you
react and feel about everything that happens. Just react the
way you think you should, and you’ll be fine.

Everything that goes on in your life is a result of your

beliefs. Your beliefs drive your actions and your actions
drive your results. That means you can change any results
by simply changing your beliefs. The way you do that is by
seeking new information that’s positive and moves you in
the right direction.
One of the best things about your mind is that you control
100% of what goes into it. If you let it feed on negativity and
junk all day it will be full of negativity and junk. If you feed it
positive information and small wins throughout the day, and
show it that you keep your promises, it will start helping you
to be a better version of you.

The problem is a lot of us have been programmed up until

now to be a loser. Not as who we are but as how we think
about ourselves. The good news is that can change, but
first, here’s how it happens...most people, deep down, don’t
realize that they’ve been programming their minds to be a
loser their whole life. They’ve trained their minds to hear
negative things and to practice negative self-talk.

These same people follow the advice of setting huge goals

and then don’t reach them which feeds their subconscious
to really believe they are a loser. This holds you back and is
the number one reason why you’re not succeeding.

So how do you fix it? Well, let’s work backwards. What did

you do to mess it up? You broke it by listening to negativity
your whole life. You’ve lied to yourself all of those years and
you’ve procrastinated and failed to follow through on your
goals.

If you want to fix your programming, you have to replace

those mental pictures and that information with new images
and new beliefs. You can do that by following the Six Rituals
(which you’ll learn later) - by forgiving yourself, committing
to doing what you say you’ll do, setting and reaching 10
small goals each day, weeding out the negative people and
trash, visualizing who you will be, and seeking new
information.
Start creating the winning moments in your mind so you
have pictures of you succeeding and doing well. It takes
time, but eventually, you’ll replace the negative thoughts
and views with positive ones. You’ll boost your confidence
and your subconscious mind will start working for you, not
against you.

How to Toughen Up Your Mindset

One of the biggest differentiators among very successful

people and everyone else is their refusal to quit. They just
don’t give up, even when things get tough.

To have that resilience and staying power, you have to

toughen up your mind. You need to be able to fight through
adversity and not lose your confidence or belief when things
go wrong.

Believe me, I’ve had so many “problems” come up in my life

as I’ve built my business. I’ve had so many chances to just
quit and toss in the towel. But, luckily, I never did, and
that’s why I’m here today. Looking back, there were two key
things I did to push through these events, and while I don’t
think they were necessarily “tough,” they show how you can
fight through problems and the sometimes desire to quit.

First, don’t see problems as problems. Start thinking of them

as puzzles that you need to and can find the pieces to and
put together. Make it all a game, because that’s what it all
really is. There is always a solution to every puzzle, and
there’s a solution to every “problem.” Heck, half the time
you’ll find that you are way better off because of that
challenge. That’s when another level of gratitude kicks in.

Even when you find the pieces and solve the puzzles, some
things are going to feel like roadblocks or barriers that you
just can’t get past. Sometimes doing the work makes it
happen and sometimes it doesn’t. Instead of tossing in the
towel or quitting, find a way to pivot or make an adjustment.

When I first started LightSpeed VT, I was in the car sales

training business. There were a few other guys who were
good too including Grant Cardone. Instead of going head-to-
head with these guys the whole time, struggling through
and competing, I decided to collaborate with them by
helping them duplicate their live training into virtual training
that can be watched over and over around the world without
them ever having to be there. That pivot has made me
millions.

There are times when you do have to keep pushing and

tough it out. Having a “never quit” attitude and perspective
will get you that little extra bit that’s required to power
through and succeed.

Getting that perspective comes from having confidence in

yourself that you can solve any problem or puzzle and
adjust in any direction to win. How do you get that? Follow
the Six Rituals and you’ll build that confidence and belief.

When you have your mind right and you start realizing you
can get through anything, solve any problem, and pivot and
adjust when needed, you’ll start making some money. At the
end of the day that’s the goal, right?

So, don’t you think you should think correctly about money,
too?
Get Your “Money Mindset” Right

Being successful involves making money. The problem is

most people don’t get their mindset right about money.
Why? Because they’re taught that money is not that
important. “Don’t focus on money, don’t chase after money,
find the things that you love, and the money will follow.”
That’s not reality. You need to keep your focus on money
and stop running from it. Remember what you focus on
grows, and you want your money to grow.

Think about how you get money. How do you earn it? By
delivering value to others. Sure, you can pull off some shady
stuff in the short-term and make a few bucks, but to earn
sustainable money over time you have to provide results to
others. Therefore, every time you get paid, realize it’s proof
you’re doing good for people. You just happen to benefit
yourself and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Money has become a “don’t talk about it” subject which is

ridiculous. If you think life’s hard now, try it without money.
If it’s that important, why are we so afraid to talk about it?
Why are we so afraid to admit we want money and love
making money? It all goes back to worrying about what
other people think of us. We’re afraid to have someone think
poorly about us so we stay poor. I don’t know about you, but
that doesn’t make too much sense to me.

Let me tell you this because you need to know– money is a

tool. Once you understand that, your perspective becomes
much clearer. Think of it this way: How many tools would
you want to have if you’re building a house? As many as you
can get! Tools are not a bad thing. You’d get no respect if
you built the house with a butter knife so get the right tools.
In life money is your tool, so get your head right about it
and get enough of it to make a difference.

Growing up I always had a knack for finding things that

other people couldn’t or didn’t find. Luckily, I still have that
today, and I believe you have the same ability, too.

It all started when as a kid my dad hid a bunch of random

treasures around for adults and I was the only one who
could dig through the clues and find them. At the time I just
thought I was cool and fast, but later I realized it had more
to do with something most people miss on their way to
success; paying attention to the details.

When you’re in business the details matter. Whoever started

the “forget the details” and “focus on the big picture” didn’t
have a clue. The details and reading between the lines are
what get you paid in life. Anyone can ignore the details but
the person who knows how to look for them and put them to
use– that’s the person that’s going to make it big.

We’re all in sales (even if you don’t think you are), so let’s
look at sales as an example. What if, when a customer came
to you and started telling you everything they wanted, you
ignored it all? You’d have a heck of a time getting the sale
unless it was a true ‘lay-down.’ Even if you listened and
heard what they were saying, you’re going to miss those
sales some of the time. Why?

Because there’s always more than meets the eye. The

details are found by looking deeper and reading between
the lines. Stop focusing only on the surface level information
you have and, instead, spend more time digging beneath to
see what’s really behind the curtain.
It doesn’t matter if you’re looking for buried treasure or
trying to close a deal. The winners are always the ones that
search the details and read between the lines to find the
advantage. To find the “clues” and the “little things” that
make the difference. Those little things are what set you
apart and what gets you paid.

When I started LightSpeed VT, I realized there was

something wrong with training that was being overlooked by
the big players out there. Something was missing and I
found it by understanding the details. Since that time, I’ve
built an eight-figure business (and net worth) by leveraging
the details that everyone else ignores.

It doesn’t matter what you’re doing. You could be looking for

an edge against a competitor, starting a business,
considering a career change, or building a relationship. The
“edge” is always in the details.

If there’s so much money and gain in the details, why do so

many people ignore them? The same reason people don’t
do anything else: they either make a choice to do so or
there’s something they don’t know. If you don’t know, you’re
not at fault until you do know. And if you make a choice to
ignore them, that’s on you, but you’ll probably be a lot less
successful at whatever you’re looking to do.

Imagine you’re trying to close somebody on something. It

could be your idea, a product, a service, a belief, whatever.
Do you think you’ll have a better chance of getting what you
want if you prepare than if you just wing it? You bet you will.

When you prepare, you have to look at the details. You have
to think about what you will say when, but more
importantly, you have to think about the other person and
what they want and might say. If you spend time looking for
“clues” as to what’s important to them and what would be
enough for them to say “yes,” you’re much more likely to
find the “treasures.”

Paying attention to and leveraging the details doesn’t stop

at preparation. Whenever you’re trying to sell, close, or
persuade someone, you better be asking for and focusing
on the details in your conversation.

Make sure you’re asking the right questions to get all of the
information you need. As you’ll see later, if you’re spouting
off features and benefits and, worse, why you want them to
buy into your idea or close, you’re just telling. And telling is
not selling.

If, on the other hand, you ask questions and find out what’s
important to them, you can quickly learn how your product,
service, idea, or belief can fit in their life and make them
better off. Forcing yourself to find clues and then pay
attention to the details is the best way to keep the focus on
the other person, which always increases your chances of
success.

The good news is that looking for clues and finding “wins” in
the details isn’t that hard. When you’re dealing with people,
you just need to ask the right questions and make sure you
understand what they’re saying, even if they’re not actually
saying it.

In most situations, when most people object to something or

don’t move forward, there’s something else behind what
they’re telling you. They’re thinking one thing but saying
another. This doesn’t make them liars, it’s just the way we
work as humans.

It’s your job to look for clues and better understand what’s
actually going on “behind the scenes.” Why? Because most
salespeople don’t take the time. They don’t truly isolate and
identify the objections and it costs them a lot. (More in the
sales chapter).

Even if you’re not “in sales,” you still want to be able to

hear what people are saying even when they’re not saying
it. This is true for any relationship, including with your
spouse, business partner, or whoever. Everyone wants to be
heard, and when you’re the person who actually hears them
by paying attention to the details and reading between the
lines, you elevate yourself in their mind.

By the way, make sure you don’t assume answers. Go deep

enough and ask enough questions to get it directly from
them. Then, isolate and make sure that’s what they really
mean. You know what they say about assuming (if not,
Google it). The point is you can’t assume you know what
makes people tick, but you can ask intelligently.

If you want to differentiate yourself or stand out in any

relationships or deal, pay attention to the details and focus
on what the other person is really saying, even if they don’t
voice it. When you spend your day looking for clues, you’ll
find treasures, and probably a boatload of money.

The Bottom Line: Be prepared. Pay attention to the details,

read between the lines, and look for clues in everything you
do. Most salespeople leave a lot of money on the table
because they don’t pay attention to the “little things.”

Hear what people are saying, but more importantly what

they aren’t saying. Ask the right questions, isolate the
objection and make sure you’re not assuming. Relationships
and success are built on the details, so make sure you’re
paying attention.
Your mind can be your worst enemy or the biggest tool you
have available to accomplish your dreams and goals. The
subconscious mind works overtime to make sure you get
what you say and believe, so you better make darn sure
you’re feeding it the right information and stay prepared.
 Chapter 10
Relationships Over Money.

If you value money over relationships, soon you’ll have

neither. I know that sounds a little bit backwards when
focused on making money, however, after all the things I’ve
experienced I would say that you should always value the
relationship over the money because without the
relationship, there usually is no money. In fact, all of the
money you currently receive is from a relationship. In the
past, I have made many mistakes where I cared more about
the money or the terms of a particular deal than I was
preserving or improving the relationship that was producing
it. How smart was that? There are always opportunities to
improve relationships that sometimes cost money, but most
people are too focused on the money. Why let a little money
get in the way of making a lot more of it, right? Generally
speaking, the better the relationship the better the flow of
money. If we focus on improving and preserving the
relationship, we derive money from the longer it lasts and
vice versa. Whenever we focus on the money, we begin to
deteriorate the relationship that generates it. Most people
fail to consider that. I learned it the hard way and it cost me
deals that have easily cost me untold millions and a lot of
brain damage. You could have a relationship that pays you
$1,000 per month for example and if the person that
normally pays you $1,000 per month comes up shy one
month and doesn’t pay you, do you send him to collections
and shut him off? Not if you value the relationship. If you are
in love with the money, you would probably take actions to
get your money and probably cost you the relationship
altogether. If we had crystal balls, we would see how much
each decision actually cost us or made us depending on the
situation, but we don’t. We need to make moment-by-
moment decisions and navigate the waters with the
information we have. We hope with accurate information we
can make a good sound business decision and ensure the
best possible outcome, but in most cases, we are looking at
it from a financial perspective. A transactional perspective
instead of a relational one. If you focus on the relationship,
the money usually takes care of itself, AND it tends to
continue.

Most people are greedy and focus on the money. They would
much rather lose a great friend and get that money, than to
keep a great friend and lose that money. If you ask someone
this question you would get answers that might surprise
you.

Would you rather have a million friends or a million dollars?

Many will say a million dollars. They will say they have
enough friends, give me the money! But they will be gravely
incorrect. With a million friends you can have many millions
of dollars. If we were to truly nurture the relationships, the
money would be worthless because we would have anything
and everything we would ever want or need. So, why do we
focus on money? Why would you value money more than a
relationship? I used to, so don’t feel bad or alone. The
problem is the blade cuts both ways. You could focus on the
money and not the relationship and end up making more
money but lose the relationships and end up losing
everything. I always say, “if you value money over
relationships, soon you’ll have neither.” That’s because I
strongly believe that when we are all about to die, it won’t
be the money we remember or worry about. It will be the
relationships. If I were going to die tomorrow, I wouldn’t be
thinking about money, I would need some, but I wouldn’t be
thinking about it at all. I would be thinking about the love
and experiences we all shared. If I were on my deathbed, I
would want to be surrounded by friends and family, not cars
and watches. People will mean more in the end, so why not
live that way? If you want to live a more fulfilled life, learn
this now. Value relationships over money. Don’t let a small
thing like money come between you and your people. Value
your people and the money will always take care of itself.

This includes business relationships. A lot of people that

know me asked, “what ever happened between you and “So
and So?” (I am going to keep names out of this story) I
never see you guys doing anything together anymore.”

Well, nothing really “happened” per se, except that I

focused on the money and not the relationship and so did
he. Guess what? It cost us both a lot of money!

When I met this one individual, he was basically a one-man

band selling training to car dealers. He was not very well
known like he is now. He was just a guy who traveled
around, on the road 250-300 days a year, a baby on the way
and a wife that never saw him. When I met him, he was
pretty conservative and seemed worn out. He was making
money with his training company, but no more than a
couple million a year. He also was very interested in real
estate and did very well in it, but I didn’t notice. At that
time, I just wanted to close him on using my technology to
build a training business. I just wanted to help the guy make
more money and help myself while I was at it. So, I made
him a deal where I would invest all the money and it
required to build him a world class training system and
teach him how to sell it. In exchange, I would get a
percentage of the revenue. He agreed.
After a while, my investment began to pay off. We created a
very large training and consulting business that exceeded
50 Million per year. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t overnight. It
took quite a while, so while that was happening, I spent a lot
of time with him. I got to know him very well. I got to know
his wife and kids. We became friends. We, in my opinion,
were friends. We were above “money.” I mean, sure, we
made money together, but it wasn’t the main thing, it was a
benefit of a great friendship...a great “relationship.” Well,
not too long after he blew up, got popular and started
making REAL MONEY, he told me that he didn’t think he
should have to continue to pay me my piece, as we agreed.
He said that I should reduce it to half. I couldn’t believe it. I
was so offended. I thought, how can this prick come to me
and tell me that?! After all I did to help him build this major
company, this is how he repays me?? I was pissed, I’ll admit
it. I basically thought now that the money was coming in
big, he didn’t want to pay me what we agreed on. He
wanted to get greedy! He wanted to pay me half with no
other reason than “he was paying me a lot of money!”

As you can imagine, I quickly told him that he was not

allowed to just “change the deal.” I failed to consider our
relationship and just focused on the money I was going to
lose if I allowed him to change the deal and cut me in half.

He felt like he could change the deal. He felt like he had

paid me enough and didn’t need to keep the original deal
we had made. He valued the money he would KEEP if he
could get me to renegotiate and take half of what we agreed
to. He figured he could spend a million a month on his brand
and advertising if he didn’t have to pay me as much, so he
focused on the money and not the relationship that
generated it. It cost him too. Although we are still both
doing business together, neither of us have made as much
as we would have if we would have valued the relationship
over the money. Hell, I think even if only one of us would
have, we would be much better off today. If he would have
valued the relationship more than the money, he wouldn’t
have changed the deal. If I would have valued the
relationship more than the money, I would have simply
agreed to the new deal terms and avoided the drama.

I am old school. I believe a deal is a deal unless both parties

agree to a new one. I chose to be offended by him
“changing the deal” after the deal finally got good for me. I
accused him of being greedy and lost respect for him for not
honoring our deal. I valued the money over the relationship
too, and it cost me. I should have valued the relationship
and offered to renegotiate. I would be better off today had I
done that. I made a mistake. I can look back now and see
what I should have done differently. Don’t make the same
mistake. Don’t learn the hard way that relationships are
more valuable than the money they generate. If the
relationship goes away, so will the revenue. So, if you value
the revenue, then value the relationship because it needs to
thrive and survive in order for the cash to keep flowing.

Thankfully, LightSpeed VT is a great technology and I

learned this lesson in time. Thankfully, the guy is still my
customer and we will likely repair the relationship and
continue to make money together.

If I had continued to value money over relationships, I would

have likely kicked him off my platform, filed a lawsuit and
started a war on social media. That would have been the
worst thing for the both of us…. especially me.

The Bottom Line: Look at the whole picture before you injure
a relationship over a little bit of money. Never focus on the
money and hurt the relationship because if the relationship
dies, so does the money and then you’ll have neither. Think.
Be more relational than transactional. You will meet both
kinds of people, but the ones that are relational will help you
live much more fulfilled and happy lives than the
transactional people. Trust me on this.

Value relationships over money. Value people. Don’t make

money your only focus or you will look back when you’re old
and likely regret it. In life, in business, and in love. The
relationship is most important.

What is worth more? The golden egg or the goose that lays
them?

You must learn that all money is derived from relationships.

Make as many as you can and pay attention to nurture
them. They will be your source of revenue, favors, help and
guidance, so treat them accordingly. The best way is to be
kind.

A lot of people say, “nice guys finish last.” Not true. In the
long run, it’s the jerks that come in last. In fact, being kind is
exactly how you start relationships and nurture
relationships, so kind people are much more likely to win in
life if they are aware of this fact. You’ll have a much better
chance of getting what you want in the short-term, and
almost guaranteed to come out better in the end.

I probably don’t have to tell you what being kind means or

how to be kind. To me, it’s simply a function of thinking
about the other person in the deal or relationship and
figuring out how to get a win-win out of it. It’s about thinking
of other people and how you can help them more often. I
didn’t always think like that. For a long time, it was about
me winning. I always stayed ethical, but I didn’t look out for
the other party. I just wanted to win. The close. Their
outcome was a secondary (at best) concern for me in those
situations.

Most of the time when you’re talking to someone, whether

for a sale or a relationship, you are interested in creating a
relationship. If you value relationships, you will get more out
of life.

Think about the last time someone tried to sell you

something or do business with you and was an absolute jerk
to you. It was crystal clear that he or she didn’t give a flying
flip about you – it was all about the sale. Did you feel like
they valued the relationship more or the money?

Even if you loved the product/service/offer, did you end up

doing business with him or her? I’m betting no. And if you
did, it’s pretty darn likely you did it begrudgingly. Either
way, would you do business with that person in the future? I
doubt it. That is why the relationship needs to be the more
valued asset over the money or the sale.

Look back at a different time when a salesperson trying to

close you was genuinely kind. How much easier was it to
like that person? I’m guessing a lot. I’m also guessing there
was a much better chance you bought whatever he or she
was selling, even if you were only a little bit excited about
the product or service. Heck, you may have wanted to help
that person with a sale just because you liked him or her!
That comes naturally when you value the relationship over
the money.

Technically, you could get away with valuing money more

than the relationship when you’re selling, but your product
or service better be the best in the world with no legitimate
other option. But, if you’re kind and you prioritize the
relationship more than the money, you will likely get the
sale even if your product or service isn’t the best.

At the end of the day, it’s a lot better to be kind and cherish
the relationship. It doesn’t matter if it’s in a deal,
transaction, or life. Just be friggin’ kind and remember that
the relationship is what needs to be focused on. It’s
probably obvious, but you’ll build far stronger and longer
lasting relationships by being genuinely nice and they will
produce much more benefits that way. Most people want to
help out good people, so try to be someone people want to
help! It’s not rocket science.

By the way, there’s a big difference between being

genuinely nice and being fake. Everyone sees through false
kindness, so don’t even try. And that goes for being fake in
general, it doesn’t pay, and you’ll do more harm than good
to your relationships.

The way I look at it, that’s what all relationships are about:
you’re better off because you know me, and I’m better off
because I know you. Add in that I constantly deliver more
than expected or that you’ve compensated me to do
because I value the relationship and how much more do you
appreciate it?

I went a lot of years not understanding that valuing the

relationship was really about the feeling you left people
with. I learned it the hard way, while I was running my live
training business. Luckily, it’s how I also figured out that
effective training required a lot more than one-time
exposure.

For that client, I was scheduled and paid to be there for one
day. It was a great day teaching salespeople how to better
sell, close, and persuade and I could tell they were getting it
and loving the content. But I could also tell that they needed
more.

Even though I had fulfilled my contract and delivered

awesome content, and everyone was happy, I knew these
salespeople needed more. I ended up staying another day,
and then another day, for three total days. In that time, we
revisited the content with repetition, practiced, role played,
and tested out loud. When we were done, these people
crushed it.

That’s when I learned three things: First, I needed to find a

better way to train people (hence, LightSpeed VT). Second, I
learned that valuing relationships over money pays off more
than the opposite. Third, I discovered the four keys to
effective training, but that’s another chapter.

The Bottom Line: Be kind to people. Value the relationship

and don’t allow money to be the main priority. Don’t focus
on the cash when the relationship is what’s most important.
If there is no relationship, there is no money or benefits
coming from it. Preserve the relationship. Always do more
than you’re paid to do and expected to do. When you do,
you’ll find a lot more joy, and probably a lot more benefits
will come your way. Good people who deliver more than
expected always last. Slackers eventually go away. Who will
you be?
 Chapter 11
Get it in Writing.

People lie. It’s a fact. You have, I have, we all do. It’s going
to keep happening. We also have short memories when it
comes to remembering what the deal was, so get it in
writing. I know, I know, it’s your Mom. You can trust her.
Even if it’s your mom that you are making a deal with, my
advice is to get it in writing. It doesn’t have to be a 20-page
agreement, but it needs to be spelled out and agreed to if
you value the relationship with your mother. In most cases,
when you have the deal reduced to writing and agreed upon
by both parties, there is less of a chance for conflict. You can
always pull out the agreement and review what the deal
points were or at least the spirit of the deal. If not, it’s most
likely going to end up in a conflict or even worse, a lawsuit!
If there is one thing I can say, it is to avoid lawsuits at all
costs. Stay out of court! Stay out of the court system!
Everybody is your friend until they are sitting in a
deposition. Nobody wins going to court except lawyers.
Although this is great advice, the bottom line is this; get
everything in writing (just in case you end up in one).

I never thought in a million years I needed to protect myself

from my friends.

I had an idea to start a business, so I pitched the idea to my

friends. They liked the idea and wanted to get involved. We
all discussed everything that needed to happen to become
extremely wealthy. We all had our own roles and
responsibilities identified and we were all going to put in
equal value and effort. It was awesome. We had it all figured
out and were excited to get going. So, we just needed to
form the company and get everything going. We had agreed
to split all of the costs of forming the company but when it
came down to going down to the lawyers and writing the
check, they kept pushing it off and making excuses as to
why they couldn’t go. So, what did I do? I told them not to
worry about it and that they could just pay me back later so
I could just get it done. They quickly agreed. I spent a
couple days at the lawyer’s office and did the work to get
incorporated and set everything up. I paid the bill and
handled it all myself even though we were ALL supposed to
go, and we were ALL supposed to pay. This is when I should
have seen the writing on the wall, but I didn’t. I just got
things done because I was excited to start a company with
my friends and never doubted them for a minute. I took
them at their word, formed the company and signed over
33.333% of the shares to each of them. So, we were off to
the races! The business we formed was Desert Sales
Academy. DSA was a training company. We were going to
train people all around the nation on sales and leasing. I had
developed a really strong lease presentation called The Real
Deal and it was incredibly effective, so we figured everyone
would want to learn it, plus we could make great money
helping other salespeople get better. It was win-win.

Now, I had already witnessed the lack of compliance with

the “spirit of the deal” when they avoided and failed to pay
for setting up the company like they agreed to do, but I
completely assumed it would all get handled later. After
hitting the road and trying to sell a few dealerships on the
training, I started to realize that we underestimated how
hard it would be and how much it would cost. I was running
out of money just trying to find someone who would agree
to hire me. It was not easy, and I quickly needed to cover
some costs. As our agreement stated, we would all split the
costs, and each do our own job. Mine was sales. They were
to continue to work a full-time job so they could have the
money to pay the expenses. Well, even though they had a
job, when it came time to pay some bills, they had alligator
arms again and couldn’t reach their pockets. I was unable to
make my car payment or pay rent. I used that money to
keep the company afloat long enough to make a sale. If I
could just make a sale everything would be alright. So, I just
kept pushing, selling and working my ass off training
dealerships the “Real Deal” so we would have enough
money to pay the bills. The problem was we didn’t make
enough money to pay the companies bills and MY bills at
the same time, so I called my partners, my friends, to get
some much needed capital so the business could keep
running and I could keep from losing my car to the bank and
getting booted out of my apartment. Mind you, I was
married at the time but not happily. I was spending all of my
time trying to build the business, so I was not in a good
position with my wife on a regular basis. I can’t blame my
divorce on building the company entirely, but needless to
say, I soon had to start paying child support on top of all my
other obligations like gas, rent, dry cleaning, food,
insurance, electricity...you know, dumb stuff.

Anyway, wouldn’t you know it? When I called for the money
needed to keep the company going and not file BK, they got
amnesia. Now, this was the second time I realized that the
deal we made was not really getting lived up to. Meanwhile,
I just keep pushing and avoiding the repo man. Spending all
of my time either training a dealership or trying to sell one
on hiring me to train them. I had to keep selling or the
company would die. I always figured that my partners would
eventually save the day with the money they were
supposed to put in, but the day never really came. There
always seemed to be a reason why they couldn’t pay or why
it was going to be delayed. Although they did pitch in a few
times, they certainly didn’t live up to the deal terms we all
agreed to. So, I had nobody to get money from. I just kept
“handling it.” I would have to be very creative with what
little money I had to pay the bills and keep gas in the car to
continue to build the business. I even had to park my car
four blocks away on most nights so the repo truck couldn’t
find it. I could not afford to have my car taken. That would
have been a major hindrance for sure! Between owing back
child support and trying to keep gas in my car, I am shocked
that I was able to build the company to where it could finally
support itself and have enough left over for me to take a
few thousand every two weeks. I was in heaven. After a long
hard journey of dragging a dead horse and making shit
work, I finally felt like life was getting good. This is probably
why I didn’t focus on the fact that I basically built the
company on my own and only owned 33.333% of it. I just
focused on surviving and completely forgot to address the
issue that they didn’t live up to their end of the deal. I
figured it would all get handled in the end. I mean, they
knew that they didn’t honor the terms of the agreement and
that they were supposed to contribute more, including
working there. They were supposed to work from day one
and it took so long to get it going, they never even quit their
job. In fact, it took so long that I hadn’t even spoken to my
partners in over a year at one point. I mean, they were
basically absent from the get-go even though they were
supposed to be right there through thick and thin. They
would get a call from me on occasion to see if they had the
money or wanted to help in any way, but we never seemed
to connect. I couldn’t even get them to hire me to train the
dealerships they were managing. Can you believe it?

Now, after a while I realized that the company needed to

make some adjustments, or it would not survive. I did what I
had to do to make it work and a new company was born.
LightSpeed VT. A web-based interactive training and
communication technology company. Technically, not the
same as DSA, but we were still using the REAL DEAL and my
sales training, so I just made it a dba and kept on rolling
rather than start a new company. By this time, I had made a
deal for a software company to build the technology I
needed to continue building the company. In hindsight I
should’ve shut down the company that I owned 33% of and
started a brand new one. I mean, my partners didn’t do
what they said, and they didn’t even work there, so why not
just shut it down and chalk it off as a failure? I figured we
would all figure it out in the end and I would get my rewards
then.

Anyway, after the company finally got going, my partners

were finally ready to quit their jobs and make the jump. Can
you believe that? Right when there was money coming in
and things were looking up, they were finally ready to “risk
it all” and come help me out. Of course, they both needed a
salary in order to quit their jobs. I mean, how could they
survive if they didn’t have a guaranteed check coming
every month, right? Not to mention, that was the deal! We
had all agreed that we would all have roles and contribute
equally, remember? They sure did. They mentioned it more
than a few times when they were trying to talk me into a
job. So, I gave them both a job. It was finally going to go as
planned. Finally, we could all do equal work and they could
now be able to “do as agreed.” Are you beginning to smell
what I’m cooking? Within about 3 months, they thought we
needed to revisit the pay plan. I mean one wasn’t making
enough money and the other was not able to spend as
much time at the office as he thought. At least one had the
balls to quit and save the company some money. He said he
would rather go back to work so in case we ever need some
money to make payroll etc., he would have the money to
save the day. In the beginning, it went from “all of us”
working to build a company to ME working on building a
company and this time, it went from “all of us” to only two
of us within three months. It was a great new plan. One
could work at a car dealership and make money in case we
needed capital for the business. Sound familiar?

Now, keep in mind when this whole thing started, I gave

them two-thirds of the company thinking we were all going
to be equal. Although I only owned 33% of the company, I
went out and built the whole thing by myself with full
confidence that if the company needed money, my “friends”
and “business partners” would have my back, right? Wrong.

There were many times where the company needed money,

yet they always seem to have a reason why they couldn’t
help. They gave verbal support, but other than an “atta
boy!” they didn’t do much. After I finally got the company
where it was making a little bit of money, they suggested
that they come to work and start helping. I mean, after all,
they owned 66% of the company, right? So, like a good
friend I agreed.

Let’s jump to the important part. Eventually, the company

started making money. We had a lot of big-name customers
and were starting to grow. Right when everything seemed to
be going well, I was invited to a board meeting and my two
partners had decided that they needed to run the company
and take over. They had the majority of shares and got
together without me and agreed that I was no longer good
for the company and that they would take over. I was the
CEO and single handedly built the company, but they
decided that it was time for me to go.

Can you imagine my surprise? I worked my ass off and built

the company up and they wanted to take it, so I didn’t ruin
it. They told me that I would still own my 33% equity and
that when the company was bigger they would start paying
out dividends and that they would let me know when that
was, but for now it was their thoughts that the company
would do much better if I wasn’t running it. I couldn’t
believe it. I was getting jacked out of my own company and
to make it worse I was getting jacked by my own partners,
my friends. It was like I was living in a nightmare that I
couldn’t wake up from. There was a lot of drama. Many
other treacherous things happened in that time period too,
but it would take too long to go into them all, so let’s just
say it was a major disruption. Those two thought they could
take my company and they would have if I didn’t get it in
writing.

See, thankfully, I had a clause written into the by-laws

where my vote was always equal to all of their votes plus
one. That meant that no matter what they voted on; I would
have to agree for it to pass. So, they must have missed this
clause when they got together and voted on terminating
me. Once they realized their error, they knew they were
screwed and that they couldn’t vote me out, get me off the
bank accounts or change a damn thing. I held the power. I
held the voting rights and I held the pen. They were fucked.
As you can imagine, I was pissed. I terminated their
employment and made them a buyout offer of $2M dollars
each. After a bit of drama and a lot of negotiation, we
settled on the numbers and I bought them out. Thank God
everything was in writing or I would have been fired from
my own company and lost millions. There were many things
that happened during those years, but I will save those for
my other book I will write in the future where I tell the story
of how LightSpeed VT was built. Trust me, they should make
a movie out of it someday.

The Bottom Line is you should always get agreements in

writing. It is easy for people to forget what they agreed to,
especially when money is involved.

If anyone is offended that you want it in writing, it is a sign

to run and not do business with them at all. I don’t care if
it’s a family member or a friend, get it in writing. It is just
good practice. You can thank me later.

There is no need for a 72-page agreement filled with

legalese, but there always should be a simple agreement
that all parties can refer to if there are any questions in the
future. Personally, I stay away from lawsuits. This is why I
started a month-to-month agreement policy at all of my
companies. I think of it like this; if I can’t keep your business
then I don’t deserve your business. How can a relationship
be good if one party wants out? So, when I say get it in
writing, I simply mean for you to have a simple agreement
that states what the deal is. If you can have a document to
reference if there is any disagreement it will help resolve
any questions and tell you who is right and who is wrong. In
God we trust, all others ink up.
 Chapter 12
Own Your Shit.

If you aren’t proud and motivated, you need to be. The only
way to build a strong reputation is to own your shit. What I
mean by “own your shit” is be proud of who you are and
what you do. If you’re doing things that you’re not proud of
then stop doing them. To succeed in life, you will need to be
a good person. You will need to be reliable and somewhat
kind. You will need others. The only way to get everything
you want out of life is to deal with other people. Other
people are required, so why not learn how to read people
better? Why not learn to communicate better? Once you do
this and fully understand that other people have what you
want, you have what you need. You are the only person you
need to get anything you want out of life, but you will get
what you want from other people.

People always ask me why I’m so confident. Well, first of all

I’m not that confident. I’m more confident than most. We all
have some sort of phobia, fear or insecurity, so if anyone
thinks that they’re 100% confident in all situations, they’re
probably lying to you (and themselves).

Regardless, most people want more confidence, and for

good reason. The more confidence you have, the more
certain you are and the better you perform. It’s also the
more confident people in this world that get more of what
they want compared to those who lack confidence.
At the end of the day, confidence is two things: having a
good opinion of yourself and the memory of winning.

Think of the people you know that you say are confident. I’d
be willing to bet you say things like, “They’re cool. They’re
fun to hang around. They don’t care about what other
people think. They’re successful.” And so on. Why is this?
It’s because confident people are attractive. They pull
others to them and it looks like from the outside that
opportunity just comes their way. And a lot of times it does.

If you look up confidence, here’s what you’ll find:

“Confidence is usually defined as full trust, belief in the
powers of trustworthiness or reliability of a person or a
thing.” The point is, if you don’t have confidence, it’s usually
because you don’t have trust or belief in yourself that you
can reliably do whatever it is in question. If you want to
build that belief, you need to prove to yourself that you can
be trusted to be reliable and do certain things. You do that
with the SACRED SIX and most importantly showing yourself
that you can win and do the things you say you’re going to
do.

Imagine if you were a chess player who’d been playing

every day - and winning - for the last three years and I came
by and said, “Hey, let’s play chess. You’d say, “Let’s roll.”
Why? Because you’re confident you can win because you
have been winning. The greater the memory of winning, the
greater the confidence. The Sacred Six build your
confidence because they ingrain the habit and memory of
winning.

There is a catch, though. Before you can become confident,

you need to choose to be confident. Then, you’ll make all
the necessary choices to actually be confident and win.
Once you make that choice, you have to realize you are just
as good as anyone else on earth.

Besides being the memory of winning, confidence is having

a good opinion of yourself, and that starts with realizing that
everyone has their strengths and talents, but we all are
equally valuable. I am not talking about riches or financial
value, but moral value. Ethics and integrity. There might be
some people ahead of you financially, but no one is better
than you. That’s confidence. It’s different from arrogance.
Arrogance is when you think you’re better than someone
else. You can be ahead of someone but not better than them
as a person. That’s the point: you are just as good as
everyone else, and you need to believe that.

A lot of people want to know how I got the opportunity to be

around and work with all of these influential people. It’s not
rocket science. I became one. I saw myself as an equal, put
in the work and mirrored their actions. Like action causes
like result. I went where they went, ate what they ate, and
did what they did. I thought enough of myself to realize that
I was just as cool and just as worthy as anyone else. There is
no reason to think that other people are better than you and
they are worthy of better things simply because the world
has tried to convince you of that. Stop the merry-go-round
and do the work to build self-worth and consistently develop
yourself. It’s all about not seeing them (or me) as any better
than you (or them). Some might be ahead of me, but
they’re not better than me. Do the same, and bring a ton of
value, and they’ll not only put up with you, they’ll seek you
out. That’s all there is to it.

If you realize that you’re just as valuable as anyone else,

you’ll slowly stop caring what other people think. You
eventually become like a cat. Do cats give one damn what
people think? No! There’s something to that.
Take the point of view that you are just as good as anyone
else and deserve just as much as anyone else has. I know,
it’s not as easy as I make it sound. It takes time to build self-
trust, self-worth, and self-love, but once you do you will also
see what I learned. There is nobody better than you.

Use the Sacred Six to forgive yourself for your mistakes and
start with a clean slate and then build trust by doing what
you say you’re going to do. Focus on finding wins, big or
small, it doesn’t matter, and you’ll begin to create the
memory of winning. Slowly, with repetition, you’ll stop
caring as much about what other people think and, like an
upward spiral, your confidence will increase and never stop.
It doesn’t just appear, you have to work at it, but once you
do, you’ll realize what I’m saying is true.

One final thought: the only way someone’s opinion can get
under your skin is if you choose to let it happen. No matter
how confident you are, there are times when people will get
to you, but if you let it linger and eat you up that’s an
indicator you lack confidence.

Here’s what I do to determine if someone’s comments are

an opinion I should ignore or counsel I should consider: I
ask, “Does this agree with my beliefs?” If it does, I’ll take it
in and decide if it’s something I want to do anything about.
If it doesn’t, then it’s in one ear and out the other. My
opinion is equal to or better than theirs.

Another critical factor in owning your shit is to always take

responsibility.

Of all the things I learned the hard way, taking responsibility

and doing what you say you’re going to do hit the hardest.
For some reason, to get me to learn something earlier in life
there always had to be big pain or suffering, and not always
just for me.

Growing up, my dad had an entrepreneurial phase. Even

though he started small, he had some success as an
entrepreneur in my teenage years and we were somewhat
“upper class” for a while. When I was about 15 or 16,
though, my dad got sued for a bunch of money and just flat
gave up on his pursuit of riches and success. He lacked the
confidence and belief in himself and bought into the idea
that he was not worthy of success. Kind of an
entrepreneurial rise and then BOOM, he hit rock bottom and
we were back to “lower class.”

We were living off this road called Bauer Lane and I was

living at home and going to school like a normal 16-year-old.
I came home one day, and my dad told me to mow the
lawn. Like any good kid I said, “OK” and kind of went about
my business.

Now, my dad was a little bit of an alcoholic. He “hit the

sauce” as they say. He was functioning, but still an alcoholic
and drank pretty much every day. The funny thing is, he was
either a mean drunk, or a really frickin’ nice drunk. He was
also a bit of a “scrapper,” too.

One day, he came home drunk and I was hanging out with
my friend and had blown off mowing the lawn. When he
walked in, he looked at me and said, “I thought I told you to
mow the lawn?” “I forgot,” I said. In truth, I chose not to
mow the lawn, and I’m thinking he assumed that. All he said
was, “You forgot, huh?” and looked at me with a mean look
and said, “I think it’s time you hit the f-----g road.” He then
looked at my friend and said, “You too, slick.”
I didn’t argue with my dad, especially when he was drunk,
so I got a bag and left right on the spot. I got kicked out of
my house at 16-years-old for not mowing the lawn. Now, at
the time I was excited to not have to be told what to do all
of the time. I wasn’t scared or bummed out in any way, in
fact, I was the exact opposite. I didn’t realize that I was
going to have such a hard time or that I would never return
home again. Looking back, I often wonder what my life
would have been like if I had normal parents and didn’t get
kicked out at that age. After getting kicked out I started
couch surfing at friends’ houses until their parents would
put a stop to it. Then, I would schmooze someone else into
letting me crash at their house. This went on for a bit and it
was difficult to have any stability. Without any parenting I
soon decided to quit school. I mean, after all, who needs
school, right? I could still go to all the parties, so it didn’t
really matter to me. I’m sure any 16/17 yr. old would have
made the same choice. I could hang out all day and then
see all of my friends after school. I didn’t see any problems
with that at all. I started having to get really good at solving
problems, quit school, and headed south to learn how to
surf. Why not, right? I loved the fact that I had no more
rules, no supervision, no restrictions. I wasn’t afraid to not
have money or anything else. I just had my bag of clothes
and it didn’t bother me at all. I thought I was the luckiest kid
in the world. Perspective, right?

Truthfully, I don’t spend much time looking back on things, I

always focus on what’s in front of me. I don’t have a
“rearview mirror” in my life, so I don’t think about regrets or
“wish-I-wouldas,” but I do learn. The problem is, I learned
the hard way and paid way too much for the lessons.

It took me getting kicked out of my house and dropping out

of school at 16 with no money (or anything else, really) to
realize one thing: Take responsibility and always do what
you say you’re going to do. You always have to do what you
say you’re going to do, or you will lose. You might win for a
little while, but you sure won’t in the long run. That’s what
commitment is all about.

Where would I have been had I not gotten kicked out or if I

was parented correctly? If I had been brought up and raised
“upper class?” Beats me. I did have a lot of potential, so
maybe I’d be 10 times bigger, or maybe I’d be 10 times
worse. Who knows? But what I do know is I got kicked out of
my house for not mowing the lawn like I said I would, and it
started a waterfall of bad stuff. I spent years wandering
around losing valuable time and paying the price of not
asking for help and listening to others that have already
done it.

Regardless of how you feel about me getting kicked out of

my house at 16, you need to understand, embrace, and live
out this lesson: do what you say you’re going to do. You
have to follow-through on every commitment you make. You
may still have a home either way, but I promise that you will
lose deals, relationships, money, and whatever else you risk
if you don’t. What’s worse is you will chip away at your self-
esteem and self-worth. It will cause you to lose confidence
and end up in a place that you don’t need to experience.
Here’s the thing about learning things the hard way: you
don’t always learn the first go-round. Sometimes it takes
having a kid disappear on you to really get the message.

It turns out you’re not much more mature at 17 than you are
at 16 when you’re out on your own. Crazy, right?

My oldest daughter, Amber, didn’t even know I existed until

she was 14. It wasn’t her fault of course, it was mine. When
I was a young 17-year-old irresponsible dude, her mom told
me to show up every day or stay away. Well, in my
brilliance, I figured, “I’ll get there when I get there. I’ll come
around when I can.”

One day I showed up after not coming around for a few

weeks and she had decided to move and not tell me.
Straight took my kid and left without saying anything. It was
like that for 14 years. Here I was again getting another
lesson about taking responsibility.

There is a lot more to that story, but to keep it to the point, I

lost time with my daughter for 14 years because I didn’t
own my shit. I didn’t take responsibility and show up like I
should have. I can blame that I had no parents or that I was
young, but the fact remains. I missed out on raising my little
girl because I didn’t own my shit. If you want to truly live life
to the fullest, you need to show up and take responsibility in
all areas of your life.

Not too much later on, I had another very short-term

relationship (like one night) and got another girl pregnant.
Can you believe it? The two times I decided to try this thing
called “sex” I got a girl pregnant. It obviously wasn’t what I
wanted to happen, but it did.

The second time around was with a random girl who I had
met and decided that I wanted to drive her car. She had a
cool car and I didn’t, so when she asked me if I wanted to go
for a ride, I did. Little did I know it was going to be the ride
of a lifetime. I was not into this girl at all. In fact, I avoided
her calls for a long time, so I didn’t even know she was
pregnant until much later. I straight ghosted her and
avoided her at all costs. I had no attraction to her; she was
not exactly a supermodel and I was too busy running around
thinking I was going to be a movie star.
I refused a blood test and continued to dodge this girl for
years. She then decided to start calling my family members.
I would get calls from my sister asking me who this girl was.
She would tell me that I had a little girl named Ashley and
that her mom was trying to reach me. It didn’t work. I
started ignoring my sister too. Then, it was my brothers.
Naturally it got back to my parents. Do you think they did
anything? Nope. They never said a word.

Now, clearly, I was an irresponsible punk either way, but in

my mind, the baby wasn’t mine. Somehow, I had convinced
myself that the girl was making it all up so she could get me
to come around. I had heard that the baby looked like a guy
she was dating so I had made up my mind that the baby
was his and not my problem. I cannot fathom how I made
my little girl feel. I have very few regrets, but this is one of
them. I basically refused to acknowledge that my little girl
was mine even though her mom told me she was. I didn’t
even try to know. Imagine how my little girl felt being
shunned and ignored by her dad? You would think if I didn’t
know her, she wouldn’t know me either, right? Wrong. Her
mom would tell her who I was and showed her pictures of
me all the time. They repeatedly tried to get a hold of me
only for me to avoid responsibility and continue to ghost
them.

Ten years later I finally grew up a little, accepted

responsibility and got a blood test. Sure enough, she was
mine. Here I was running from and avoiding my
responsibilities and refusing to own my shit (the running).
How messed up do you think that was for my daughter,
especially when her mom had been telling her the whole
time that I was her dad? All she knew was that her dad
didn’t want anything to do with her. Think about that.
I cannot change the past, but if I could this is one of the
things I would change. I would never want any little girl,
especially mine to feel like her daddy doesn’t want her.

There is no reason on earth to run and hide from your

responsibilities. It’s not worth it. You want to face your
responsibilities and deal with them. You want to own your
shit and be proud of who you are and what you do. Do you
think I was proud? Do you know how hard it was to get my
self-worth back? Trust me. You will never regret facing your
responsibilities even if the consequences are not very
comfortable to deal with. Why? Because sooner or later all
of your shit will come back to you anyway. Why let it grow
worse and cause even bigger issues later in life.

Your life is made up of the choices you make, and those

choices stay with you forever. The quality of your choices
determines the quality of your life. That doesn’t mean you
can’t fix things, but it does mean you’re a lot better off
making the choice to take responsibility and own your shit.
Be proud of who you are and the only way to do that is to
make decisions and choices you can be proud of.

Thankfully, my daughter doesn’t hate me. Thankfully, she

has forgiven me for being an absent father. I am lucky.
There are a lot of people who aren’t.

Real success that lasts is built on taking

responsibility for everything you do. You simply
cannot be successful running from problems and
refusing to own your mistakes. Why? Because you
give up all ability to fix them or do anything about
them. It doesn’t matter if it’s your business life or
your personal life, always take responsibility and do
what you say you’re going to do. This is the only way
you can be proud of who you are and what you do
and that is critical in life. You will get so much farther
so much faster when you own your shit.

Let me ask you this: which of these two people do you think
has a better shot of being successful? Person “A” who
spends life blaming others and running from responsibility,
or Person “B” who accepts responsibility immediately, owns
his/her mistakes, and takes action to fix them? I’ve been
known to place a bet or two, and there’s no way I’m betting
on Person “A.”

Take responsibility and own everything you do and do it

right away. Even when you think it’s not good or seems
painful, it’s always better to take responsibility.

Relationships are everything, both personal and

professional. You need to be reliable and trustworthy, and
you do that by doing what you say you’re going to do and
taking responsibility. And, by the way, you are the only one
responsible for your success.

The Bottom Line: “Owning your shit” is about being

responsible, ethical, and kind so you can know that you are
worthy of success. You have to believe that you are worthy
to get it. How are you going to do that if you do not own
your shit? It is a mindset. You must be confident that you
are an ethical person, in who you are and your ability to
succeed. As you start to get some wins and believe you
deserve more, you’ll start getting more. You start getting
more and then you’ll gain momentum. Momentum is a force
multiplier. Once you have momentum, you will start
attracting more opportunities and then you will start to
realize that it isn’t rocket science to win. You just need to
own your shit. That’s how it works.
 Chapter 13
Choose to Be Successful.

Don’t be afraid to make decisions and fail. The faster you

learn how to do it right, the faster you get paid so you need
to make decisions to see if they were the right ones. Too
many people are afraid to make decisions. I know I used to
be, and it wasted about 10 years of my life.

Being successful is actually very simple once you realize it’s

a choice.

It might be hard, and it might take years of work, struggle,

and pain, but if you choose to be successful, then you will
be. If you choose not to be successful, then you will not be.
Why does it work this way? Because the choices you make
determine the road you take. Period.

If you don’t have something you want, it’s because, at the

end of the day, you’ve chosen not to have it. Doesn’t mean
you can’t, it means you chose not to have it. Most of the
time it’s a result of us making a choice to be comfortable,
not a choice to be (and do what’s) uncomfortable. Success
comes from taking chances, from putting yourself out there,
putting in the work, and being uncomfortable.

You have the ability to accomplish anything you want; you

just have to make the choice to do what it takes to get it
done. Most people don’t know that everything is a choice,
let alone admit it. Why? Because of their ego.
If you ask someone whether success is a choice, generally
they will say, “no.” That’s because most people do not
understand this simple rule. Success is a choice. You choose
to be, or you choose not to be. Some people will even argue
that it’s not a choice. They will give plenty of reasons how it
is not up to the individual and is strictly luck and
circumstances. It’s not. Usually those people are the ones
who will never succeed because they don’t believe they
can. They think it is a random thing that happens to random
people. When you ask them why they aren’t successful they
will rationalize and blame everything but themselves when
they should just say, “I don’t choose to be.” That’s their
choice. It’s not bad, it’s not wrong, it’s just what they
choose.

Knowing it is just a choice, why aren’t most people

successful? Where people get caught up on the way to
success is the disconnect between choosing to be and then
doing what it takes to get there. You can’t just decide and
make a choice and expect for things to appear. The choice
has to be followed by action. That action comes from the
choices you make afterwards. It’s not just one choice, it’s all
of the choices you make each day after that first decision
that build on each other and drive the actions needed to get
what you want.

Success is simple. Figure out what you want and then make
a choice to do what it takes to get it. And once you make
that choice, do what it takes. Simple, right? The problem for
most is they don’t believe it’s that easy. The problem with
others is they don’t know what it takes. If you fall in the
latter, then simply use a tool called Google and find out.
Anyone who is successful has likely talked about what they
did to become that way. Success leaves clues. You can find
out what to do from anyone who has already done it. There
is no shortage of information on what it takes to succeed at
anything. Only a shortage of people willing to do what it
takes. Identify what you need to do and then make the
choice to do it. Start with the first choice you need to make
each day and then the second, third, fourth, and so on.
When you stack these choices and actions together, you
create the outcome you want. Is it easy? For some, perhaps.
That is not the point. The point is that you need to make the
decision to be successful and then take the actions it takes.

From the time you wake up, the choices you make
determine the rest of your day and, ultimately, your life. If
you get healthy and fit, it’s because you made a choice to
be healthy and fit. You made a choice to get up at 5 am and
go to the gym. You made a choice to skip the Big Mac for
lunch.

The same goes for your money. If you double your income,
it’s because you made a choice to double your income. You
made a choice to make twice the calls or prospect 10 more
people. If you do something, it’s because you made a choice
to do that thing. The reverse is true, too. If you don’t do
something, it’s because you made a choice to not do that
thing. It sounds simple because it is. The lack of a choice is
a choice.

Anyone who wants to change their life can just by making

the choice to do so. When you make one choice, it creates
the opportunity to make more choices to support your first
decision. It’s the initial choice that changes your life, and it’s
the choices that follow that determine whether it happens or
not. Again, the choices you make determine the road you
take. Your choices determine what you get out of life.

If you want to see someone’s ability to make choices, look

at the quality of their life. If someone has success, money,
great relationships, confidence, and happiness, it’s all a
result of the choices that he or she made. You can tell the
quality of a person’s life by the quality of their choices.

What’s the difference between a bum on the corner and a

rich guy? The choices they’ve made and continue to make.
You have to accept that you are the one responsible and
capable of making the choice (and choices) to be successful.
Owning that you are the only one responsible for those
choices is what puts you in control.

You control everything because you control your reactions

and your choices. How you react to anything is your choice.
For example, if someone starts a fight with you and you
refuse to argue or hit back, you’re in control. Why? Because
you control how you react to the fight. As long as you
control the reaction (and you always do), you control the
outcome.

The quality of your life is 100% up to you and your choices.

It’s the universal law of cause and effect, of sowing and
reaping. If you want watermelon, you can’t plant corn. If you
want to be successful, you can’t make poor choices. Good
choices result in good outcomes and poor choices result in
poor outcomes. It’s that simple.

Now, I’m well aware that simple doesn’t always mean easy.
Just because you make a choice doesn’t mean that
everything falls into place. You may be willing to do what it
takes, but you may not have the knowledge you need to get
there. How do you get it? You ask yourself the right
questions. “How?” is the most powerful question you can
ask your brain.

Let’s say you make the choice to be worth $5 billion. What’s

the first question you should ask yourself? It should be,
“How do I get there?” That lets your brain go to work for you
because you are naturally wired to seek answers. Keep
asking yourself “how” and I guarantee you that your mind
will start to put answers and things in front of you that you
will start to notice.

This is how your mind - through your Reticular Activating

System - works. It filters out everything that doesn’t help
you find what you’re seeking and filters in things that will
help you get what you’re looking for. It’s that good, if you
feed it the right questions.

When you ask yourself questions, you also prevent yourself

from saying something that sends your subconscious mind
in a negative direction. For example, if your response to
your choice to be worth $5 billion was a statement, you
could end up saying, “There’s no way I can do that” or
“That’s impossible.”

If, instead, you respond with a question, you start your mind
working overtime to find the answers. Then, if you’re willing
to take action and take some risks, you can have anything
you want if you make the choice, ask the right questions
and do the work.

Choices are the way you control every aspect of your life.
Choices are the way you get what you want. Whatever you
want, make a decision or choice to get it. Refuse to tolerate
life without it. Focus on it and obsess over it and I would bet
a hundo that you’ll get it. Anyone would because it is a
natural law of the universe. If you can take this and improve
the quality of your choices, your life will be amazing. You will
be able to do, get, and become just about anything you
want. When you get good at making choices you will control
the entire direction of your life. Now, the question is, will
you make the choice to do it?
The Bottom Line: Your life is made up of the choices you
make. You can be, do, or have anything in life you want, you
just need to make the choice to be, do, or have it and do
what it takes to get it. Simple. Don’t know how? Google it.
Ask someone who has already achieved what you’re looking
to achieve. The know-how is out there. All you need to do is
find it, then do it. Like action causes like result.

Once you make a decision to change your life or become

successful, you follow it up every day with the little choices
that create the actions that get you there. Choose to be
happy. Choose to be successful. Choose to be loving.
Choose to be a benefit to the world and others. Choose to
be awesome, because you are. Now make the choice to
make it all happen. Now find out what you have to do
simple.

The problem is most people are too worried about what

other people think to make the choice to win. They are more
interested in other people’s opinions than their own, which
is why most people never really succeed in life. They listen
to people who say it’s not that easy. They listen to people
who have given up and try to get others to do the same.
They make up things that other people think!

I was at a speaking engagement a while back and invited a

guy up on stage. As soon as I greeted him and handed him
the microphone, he jumped in and said, “Hey, Brad, I
apologize for how I’m dressed. I didn’t realize I was going to
get up on stage today.”

There was another microphone so I grabbed it in a hurry and

said, “OK, hold up here,” and asked the entire room, “When
he walked up on stage, who here, and be honest, thought
anything about his clothes and what he chose to put on
today?” Guess how many people raised their hands? Zero.
Not a single person in the roughly 500 people there even
gave it a thought, yet it was the main focus on this guy’s
mind. Literally nobody was even thinking anything about
how he was dressed, yet it consumed this guy to the point
he almost didn’t even get up there.

What’s the point? That’s what we all do through life. We’re

afraid to take chances, scared to speak up, too terrified to
make the decision and go for it all because we care what
other people think. We need to value our own thoughts too.

And you know what? More often than not, other people
aren’t thinking about you anyway – they’re only thinking
about themselves! At the end of the day, whatever you
think others are thinking about you is actually what you’re
thinking about yourself. You need to stop worrying and make
the choice to succeed. If we could just step back and stop
caring about what other people think of us, we’d be so much
further ahead. That is a lesson I wish I learned the easy way
years ago.

Fear of what other people think holds you back on so many

levels. It’s like most people have been programmed by
upbringing, life, or their own thinking to want to feel safe
and protected and avoid risks. It stops you from taking
chances, from raising your hand, from asking someone out,
from launching a business, etc. It stops people from just
about everything.

I’ve never been afraid, which is odd. I’ve tried for years to
figure it out and understand why that is. I’m just not afraid
of losing and I’m not afraid of going backwards, even to
zero. It doesn’t matter what it is, I’m not afraid to step out
and put it on the line. Maybe it’s because I’ve been at zero
before, but I think it’s something else.
When you look at all the people willing to take chances, to
try something new, to take a risk, they all have one thing in
common. They respect themselves and their own opinion
more than the opinion of other people. And it’s true.

These are the people who take the chance and make it. I tell
people all the time you’ll either take a chance or you’ll work
for someone who does. That’s just the way the world works,
because to be successful, you have to take chances. They
can be smart, calculated chances, but you still have to be
willing to step out there. If you’re focused on what others
might think of you, especially what they’d say if you don’t
succeed, you aren’t even going to try.

This is one of the most important keys you can take away
here: You need to think more of your own opinion of yourself
than anyone else’s opinion of you. Stop comparing yourself
to others or what they’ve or where they’ve been.

There is no one on this earth more valuable than anyone

else. Don’t miss that. Nobody on this earth is worth more
than you! There may be some people ahead of where you
are now, but no one is worth more.

And if we’re all equally worthy and equally valuable, what

you think of you is just as valuable and worthy as what
someone else thinks of you. In fact, it’s even more so
because you are the one that has to live with you.

Stop looking to others for, “What do you think I should do?”

and, instead, ask yourself what you should do. Seek out
information that supports you growing and learning exactly
what you need to do.

Don’t compare yourself, prepare yourself. Trust me, the only

person you should compare yourself to is you, the day
before, no one else. And each day you need to be preparing
yourself to be better tomorrow than you are today.

By the way, if you are someone who puts more weight on

what others think of you than what you think of you, how’s
that working out?

Think about that - if you want something different, you need

to do something different. To do something different, to
change, you need to change your beliefs. How do you do
that? Seek new information! (You are starting to see how
important that is, aren’t you?)

You need to understand and believe that what other people

think of you is none of your business. Worrying about what
other people think will stop you dead in your tracks and
cause fear so deep that you don’t move forward, take
chances, or try something new in which, at the end, you
very well could be successful. I can’t tell you how many
times I’ve seen people not even try at something they could
win at just because they were scared of what other people
thought.

Fearing other people’s opinions is the biggest killer of

dreams. Think about what it really means if you’re worried
about what other people think about you or what they’ll say:
You’re telling yourself that you care more about what they
think than what you think of yourself. You respect their
opinion more than your own.

That is not the formula for success. They don’t need you;
you need you. Other people don’t have to live your life.
Other people don’t have to live with your regrets. And most
of the ones that will trash talk you for failing at something
you tried wouldn’t try it themselves. I guarantee you that.
You’ll never find someone who’s “made it” criticizing
someone for trying and failing, but you’ll find a bunch of
haters who’ve never tried or succeeded be the first to chime
in.

Look at it this way: who’s the only person that’s never going
to leave you? Who in this world needs you? You might say
your family, your kid, a friend, whoever. It doesn’t feel good
to admit it, but if you were gone, those people would
survive. YOU are the only person who needs you, so why are
you worried about what other people might say? You can’t
place other people’s values above your own.

If you want to succeed, win, and be happy, you need to

raise your own self-worth. You need to get confident and
certain in your own opinion, so you don’t need the opinion
of others. You don’t need to worry about asking, “What do
you think I should do?” - you just need to do what you feel is
right. It really doesn’t matter what you feel about what
other people think. What matters is what you think of you
because you’re the one that matters. By the way, this
doesn’t make you arrogant. That’s just what the haters say.
It’s OK to think you’re worth something, it’s OK to trust your
opinion.

And while you’re at it, it’s OK to be wrong! It’s OK to fail. It’s

OK to lose. You took a chance and you lost, and everyone
laughed at you.” Who gives a flip? Who really cares? This is
your life and you need to live it.

Think about all of the people you know with a “Who cares
what other people say or think?” attitude. How do you
describe them? Cool? Confident? Smooth? Why is that?
Because, guess what? It is cool, it is confident. It’s also what
you deserve.
There was a point where I finally learned this myself. I woke
up one day and said, “Who the heck is this guy? Who the
heck are these people? They aren’t any better than me.”
Again, there might have been people ahead of me, but no
one was better than me.

There’s nowhere in business this is truer than in sales, by

the way. Your prospects aren’t there as a gift to you. They
aren’t better than you. Heck, if you’re doing your job right
and training right and seeking the right information and
turning it into knowledge, you are the expert. They need
you to navigate through the waters. That makes you the
prize. You don’t have to come into it as a jerk, you just come
in not concerned with the prospect’s (or anyone’s) opinion.

I love the saying, “A lion is not concerned with the opinion of

sheep.” It’s always stuck with me because it’s so true. It’s a
frickin’ lion, why in the world would it care what a sheep
thinks? If you see yourself as a lion and you value yourself
then you really don’t care what the sheep think. The point is
that you need to stop caring what the “sheep” think or what
they might say. You are the lion, so go be a lion. Do you
think a bee wastes time trying to explain to a fly that honey
is better than shit?

I learned this the hard way too. I held on to things too long
and failed to make decisions out of fear of losing people or
losing money. I would avoid making choices because I didn’t
want to look stupid or wrong. I didn’t want to fail or let
anybody down. I was “responsible” and didn’t want to make
the wrong move. I made up every excuse in the book to
avoid making decisions because making decisions is scary
sometimes. We get judged and we look bad sometimes– so
what?
If you are afraid to make decisions, then get out of the chair.
I heard that once when I was trying to figure out how to
scale my business. I had “friends” working for me and
partners who were always looking to me to make things
happen. One day I was talking to a guy who earned over
$100 Million a year and he heard me say I didn’t want to fire
people because I felt bad for them and didn’t want them to
be mad at me. He said, “if you don’t want to make the hard
decisions then get out of the chair.”

What he meant was that you need to make decisions and

sometimes they are the tough ones. You still have to make
them. You live with your choices and they directly determine
where you end up in life. Choose to be successful. Figure out
what that looks like and what it takes to get there and go.
Stop believing the fools who think or say you can’t. You can.
Don’t listen to other people’s opinions because they may
not be correct.

One last thing. Don’t confuse seeking counsel with listening

to people’s opinion. If you want to build a 50-million-dollar
business, it’s OK to ask a person who’s built a 50-million-
dollar business what you should do. That is seeking counsel.
It’s not OK to ask your buddy who works as a cook at
McDonald’s if he thinks you should try to build one. See the
difference?

Counsel is good. You want to seek counsel on a regular

basis. The better counsel you get the better off you’ll be,
but that’s not true for opinions. Everyone has an opinion
and that is ok, as long as you are not allowing those
opinions to influence your decisions or beliefs. Whatever
you want to succeed at, seek counsel not opinions. There’s
a difference.
If you choose to let go of what other people think of you, it’s
the most freeing feeling in the world. You become
accountable to your own actions and you focus on moving
forward and doing what you need to do to win.

Imagine the mental energy and capacity you could free up if

you stopped ALL the worrying you do about what others
think. The funny thing is, I bet you’d have all the time you’d
need to step out and try whatever new thing you’ve been
debating in your head. So, go do it already.

The Bottom Line: Life is a series of choices. The better your

choices, the better your life. Don’t worry about what other
people think. If you’re a good person and you’re doing the
right thing while remaining ethical and full of integrity on
your path to helping out the freakin’ world, then who the
hell cares what other people think?

If someone doesn’t like you or someone doesn’t think you’re

good enough, so what? Don’t compare yourself, prepare
yourself, and respect yourself. Your value is as good as
anyone else’s. Seek counsel, not opinions, and don’t take
the words of haters or lovers too seriously.

Don’t be afraid to lose, don’t be afraid to take chances. Get

out there and build the life you deserve because at the end
of the day it’s just a choice.
 Chapter 14
The Essential Eight.
I think the keys to living a full and rich life are all going to
boil down to how many of the essential eight can you
master. Everyone will encounter problems and challenges,
but how you react is what makes the difference. So many
people are living average lives and they don’t know how to
change it. After living 50+ years, I think it just boils down to
eight fundamental areas that you need to master. To truly
build a life that you don’t need a vacation from requires
eight things. If you can simply master the following eight
areas, that have come to be known as The Essential Eight,
you will hold the exact ingredients of how to get anything
you want in life. If you simply take the time to understand
The Essential Eight your life will never be the same again.

THE ESSENTIAL EIGHT

#1 Mindset

Your mindset is the foundational and most critical element if

you want to succeed in life. Your mindset is basically
determined by your beliefs. The things we choose to believe
are usually what makes up our “mindset.” To change your
mindset, you must change your beliefs. The problems
nobody ever really teaches us how to change our beliefs or
mentions that we should. Nobody ever told me how and
because of that I spent many years with the mindset that
leads to a life of mediocrity. Considering the fact that your
mindset is critical to your success, I will teach you how to
change it. To change your mindset, you need to change your
beliefs. Your beliefs determine your mindset and your
mindset determines your choices and actions. So, if this is
true, then how do we change our mindset? We change our
beliefs. To change your beliefs, you simply need new
information. Sounds simple, right? It is. To change your
belief system, you just need to get new information and you
will begin to THINK! You will begin to question things and
test things out and the next thing you know you will have
formed a new belief. Begin right now and start to seek new
information every single day. A book, a podcast
(droppingbombs.com), a class, a seminar, whatever! Make
sure that every single day you don’t go to bed without
making certain that you acquired new information. This will
allow you to keep growing and learning. This will literally
cause you to become more aware, more valuable, and wiser.
A person truly can attract the things they want in life. We
can attract positive things or negative things so if you don’t
get your mindset right, you will likely attract the things you
do not want and wonder why you can never achieve shit. So
many people allow their mindset to cost them everything
they’ve ever wanted. To change your mind is a simple
exercise of changing your beliefs and to change your beliefs
you just need new information. When you read every day
and consume new information you begin to think. When that
happens, you start to question things and the universe
starts to give you different answers. If your mindset is
limited, then your possibilities are too. In order to begin
building the right mindset you must first open it. You must
allow yourself to believe that it may be possible to see
things from a new perspective and when you do that, things
begin to change. You start to learn more and see how many
ways there are to win. You start to realize there are solutions
to all of life’s problems. You start to become a problem
solver. You begin to understand that the difference between
winners and losers is their mindset; their perspective which
is how they see things. Focus on reading books and learning
how the mind works. Begin to seek information related to
having a positive mindset and be open to trying new things.
Soon you will have a more positive mindset and with it will
come momentum. Once you have momentum it becomes
easier and easier to grow and develop. Soon, you will fully
believe what all successful people do. Without a positive
mindset you are destined to remain in the rat race. If you do
not believe it is possible to literally think your way to riches,
then it won’t be. On the other hand, if you do then it is.

Master your mindset and continue to do so. It is the

foundation of the Essential Eight.

#1 Discipline

To succeed in life, you must have discipline. Discipline is

simply controlling your inner voice. Having the power to
control your inner voice is critical. Once you realize that it is
simply a choice, things get much easier. Discipline will be
required for reaching your full potential. Most people do not
have the discipline to do the things required to get what
they want. They give up too early and they allow challenges
to put them back into a negative mindset. The best way that
I have found to develop the discipline you need is to commit
to doing #75 HARD. If you don’t know what #75 HARD is,
then google it. My friend Andy Frisella created it to do one
thing. Help people develop discipline so they have a fighting
chance at success. Oh, it also gets you in pretty good
physical shape as well, but the real value is it teaches you
that you have the power to silence your inner voice when
you start to negotiate with yourself. If you truly want
everything you claim, you want then you cannot negotiate
with yourself on what it takes to get it. You have to have the
power to tell yourself that you do not negotiate with yourself
and that is called discipline. You can live a decent life with
mediocre discipline, but if you want to be the KING or
QUEEN and have it all, you had better understand that
discipline is the key. The hard shit is what causes most
people to quit and that is why most people never succeed.
Discipline is what allows you to do the hard shit and the
hard shit is what gets you paid beyond what most people
get paid. Trust me, go and do #75 HARD and tell Andy I sent
you.

#1 Habits

Your habits are critical. You either do the right things or you
don’t. Once you create the right habits, you create the right
results. Habits can be formed, and they can be broken. If
you don’t know which habits to form read The 7 Habits of
Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. Once you learn
those you can easily create new habits (if you need them)
that will cause you to achieve anything you want in life. If
you can understand that your habits will literally determine
your outcome, you can easily form the habits that lead to
your goals and objectives. If you want to be in great shape,
form habits that will cause that. You can’t run five miles a
day and be fat. If you want to be financially free, then form
the habits that will cause that. The habits you form and the
habits you break will literally determine how your life turns
out. Why not master the art of forming and breaking habits?
Habits or consistent actions are going to be what catapults
you to your dreams or what causes you to feel stuck. Good
habits cause good results and bad habits cause bad results.
I wish it was more difficult than this so I could claim to be a
genius, but the truth is that it’s not. You just need to
understand the very basic principle that you can form, or
break habits and those habits are what will cause you to win
or lose in life. A few habits that cause good things to happen
are; working out, eating healthy, hydration, moisturizing,
being kind, helping others, reading books, smiling, doing
what you say, following me on social media…. you get the
point. Habits that will cause you to lose are lying, cheating,
stealing, eating unhealthy food, not working out, not staying
hydrated, not moisturizing, smoking, drinking alcohol to
excess, drugs, being unethical, not reading, not learning
anything new, etc.

Don’t make it harder than it is. Take inventory on what your

habits are and break the bad ones and form the good ones.
It is not really all that hard, it just requires a little discipline.
The most successful people in the world have formed great
habits and the ones who are struggling have poor habits. If
you realize the effects of good habits and poor habits are
what causes your life to be what it is, you can easily see
how to fix or improve your life. Habits. Take inventory of
your habits and see which ones need to be broken and
which need to be formed and you will literally have the
formula to change your life. Too many people want to blame
others and come up with excuses (which is also a habit)
rather than take responsibility and simply change their
habits. Who you hang out with, what you do on your time
off, what you eat, where you go, what you read and watch
are all habits that can take you to the top or keep you from
getting there.

#1 Resources

If you want to win in life you must understand that what we

have access to matters greatly. Our resources (what we
have access to) can make or break you. Our resources, or
lack thereof, will allow you to expedite the journey and give
you an advantage or cause you delay and turmoil. Usually,
the person with the best resources wins. If you become
resourceful, you’ll have never ending resources. Focus on
relationships. They seem to be the best source of resources
and can easily be cultivated and leveraged to make
introductions, leverage assets and use the power of
networking. The person with the most tools can usually
build things faster than someone who just has a butter
knife. So, if this is true, and it is, then the question is how do
we get more resources so when we need to build something
or accomplish something, we have access to the right
resources? The answer is relationships. Someone you know
has things you may need and vice versa. Be willing to help
others and lend your resources to others and they will be
more likely to do the same. Being resourceful is just a
matter of being aware of your surroundings and having an
abundance mindset. There are always solutions and
resources in every situation if you’re willing to take
inventory and pay attention. Do not be closed-minded and
focus on the problem. Be open-minded and focus on the
solution. The most resourceful people are the ones with the
biggest network. That is why it is so important to meet as
many people as you can and get into the habit of staying in
touch. If you focus on building relationships and providing
value to each and every one, your network will grow and so
will your resources. If you do this long enough, one day you
will realize that you have access to just about anything you
will ever need to build the life you have always dreamed of.
Usually it takes a few phone calls and the necessary
resources become readily available. Or, wait until you need
something and then you’ll wish you applied what I have
covered here. Don’t make it harder than it is. Go meet
people and keep in touch with them. Offer value and help
whenever you can. Reach out to them on a regular basis
without asking for anything. Just remember the three C’s if
you can’t figure out what to say. The three C’s are:
Congratulate, Compliment, or Console. There are always
opportunities to congratulate someone, compliment
someone or console someone if you are paying attention
and willing to reach out. Trust me, this will pay off big time.
#1 Skills

Skills are to success as arrows are to a target. Even if you

have them, unless you use them you will miss the target
every time. Skills are critical. You must have and acquire
certain skills to become successful. The skillsets needed in
this day and age to kill it in the marketplace are what I call
KILL SETS. The KILL SETS most useful in today’s economy,
especially if you want to get rich are all easy to acquire with
a little work, discipline and focus. Once you get fairly good
at each of the following skills, you will be able to make 7-8
figures almost without question:

KILL SETS

#1 Sales - The ability to sell, close, influence and persuade

are the most important skills one can acquire. Whether or
not you think you are in sales, you are. Master the skill and
never stop learning.

#1 Marketing - The ability to generate interest in you, your

product or service is critical. You can also get rich doing this
for others who are too naive or lazy to learn how to do it.
You should focus on digital marketing but learn everything
you can from tip to tail. This one is the differentiator and will
put you in high demand. I think it is even more important
than sales because if you are the best closer on earth but
have no one to close, you will starve, but on the other hand,
if you can generate leads and interest and are only an
average salesperson you will eat every night. Master the
game of marketing. Get Alex Hormozi’s book called The
100M Offer and go from there.

#1 Communication - The ability to communicate is so key

that I bought the domain KEYMUNICATION.COM.
Communication skills will set you apart from most and you
will have a big advantage in life. Communication allows you
to make people feel certain ways and experience different
emotions. Communication skills will allow you to provide
clarity and certainty when others cannot. Trust me, learn
everything you can about communication.

#1 Personal Branding - The ability to build a personal brand

can be used or sold for huge money. One of the single
fastest ways to get rich is to build a massive personal brand.
If you are not sure why, look at Jake and Logan Paul or any
other major Youtuber. Learn it. Master it. Build one.

#1 Social media - The ability to leverage social media is so

critical. The days of thinking it is a fad are over. The one
who can leverage social media the best is the one who will
have the world at their fingertips. You can reach almost
anyone; you can target almost anyone, and you can make
millions of dollars with just this one kill set alone. If you
aren’t already on social media, you are non-existent to the
world. If you have a private account or don’t really
understand how to leverage it, get moving! There are new
ones coming out all the time. It is NOT too late.

Learn as much as you can about each of these and continue

to study each as if your life depends on it, because if you
plan on being successful, these skills will prove to be your
biggest assets. Doctors go to school for 10 years and cannot
make a fraction of what a talented salesperson can. Learn
the skill of marketing and you will never go broke in your
life. Every company is in need of an expert marketer. The
power of communication allows you to make friends, make
deals, make amends and whatever else you need to do in
life. The power of communication is key to having the ability
to perform the rest of the 5 key kill sets. If anyone truly
became decent at all of these skills, they would join the 1%
without a doubt. Do whatever you can to master them. Do
not give up. If you are wondering where to begin...start on
Google. Type in CLOSERSCHOOL.COM and then join.

#1 Relationships

Relationships are the single fastest way to becoming

wealthy. The more hands you shake the more money you
make. All revenue comes from a relationship of some kind.
Once you realize that money comes from relationships, you
will make as many as you can. So many people go through
life and never understand this fact. People are the key to
your wealth and everything else you want in life. Seek them
out. Make as many as you can and care for the ones you
want to keep. Reach out often and seek to provide value.
Nurture them and value them beyond money. If the
relationship dries up, so does the money. If you haven’t
already, get the book, How to Win Friends and Influence
People. Read it a hundred times. Master the five KILL SETS
described above, re-read this book over and over and you
will be able to build the best relationships ever. The most
important relationship is the one you have with yourself. I
cannot stress enough how valuable confidence and self-
worth is. If you don’t value yourself, it is because you
haven’t done the work. It is easy to fix and will prove to be
the most important relationship in your life. You are the
most important person in your life. If you want to meet the
one person who can make you rich or make you lose, go into
an empty bathroom and look around. You will see them
looking back at you. When you do, be extremely nice to that
person, they can make you or break you. Re-read the
chapter with THE SACRED SIX until you begin to feel like you
have value and remember that you do. You are so unique to
the world! There is nobody else like you and that is
extremely valuable. Now, you need to realize it. Once you
value yourself, go and introduce yourself to as many people
as you can. The more people who know you the better.
Every day is an opportunity to meet new people and you
should focus on it every day. Don’t let a day go by where
you don’t meet at least 5-10 NEW people. If I could go back
and tell my 18-yr. old self one thing it would be this. Your
network is your net worth. Do not question it. A great way to
meet new people is to share this book and then ask them
about what they thought of it. ;)

#1 RoadMap

If you want to get anywhere in life, wouldn’t it make sense

to figure out where it is before you take off? Most people
chase success without even knowing what it looks like. I
have asked people what they want out of life and they
pause, look up and say, “ummm…’ Try it for yourself. Go ask
any one of your friends’ what success looks like to them and
most will not have a quick answer because they haven’t
taken the time to figure it out. If you plan on accomplishing
something, it really helps to know what it is before you can
expect to get it, right? Are you just hoping it happens? Are
you just hoping to stumble upon it? I spent years trying to
“get rich” and “become successful” and I didn’t even know
what it was that I was looking for. Coincidentally, I also
never found it until I did. If you take the time to get specific
and really decide what you truly want in life, then you can
visualize it. If you have no mental image of what it looks like
you cannot visualize it. Visualization works so you need to
get clarity on where you’re going, what it looks like and how
you’ll get there. It will make a massive difference in how
long it takes, trust me. That is your Road Map. Take the time
to map out exactly what you want. How much money is
“rich?” Where will you live? Who will you be friends with?
Who will you share life with? Once you have determined all
of the things that means “success” to you, you can begin to
see how to get it because you can visualize it. You will also
begin to see what it is NOT so you can avoid the things,
people and situations that will take you away from your
desired destination. The more clarity you have the better.
This is your roadmap. Spend time every day defining it or
visualizing it and you will arrive much quicker. I have seen
people arrive at what they “thought” was successful and
they ended up committing suicide because they were
chasing what other people thought success was. They didn’t
spend the time determining what they truly wanted and
valued. There is no key to success. It is a combination, and
everyone has their own. Do you know yours? I implore you
to take the time to decide what it is and get as clear as you
can. See it so clearly you can describe it down to the littlest
details and you can thank me later.

#1 Knowledge

Knowledge is a resource only a fool travels without. Seek it

daily and always remain open-minded. Read, Listen, Write
and Speak every day. Spend time seeking new information
so you become more valuable to yourself, the world and
everyone that knows you. The more valuable you are, the
more money you’ll have. As soon as you fully value yourself,
you will always earn the money that equals it. You can never
have too much information and knowledge. Don’t waste
years not reading, speaking and writing. Get to really know
yourself. You learn more about yourself when you think. You
think more as you read and learn new information. I spent
years without reading. I thought I knew everything. I was
wrong. Not only didn’t I know everything, I didn’t even know
myself. Until I started reading and seeking new information
on a regular basis, I was just idling and floating through life.
If I could go back and tell my younger self a few things to do
to make my life easier, reading, writing and speaking would
have been on the list.
I wish I would have been reading books and seeking new
information since I was young. All that wasted time has cost
me years. Don’t make the same mistake I did. Start reading
every single day. Listen to podcasts (droppingbombs.com),
take courses. Just make sure you learn new things every
day. Knowledge is power and applied knowledge is magic.
Get that knowledge on a daily basis and keep getting it. You
will thank me later.

The essential eight will prove to be your most valuable

assets. If all you did from now on was master these eight
essentials, you would live the life of your dreams and get
everything you’ve ever wanted. FACTS.
 Chapter 15
STOP PROCRASTINATING.

As I sit here and think about starting the next chapter, I

can’t help but to think about how long I have taken to write
this book. I have had hundreds of people ask me “when’s
the book coming out? I pre-ordered it almost a year and half
ago!’ I just kept saying, “soon!” I thought I would finish “this
weekend” so many times I would have lost a bet ten times
over. I wanted to make sure this book was good. I wanted to
make sure you got major value and shared it with everyone,
so I just kept thinking, “I will finish it this weekend. I have to
make it better.” Then, COVID hit. Then, more time passed. I
just kept thinking that I would do it “next weekend” and
next weekend never came. There was always something
keeping me from finishing the book. There was always some
excuse as to why I couldn’t or didn’t just get it done. I
wanted it to be better. I wanted it to be a certain number of
chapters. I wanted it to be so full of valuable knowledge
everyone would rave about it and it would change people’s
lives. Many people offered to “ghostwrite it” for me and just
slap my name on it. I couldn’t allow that, in good
conscience. How could I say I wrote a book when I had
someone else do it? Nope. I’ll finish it next weekend, I
thought. Writing a book was much harder than I thought. It
took more time than I thought. I will finish when I finish, I
thought.

Then, today it dawned on me. The most valuable lesson of

all. Tomorrow is never promised. My bullshit excuses and
procrastination has likely cost many people far more than I
can ever imagine by not finishing it, getting it out and
letting them read it. For that, I am sorry.

As much as I would like to continue writing chapter after

chapter, I feel if I don’t get this book out NOW, there will be
people who never get a chance to read it... and that is a
price I am no longer willing to pay.

Procrastination will cost you more than you can imagine. It

can cost other people more than you can imagine. If we can
just stop procrastinating, our lives will be much better off
and so will the lives of many others. Stop procrastinating. It
is the number one killer of dreams. Enough said.

I am done procrastinating. This book is d one. There is

already enough information in it to change many lives. I
hope yours is one of them.

Your biggest fan, Brad Lea

You can find me:

BradLea.com

LightSpeedVT.com

CloserSchool.com

@therealbradlea