Contents

Foreword by T. Harv Eker
Introduction
1. Live the American Dream
2. Be Your Best at Whatever You Do
3. Make a Decision to Be Wealthy
4. Eliminate Time Constraints
5. Step Out of Your Comfort Zone
6. Overcome Self-Imposed Limitations
7. Manage Yourself
8. A Strategy for Success
9. Build Lasting Relationships
10. Develop Your Leadership Skills
11. The Power of Letting Go
12. The Beginning
Conclusion

About the Author
Index

Introduction

Money is an uncomfortable subject for most of us. We have a love affair with money and at the same time we fear it. We can’t live without it and we can’t live with it. Most people would rather talk about their sex lives than money. Depending on how you relate to money, it can bring great joy into your life or it can make you miserable. Money influences every area of our lives--our professions, our families, our recreation and leisure time, our home, our lifestyle, even our spiritual pursuits. Almost everything we do, every decision we make, is influenced by money. There are five ways to have more money:

1. Clear up your debt. This approach usually fails, because clearing your debt takes money, doesn’t it? An all too familiar “catch-22” . . .

2. Spend less. But in order to spend less, most people would have to clear up their debt. And of course, this approach usually ends in failure because to clear debt takes what? More money.

3. Invest. In order to invest, what do you need? More money, right? And in order to have money to invest, you need to clear up some debt. And of course, to clear debt you need . . . more money.

4. Earn more. The problem with this approach is that most people have been conditioned to believe that they are earning as much as they can based upon their current expertise or education. They would like to learn a new talent that might earn them more, but the problem is that this takes time . . . and of course, more money.

5. Change your “relationship” with money. This is the one we focus on in this book. While most people feel powerless when it comes to having money, the truth is that most people give their power away to frustration, doubt, worry, and a host of other fears. The only way to have more is to change how we view money and to change our relationship with money. In order to have more money in your life, you have to do something different. And in order to do something different, you have to first know something different can be done. And in order to know something different can be done, you have to first suspect that your present method needs improving. It has to become painfully obvious that change is definitely required. And lastly, you have to be open for a better way--a new approach to making money.

THE STREAMS OF EXPERIENCE
The book flows from two separate streams of experience in my own background. The first is personal; the second, professional.

I developed a solid work ethic at an early age. My family-- mother, father, two sisters, and one brother--worked in the cotton fields in Oklahoma. In the summer, we would “chop cotton,” cutting the weeds out that could potentially smother the crop. In the fall, we would pick cotton. Chopping cotton was hot, grueling, back-breaking work, and for very little money. The only thing harder was picking cotton. We earned a flat rate of two cents a pound (and cotton weighs very little). Needless to say, we didn’t make much money, but we did learn how to work hard.

There were two valuable lessons I learned from my early work experience. The first lesson was that working hard wasn’t the answer to earning more. The second lesson was that people often compromise their true potential because of what they have come to accept as their “lot in life.” Their “internal computer programs” are so strong and so ingrained that they feel there is no hope of having more than what someone else tells them they’re worth.

By seventeen, I had dropped out of high school. I got married at eighteen and started a family, with my first son being born when I was nineteen. My first real job was at a gas station, where I worked ten hours a day, six days a week, for one dollar per hour. My take home pay was $52.10 a week. It was a hard job and I worked hard. But for all my hard work, after a year I was still earning one dollar per hour. Again, it re-affirmed that working hard wasn’t the answer to earning more.

My next job was working on an assembly line in a factory. I made $1.67 per hour, but I could only work forty hours a week, so I made about the same amount of money as at the gas station. I worked hard to perfect my efficiency, but even though I was one of the top workers in the factory, I was still paid the same. I was beginning to get it--you could only earn so much trading your time for money working with your own two hands.

After five years at the factory and going nowhere, I was introduced to direct selling in a business of my own. I was an “entrepreneur!” I couldn’t spell the word, but I was one! I got the bug. The moment I was introduced to the concept, a light went on in my head, and right then I became “unemployable.” I knew that I could never work for anyone again.

I went through a lot of ups and downs the first few years, especially the first year (more about that later). But I never lost that entrepreneurial spirit--the light never went out and it still burns brightly today.

SHARING MY SECRETS
I have been involved with many entrepreneurial ventures, from marketing various consumer goods to formulation of nutritional products, from owning medical clinics to home building, from infomercial marketing on television to publishing, and many others. Was every venture successful? No. But I learned just as much from the unsuccessful ones as from the successful ones.

As I gained more experience and became more successful in multiple businesses, I wanted to share my knowledge and my newfound freedom with others. I resolved to make a significant contribution toward helping men and women capitalize on their talents to achieve more satisfying lives. Because of my professional experience and success as an entrepreneur, I decided to begin coaching and training others on how to be successful.

Over the last three decades, what has captured my attention and the majority of my effort has been sharing what I learned about being a successful entrepreneur. Others who want more out of life--who want to enjoy greater financial achievement--have listened and learned, and I have heard many success stories where I played a part. I have had the opportunity to work as a consultant, a trainer, and a success coach to over three hundred companies and their employees. I have shared my entrepreneurial insights in seminars with more than a million people from all walks of life. I’ve utilized these principles to coach thousands toward greater success, and many of them have gone from being average wage earners to earning fortunes in their own business.

Whether you are already in a business of your own and want to take it to a new level, or you want to learn how to become a successful entrepreneur, I’ll help you discover the missing piece to that elusive financial puzzle. I promise that when you learn to work freely and easily with the principles in this book, your business will become “intentionally successful.”

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