“Whoever said money can’t buy happiness simply didn’t know where to go shopping” - Bo Derek

“Some people have more money than sense………..something to which I aspire!” - Luke Hawthorne

“So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?”

- Ayn Rand

Check this out:

Okay, a little swearing never hurt anybody, and be honest, you liked it, right!?  Now for the serious stuff.

The video above is very much like many marriages…….fortunately mine isn’t one of them.  Current estimates are that half of all marriages in the U.S. will end in divorce.  Not good, but hey, that’s not what THIS post is about.

The point I want to make is how people get into so much debt.  Think it’s easy to get into debt?  Of course it is.  All you need to do is spend MORE than you make.  Simple right?  It SHOULDN’T be simple though.  You should make it one of the most difficult things you can do.  You should look at how much money you have each month (or week) and spend only a percentage of it.

If you spend ALL of it, you’ll always be dead-even.  Spend MORE and you’ll be in debt AND start sprialling into WORSE debt, because you will have to pay INTEREST on the money you’ve borrowed.  The lenders (loansharks, credit-card companies, banks etc.) make their money this way.  It’s what banks have always done to make money.  What, you thought your money just sat their in a vault waiting for you?

Look, you can sell your time (your life) in exchange for money, or you can create a business that earns you money while you either build-up the business to make even MORE money, or you can play golf or go fishing. Whichever of these two choices you make is fine.  It’s fine with me, with your wife, your banker……….and many others.  It probably won’t be fine with your friends because they will be envious of you, so they’ll either try to talk you out of doing it, or they’ll simply shun you……………or try to get money from you!

The ONE thing that will NEVER be fine with me, your wife or you banker is that you get into debt by spending more than you earn and then DON’T PAY IT BACK!

Only your GOVERNMENT is allowed to do this!  Don’t believe me?  Well, of COURSE they can because THEY MAKE THE LAWS.

What’s my point?  Nothing really, I’m just ranting.

I think I’ll watch the video again.  In this economy I need a good laugh!

Luke.

“Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.” - Jim Rohn

Nikola Tesla, that’s who!  Tesla won the electrical-distribution battle.  He is responsible for AC voltage as opposed to Thomas Edison’s DC voltage, which is great for small local applications like toys and electric cars, but is useless for long-distance applications like lighting up and powering a city or a country.

But guess who died broke???  Same guy, Nikola Tesla.  You see, though he was no doubt a REAL genius, who didn’t have much idea about money.  He gave up many of his royalites that Westinghouse owed him, so that that company wouldn’t go out of business.  He was amazing successful as an inventor and engineer, but had the entirely wrong idea about money.  Money was just a means to an end to him, which is a good thing, but he simply didn’t realize that he had to MANAGE his money.  He couldn’t manage his SUCCESS!

Thomas Edison, on the other hand, was an incredibly good businessman.  He invented and produced products that people wanted the benefits of, and he did this not through genius-insight (like Tesla) but through sheer hard-work and lots of trial-and-error (LOTS of errors, but he NEVER QUIT TRYING).  He then took the products to market using other people’s money, just like any great businessman would do.

So, back to Mr. Napleon Hill.  What did Mr. Hill glean from all of the successful people that he spent 20 years interviewing?  The person who actually gave Napoleon Hill the commission for interviewing these successful people was Andrew Carnegie (not to be confused with Dale Carnegie who was not related to Andrew).  Hill’s payment for doing this 20 year study?

Nothing!  Huh!?  NOTHING???  Yep, no money, BUT he would be given introductions to the interviewees by Andrew Carnegie (one of the most powerful and wealthy men in the world at the time and the man responsible for public libraries).  Hill would also be allowed to use any material he obtained to write his book.  That was payment enough for him, and it still earns Hill’s estate money to this day based on royalties for the book he published in 1937!

So what exactly WERE Napoleon’s rules, his rules for success?  Here are some of them:

1. Definiteness of purpose - knowing WHAT you want

2. Mastermind group - be with like-minded people who want success

3. Attractive personality - people are drawn to strong, confident people

4. Applied faith - believe in what you WILL achieve

5. Going the extra mile - give MORE than what is expected of you

6. Persistence - NEVER quit (just like Thomas Edison)

7. Self discipline - control YOURSELF, don’t let others control you

8. Learning - learn from defeat and failure and keep moving towards your goal

9. Focus - when you’re doing something, do it with all of your attention

10. Habit - get into good daily habits, which will naturally get you out of bad habits

There are others (read the book!) but these are some key ones.  Try to understand that though you have thousands (millions really) of choices in your life, there are only two main choices.  You can either let life happen TO YOU, or you can MAKE A LIFE FOR YOURSELF.

The difference between the two are MASSIVE but to make the difference doesn’t take a lot; just small choices every hour of every day.  Will you write that extra article to promote your site.  Will you work that extra hour. Will you eat that extra piece of cake. Will you run that extra mile. Will you smoke one less cigarette each day and so on.

Nobody has control over your life UNLESS YOU GIVE THEM CONTROL!

Follow Napoleon’s rules and control your own life.  The alternative is unimaginable and certainly not something any sane person would want to live through.

Luke.

No, not Bonaparte, Hill!  Napoleon Hill that is.

Napoleon Hill is most famous for his book ‘Think And Grow Rich’ which is one of the best selling books of all time.

He was really an investigative journalist who died in 1970 at the age of 87.  He is THE father of all personal success literature, and if you haven’t read this book yet, I suggest you get yourself a nice inexpensive used copy off of Amazon (or similar).

What is significant about Mr. Hill (other than being raised dirt-poor) is that he was little more than a newspaper writer for a local Virginia newspaper who hit upon the idea of finding the formula for success…………success in ANYTHING.  How did he do this?  He interviewed as many successful people as he could and took the essence of what they all told him and put his findings into his short book. Who did he interview?  Here are some of them:

Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, Charles Schwab, F.W. Woolworth, William Wrigley and a few Presidents also.

So, do you think, after 20 years of speaking with these kinds of people he knew what he was talking about?  Yep, darn right he did.

Now, I’ve never really been one for all this “positive thinking” stuff, BUT (and this “but” ISN’T negating everything prior to it…………I promise) I DO believe that NEGATIVE thinking ABSOLUTELY will bring you down and keep you down.  So, because of that alone, thinking positively HAS to be better than the alternative.  Personally, I’m more of a realist (yes, I know EVERYBODY thinks that they are realists, but that’s patently not true of most, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many religions in the world!).

A prerequisite for success in business is realism.  Don’t let the hype fool you; running a business takes work and starting a business takes a LOT of work.  However, you’ve chosen the right field in which to start your business, because making money online gives you the opportunity to make mistakes and correct them without much loss of working capital or customers.

Do you need to be a genius to start and run a successful business?  Absolutely not! (see article on Donald Trump).  There have been a few real geniuses in the world (Leonardo DaVinci, Galileo, Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin etc.) and many of them never achieved financial success, though some did.  However there are THOUSANDS of normal AVERAGE people who HAVE made financial successes of themselves.

There’s a famous battle between two of my heroes, one of whom was a REAL genius and the other was a great businessman.  You can decide which was which.  Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla fought for many years over using two different systems for transporting electricity around the world.

Can you guess who won the battle?

Part II tomorrow

Luke

“Success produces success, just as money produces money” - Nicholas Chamfort

“A fool and his money are soon elected” - Will Rogers

“A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money” - W.C. Fields