There’s no way around it: those who aren’t extraordinary athletes or entertainers but who still want to get rich have to get good at sales. Whatever that may be, even for artists, or whoever. You have to more specifically not only get good at sales, but good at closing sales.

Now how do you close a sale? There’s three or four ways to do it. The best way is the invitational close. ‘Do you like this? How does this sound?’ You invite feedback. ‘If it sounds pretty good, why don’t you give it a try?’ Assume that when you’ve answered a question or an objection, it’s the equivalent of them having decided to buy.

Or you can use what’s called an alternative close. ‘Would you prefer this or that?’ You offer a choice between A or B. The probability of them picking one or the other goes up dramatically if they have a choice, and whichever one they say ‘Yes’ to, you’ve made a sale.

Here’s a neat trick from one of the masters, Brian Tracy: if you get the customer to give you a single piece of information, you’ve successfully used the power of suggestion. ‘How do you spell your last name exactly?’ If they give you the spelling of their last name, they’ve bought the product. It’s very powerful.

In the end, the most important quality for sales success is boldness. All qualities are habits, habits of thought and action. Because of childhood conditioning, we have these fears of failure and rejection, but those are learned because children have no fears. We learn them as we grow up, but that also means we can unlearn them. The way you unlearn the fear of failure and rejection is by doing the opposite of what you would do in a failure or rejection situation.

When we back away from the fear, it grows and grows. Soon it dominates our whole life, and it paralyzes us. But when you confront the fear; when you do the thing you fear, it gets smaller and smaller and becomes manageable. So for the rest of your life, you make a habit of doing the thing you fear. You make a habit of confronting the fear.

Pretty soon, you develop the habit of courage. You reach the point where you’re not afraid of anything. The key to your success as a person and as an entrepreneur is to develop the habit of courage. The way that you do it is every single time you feel a little bit scared or nervous, you attack. You move toward the fear situation. You pick up the phone. You make the call. You knock on the door. You ask for the order.

Whenever you feel afraid, do the thing you fear. In a week, a month, a year from now, your fears will diminish. As your fears go down, your confidence and your self esteem go up, and you start to feel fabulous about yourself. You start to feel unstoppable.

What were some of the fears you’ve had to overcome in your life that held you back from success? What once seemed like a mountain but now more resembles a molehill? Give us your feedback. We want to hear from you!

For Your Freedom,

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As 2014 has swiftly arrived, we are brought to that time of the season when most of us take to planning and plotting the next 12 months of our lives. If you’re already considering your to-do lists and new years resolutions, then you’re on the right track, but you’ll need to be careful in making your plans in order to be sure that you’re able to use them to your advantage!

Set Goals

The first rule of making progress in anything you do is setting goals, allowing yourself to always have a finish line in sight. This provides a boost in motivation during those moments when slogging forward seems impossible, giving you something tangible to work towards at every moment.

Whether you’re planning positive changes to your work or personal life, take note of the things that you want to achieve by the end of the year, and what you’ll need to do in order to get there. With these goals firmly in heart and mind, you’ll have just what you need to propel you in the right direction.

But wait…

Set Reasonable Goals

Goals are great, but what if those goals are only barely achievable? Like a high-risk gambler, you stand to gain the most when you meet sky-high expectations, but your chances of any success at all are well below par.

In order to limit your risk of perceived failure, be sure not to aim too high when setting your goals. Take the time to consider your history and your present circumstances, planning to hit milestones that are within reach instead of shooting for the stars and coming up short.

That’s not to say that you’ll never reach the stars, mind you – only that you’ll need to get to them in incremental steps.

Set Reasonable, Incremental Goals

Alright, you’ve got goals set that are useful, reachable, and will serve to take your endeavors to the next level throughout 2014. With the whole year plotted out ahead of you, it may seem that you’re ready to close the books on another successful year planned and get started with the heavy lifting.

 Not so fast.

You may feel particularly pumped up about achieving your goals now, but what about that inevitable day when inspiration is lacking and your goals seem further away than they did the day before? Whether it’s a day, a week, or a month away, that time will come, and you’ve got to narrow your plans even further if you want to get yourself on the right track without fear of hitting a serious bump.

Overarching goals are a necessary thing when you’re taking in the big picture, but life isn’t a big picture; on the contrary, life happens minute by minute, and that means that you’ll also need a more focused view. In order to achieve maximum momentum and build the kind of habits that lead to long-term success, be sure to set incremental goals that take you from point to point towards the place you visualize yourself being at the end of 2014.

No matter what your goals are and what aspect of your life they apply to, good planning and hard work will get you there – good luck!

What are your plans to make 2014 the most successful year of your life? Let us know in the comments below the specific routes you’ll be taking towards improved finances, better health, stronger relationships, and increased happiness, helping others to follow in your footsteps!

 

Happy New Year!

For Your Freedom,

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There are internal principles we use to create whatever we want to create. You’ve got to be congruent with who you are; an honest statement to yourself and to the world. You can’t get wealthy if you’re not congruent with that.

We have this desire to be financially free, but there’s this other part that says, ‘It’ll make my life more complicated,’ or ‘I don’t deserve to be.’

‘God doesn’t want me to.’

‘Mommy doesn’t want me to.’

‘The government doesn’t want me to.’

That never ends until you change the tune. You need to decide on something you’re going to do. Get congruent about it and go get it done. Take action on it.

There’s a saying I think is one of the most profound sayings I’ve ever heard by Émile Coué: “When the will comes into conflict with the imagination, the imagination always wins.”

It means you may want to do something, you may will it, you may write it down as a goal, you may say to yourself ‘That’s what I want to do’, but if your imagination is not congruent with that desire, you will conform to your imagination about it—even if you’re imagining the worst.

The deepest parts of you know what is right for you. That’s what intuition is. The problem is following your intuition can sometimes be a very fearful thing because you’re usually going against everything that everybody else is telling you. They’re usually saying, “Don’t do it.” You have to know and affirm that it’s right for you. It’s your thing. You’ve got to do this.

You would worry a lot less about what people think of you if you realized how little they do. But we have this façade we put up around ourselves, yes or yes? We try to play a role. And this façade takes half of our energy.

Fear is the most expensive habit we have. How much does your fear cost you? Go back five years and change your life, take all the fear away. No more fear of rejection. Live five years forward up to today without that fear. Where would you be today?

If you move and act in a different way, in a more congruent way, in a less fearful way, what happens? If we could take all of that and put it into money and relationships, time and physical health?

The question isn’t meant to draw thoughts of the past into the realm of regret. We learn what we learn when we learn it, and we get it into our bodies when it happens. Sometimes the Universe makes those turning points obvious, sometimes it takes us awhile to get there. Better late than never.

The point is to get it into our systems now; our desires deserve an imagination that will allow intuition, integrity, knowledge, and humility to go after what we want guilt free—free from the echoes of past that are no longer suited for your real ambitions.

What do you think? Has fear literally cost you money, or time, or something else important? Even for those who have found some level of financial success, do you ever still hear negative whispers from that old money blueprint? Leave a comment below and let me know what you think!

For Your Freedom,

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Be grateful!

We hear it all the time, at least in a community of fellow seekers who want to grow their financial success building as much as their spiritual peace. Life has its highs and lows, but the one thing that’s the same no matter where we are on the wheel is that there are always many things to be grateful for.

It’s easy to be grateful when it doesn’t really require a ton of effort, like saying “please” or “thank you.” It’s easy to be grateful when things are going great. But what about when things aren’t going quite as planned?

Everyone’s been there. The mind starts going into “what’s wrong,” or what’s not enough, what’s too much to deal with, too much to do in order to overcome an obstacle and reach a goal. In some ways it’s natural, but when it becomes a habit then the pity party is simply a safer choice.

The truth is it takes much more courage to appreciate what we’ve got—no matter how little it may seem—than it is to surrender to the scarcity model and let ourselves off the hook for taking action because something isn’t enough.

Our egos will tell us that if we spend too much time being grateful for what we have, we won’t try to get more, and we’ll become stuck with being “content” instead of happy.

Wanting what we currently have has nothing to do with somehow tricking ourselves into “settling.” Just because you’re buying an economy car now that’s practical but not so hot-looking doesn’t mean you won’t want a Ferrari three years from now when you’re rich. It’s not hard to be grateful for that fact that you have four wheels to drive that gets you where you need to go. There are plenty of people in this world that don’t have that, with consequences we couldn’t imagine.

It’s the lack-based protective mind that continuously hungers for more, like a squirrel hoarding nuts for winter. The scarcity model, constantly looking around, overlooks and discounts what’s right in front of us. We have to consistently remind ourselves to look for “what's right” in our lives instead of “what's wrong.”

Then we’ll be less likely not to forget to show our appreciation to the people who are closest to us; our family, friends, loved ones, co-workers, employees. Then there are teachers, postal workers—all the people that make our daily lives more convenient and enrich our larger communities. And let’s not forget to say “thank you” to the Universe for our many blessings.

Gratitude particularly holds true when it comes to finances. To have abundance, be grateful for and properly manage whatever wealth you have now, even if you don’t think it’s much. Why? If you’re not appreciating what you already have, that means you’re not maximizing what’s available right now. If you can’t do that, why should the Universe believe you can handle more?

Now it’s your turn! Who and what have you not fully appreciated?  What are some of the things that you think we tend to take for granted? Below list the people and things in your life for which you are grateful. Show your appreciation to the people who mean the most to you for all that you have.

For your freedom,

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Many of you know I embrace Buddhist wisdom as part of spiritual knowledge and growth. These kinds of things are choices we make for ourselves hopefully because we find this knowledge relevant and helpful to our lives. Many spiritual philosophies share similar teachings that could be just as true for people from completely different cultures.

That’s the beauty of the Oneness that most of them point toward, whatever different words one wants to use to describe it. We’re all together, all energy; all one thing.  We just think we’re separate.

If we’re going to strive for spiritual growth, we have to be willing to put concepts into practice in our everyday lives, in all relationships with all people. You can’t separate your “spiritual life” from your “work life.” They’re both your life!

In the same vein, you can’t separate money and happiness. You can try, but you won’t live a very happy life.

How you’re going to make your money has to reflect your spiritual truth as if you were attending a spiritual ceremony. The physical, material world is simply a printout of what’s going on inside us. To think any different is to fall into the illusion of separation.

So before you find the right job, business, or relationship, you have to find the right you! It’s about matching what you do with who you are. Then you get the right knowledge and the right way for you to become more prosperous and happier.

I realize there are some people who disagree with spiritual concepts, or maybe are just uncomfortable with the topic. That’s okay. We don’t have to go deep or New Agey with this. Finding the Right You is as simple as this: JOY. What are those things you do that give you absolute joy?

Joy is a clue from the heart, not to be confused with pleasure. When you evoke the feeling of joy, you are tapping into your higher nature, your truest self, and the source of your full power, your full creativity, your full wisdom. Then you’re generating passion.

Passion creates energy, and energy creates enthusiasm. It’s very contagious. When you are passionate about what you do, it comes through!  Will people want what you’ve got?  Yes and yes! Mostly because of the energy transfer, that’s it!

The most important thing about your business, whatever vehicle is appropriate for you, is you have to frickin’ believe in it to where you would shout it from the top of the roof to everybody, every minute of every day!  If you can’t do that, you don’t believe in what you do enough—and ultimately, you don’t believe in yourself. You’re not being your “Right You”.

When you find something that you really believe in and get it into your subconscious, the obstacles that block you seem more like minor interruptions compared to the passion of operating from your true Self.

Unless you are passionate about what you do, it is very difficult for you to be successful or happy. Right livelihood comes down to finding work that matches who you are.

Tell us your experiences with finding your “Right You.” Have you truly found your “Right You” yet in your life? What was the turning point that made you realize you weren’t being the real you? What was the transformation like? Share your thoughts and comments with our community, your feedback is very valuable!

For Your Freedom,

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There’s a book out there called “Life Was Never Meant to be a Struggle” by Stuart Wilde. The title pretty much says it all, yes?

You sure wouldn’t know it by the way people work and live, though, would you?  The fact is most people suffer through their work if not their lives. They do what they do because they believe they have to, because they think they should, or because they’re good at it—even in the face of personal unhappiness or financial struggle.

In the past, the type of work we did was based more on necessity than choice. You just did what you had to do or what was available to you. Things have changed pretty dramatically. We have way more options and opportunities today than we can even handle.

And that’s exactly what a lot of peoples’ biggest struggle is when it comes to work. We don’t do what we love because we’re not clear about what we want.

The first place to look is at your natural talents. Natural talents are gifts from the Universe, gifts from spirit, or whatever you want to call your creator. These are things that you do well, that you didn’t have to learn to do. You’re basically born with this skill. It comes easy to you. It’s something that people look at you and go, “You’re natural at that.” And most importantly, you like doing it!

The most obvious reason a lot of people don’t find or create work that they love—and struggle through life because of it—is fear: fear of failure, fear of the unknown, fear of change, fear of rejection, fear of looking foolish, fear of disapproval and even fear of success!

Sometimes people will mask this fear as obligation: to other people, to an idea, obligation to the frickin’ mortgage. If your mortgage is hampering your life, which one do you want to release?   Well, guess which one most people release? Their life! It’s a choice: your mortgage or your life.

Whatever it is that you feel obliged to do, obligation is nothing more than a fear that if you don’t do “this,” something bad will happen. You’re not going to have passion and energy to succeed if you resent doing what you’re doing rather than looking forward to doing it.

I believe life was not meant to be a struggle, while acknowledging that struggles do happen in the form of detaching yourself from all old habits that no longer serve you in your life now. Growth is hard, but once we get through and become more of who we are, the struggle lightens.

We have to unlearn what we believe in order to escape the struggles that the illusion of separation brings—mainly separation from ourselves and from our nature that wants to make things easier.

We are part of a divine source of unlimited power—creators of our own experiences. Those with a strong spiritual connection tend to find that life is easier, living an authentic life knowing who they really are rather than playing a role that society, culture, or religion has dictated.

Then all those other areas open up—work, relationships, finances, etc. Life really shouldn’t be that hard. Unlearn, discover, apply, and for goodness sake, take it easy!

Now it’s your turn- we want to hear from you! Do you utilize your natural talents in your life and more specifically, your work? Is what you do for work your passion, or are you simply working to pay the bills each month? Share your opinion and experiences with us, your feedback is valuable to our community!

 


It’s one of the most basic questions ever: What do you and 99% of the population want most?

Most people will say “More money.” Specifically, we want to be rich. Who wouldn’t? If you’re rich, you really don’t have much to worry about, except maybe what to do with all that money, or maybe what to do with that “distant cousin” you never knew, who all of a sudden shows up when they find out you’ve got some money. Still, that’s a problem most people will gladly accept.

More money means material comforts, and doing what you want when you want without having to answer to anybody. No bosses, no deadlines, no evaluations—being in charge of your own life. Since this is so apparent … why are we even talking about it?

Because sometimes, the obvious is so obvious that we miss the bigger picture. When we talk about wanting to be rich, what are we really talking about; money, or freedom?

There’s a pretty big difference between the two, no? Does having more money absolutely mean having more freedom, or security, or even peace of mind? Not necessarily. Being rich certainly provides material convenience, but you and I know there are plenty of rich people out there who are completely miserable. Sometimes they miss the whole point of being rich—i.e. freedom and happiness. Instead, they work even more than some middle class people, who struggle just as hard, because some rich folks think they have to work harder in order to stay rich and “free.” Can you believe that?!

So in the end, what are we really after? What do we really want?

What we’re really seeking is a feeling that we associate with being rich. The house we want can give us a sense of comfort. The car we want can heighten a feeling of importance. Travel and toys can bring excitement and stave off boredom. But you don’t have to wait to be rich in order to have these things or experience the feelings of freedom and happiness.

The goal isn’t to get rich in order to be free. Let’s turn that around! Get freedom first, and then being rich becomes icing on the cake.

How do we get free now? Financially speaking, you do this by creating passive income vehicles—some to build, some to buy—letting those streams gather momentum over a few years, reaping the rewards, then doing more of this with other passive income structures. This way, you get the material wealth that gives you tangible freedom from having to worry about working—one of the basic goals of our desire to be rich—and if you really know what it is you really want, you get the happiness part of it as well.

Freedom is only as good as the results of your true intentions. In other words, keep the endgame in mind. We’re not getting rich to be free. We want to be free and then enjoy the benefits of being rich. This is not something we have to wait for to arrive in the future. There’s no freedom in waiting.  Freedom starts now.

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There was a study out a few years ago that said 80% of millionaires are self-made. That is, they didn’t inherit their millions, and they didn’t win the lottery. They literally started out wanting to be a millionaire—like everybody else—but found a way to earn their millions.

Ten percent of self-made millionaires are people who work for self-made millionaires. They join a company like Apple when it’s small and grow financially and professionally with the company. Only about 8-9% of millionaires are professionals like doctors, lawyers, architects, engineers, athletes, entertainers and such. Inheritors represent about another 1 percent. These are ballpark figures.

For a vast majority of millionaires, the one skill they had in common that made them millionaires was simple: the ability to sell something at a higher price than it costs them to produce.

So for you, the purpose of a millionaire-making enterprise is to create customers in a cost effective way, and your job is to innovate what you’re selling and market it. Those are the only two things that create customers: to find newer, better, faster, cheaper ways to help people achieve their goals or get what they want, and to let as many people know about it as possible.

The measure of the success of a business is customer satisfaction. If your customers are pleased, you’ll know because you’ll still be in business. When you realize, “It’s not about me, it’s about the customer,” you become focused on that, not ‘How can I rip them off, how can I get the money and run, how can I get them to buy once and never buy again.’

Once you have learned how to build a successful business, you can use the same principles to build business after business after business. That’s how millionaires stay millionaires.

Yet, here’s another sobering fact: a vast majority of businesses go broke in the first three to five years. Businesses started by people with no experience go broke more often than not. Businesses started by people with experience succeed 90% of the time or more.

People starting out don’t know how to sell; they don’t know how to satisfy customers; and they don’t know how to create and keep customers.

The good news is all business skills are learnable. When you realize that there are certain things successful people do over and over again—and if you can learn what they are and do them yourself over and over again—you’ll eventually get the same result.

People will say, “Well, I’m not very good at selling.” Get over it! You may not be very good at it, but it’s a learnable skill.

So what is the highest paid work in our society, for most people? It’s not doctoring, or lawyering, ball playing, or singing. It’s thinking.

Think, “What can I sell that I’m passionate about but also adds value to other people’s lives in some kind of way, and how can I do this profitably?”

The customer may not always be right, but never let them know that. You want raving fans. You want supporters. You want critics who care. You want to see those people again and again. Like any relationship, it’s not only about you and what you get out of it. It’s building and sustaining rapport while your profits soar to millionaire heights.

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