Skip to main content
Select Language:

Author Archives: robbrandetize

Older posts

Millionaire Mind: Creative Financing and Flexibility

Posted on by 48

Ever heard of that adage “It takes money to make money?”

As lots of us in the Millionaire Mind community know that’s just not true. It lends toward confidence and a sense of “safety”. It can make things more expedient, but is money absolutely necessary to, for example, start a business? The answer is no. You just need to learn how to be flexible and to use creative financing to your benefit.

Use Creative Financing To Gain Flexibility

Many millionaires have lost it all, fell into extraordinary debt, and still found a way to bounce back.

“It takes money to make money” is something people to make themselves feel safe and secure in their inaction. Then they don’t have to leave their comfort zones and really go out there and get it. Maybe a lot of people just don’t know that there are other ways to finance endeavors.

That’s why I plan to touch base on a few fundamentals when it comes to looking for capital. The hardest part, believe it or not, is imagination, which is actually easy once you really grasp it. The wealthiest people in the world didn’t get to where they are by doing what everybody else does. Wealthy people use creative financing.

While time can be a factor, there are some basic options to think about before you start:

Option 1: Don’t Start Yet.

Wait. Do something else with your time and skillset that doesn’t require a large sum of money. This is very obvious, yes, but it needs to be said. You don’t have to hit a home run your first time up at the plate. Get a couple of singles, maybe a double, and gain some confidence.

Option 2: If It’s Not Working, Do Something Different.

We all have these plans, sometimes they work, sometimes not so much. What do you do when the Universe says, “Nope, this ain’t happening?” Get frustrated and start beating yourself up? No. Just try it another way the next time.

 

Learn To Be Flexible With Your Plans

There are people who will wait until they think a plan is totally perfect and seemingly solid before they take any action. These are the types that get easily frazzled and distracted when that rock-solid plan starts showing some cracks. You have to be flexible and ready to accept that maybe you need to try something else. Flexibility is the keyword here.

There are always means toward starting something. You don’t have to have the ultimate plan right away. Start where you can, where you are, and with what you have. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, one of the first rules of financing is: You don’t need the financing! Change the way you’re going about it.

Common Sources Of Creative Financing

The more common sources of financing are things like bank loans. You could also find someone with collateral who would be willing to co-sign a loan as this is another standard method that tends to be forgotten. Most people started their finance history with a co-signed loan, whether it’s school, their first car, or first credit card. This is another reminder to keep good relations with those closest to you.

Private lending parties are another option, or partnering with someone who has the collateral. The easiest way to get money is home equity. When you have some equity in your home or something else that they can take, getting money is usually not a big problem.

But, now let’s talk about something that can change the whole way you do business. This is going back to the basics of business, which is buying and selling. Only you reverse the order. Pre-sell your product or services before you have to buy or deliver it.

Generate Cash Flow

I have never had a problem with cash flow in my life because I insist on doing this before and during the enterprise. This isn’t just for initial financing, but as an ongoing rule of business. Think about it and ask yourself, “Why should I pay for the product? If you want it, you pay for it.”

The customer is just paying for the product a little early. The typical mentality of business is that people want to see the product before they buy it, even though they’re not really seeing anything except the product’s packaging most of the time

Remember: the mind of a millionaire can’t think like everyone else.

Who says the money can’t come until the customer gets their product? People pre-order things all the time. The key is to create or take advantage of a demand, or even a perceived demand. That’s where marketing comes into play, which if done effectively can be much cheaper than actual production.

By reversing the buy/sell order, you also cut down on carrying costs. Let’s not forget the risks you cut down on by not over-producing and then not selling. Instead, sell to a high volume buyer from a sample or a prototype. For goodness sakes: don’t produce 1,000 or 10,000 of something and then try to sell it! Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? But that’s exactly what a lot of people do, people who aren’t in business anymore.

Make that shift now! People don’t have to see the finished product. Some people will insist on it. Great! You insist, too.

See? You can jumpstart an enterprise with a little creative financing and thinking! It doesn’t have to cost you an arm, leg, or mortgage.

Now it’s your turn! Do you have any tips you’ve discovered along the way for creative financing? Share in the comment box below!

Listen To Your Intuition To Overcome Self-Doubt

Posted on by 1

Have you ever had a gut feeling, and then you went against it? Think about those times when you were driving and you knew not to take a certain route, but you did anyway and ended up stuck in traffic. This is an instance when you didn’t listen to your intuition. Sometimes the consequences of ignoring our sixth sense can have even more dire consequences.

Why Listening To Your Intuition Is Crucial

In our culture, we don’t quite give the power of intuition its proper due. Of course, learning as much as you can about how to reach a goal leads towards success. However, there are other sources of intelligence within us that we tend to ignore. It’s the inherent wisdom of our spiritual nature that we should come to rely on. It’s deeper, instinctive, and more intuitive than simply thinking.

Intuition generally comes to us in feeling rather than logic. When a woman thinks “This guy gives me the creeps”, it usually pays for her to listen to her intuition. In the same way, when someone refuses to go along with the crowd, they are relying on something more than what the world praises as “smart” or intelligent.

Ask any really successful person, and they will tell you success comes as much from intuition as from the brain. How many millionaires do you think go along with the crowd, or listen to the “conventional wisdom” that everybody else is following toward sameness? If you’re not utilizing this incredibly powerful inner guidance system that is at your service 24-7, you might as well be going through life with one hand tied behind your back. Don’t do this to yourself. Instead, learn to listen to your intuition.

 

Maintain A Positive Mindset To Overcome Self-Doubt

The key is to quiet your mind when you are struggling with any thoughts of self-doubt. Meditation helps to focus the mind. Even trying to be really present in the moment without labeling things as good or bad, right or wrong can be helpful. Once the mind is quiet, wisdom can finally have its say.

You’ve probably experienced this unexplainable phenomenon when you were trying to remember something but couldn’t. Finally, you stopped trying to “figure it out” and later on, out of the blue, the answer popped into your head.

Your spirit knows what’s right for you. It knows what directions you need to take for your highest good and the good of others. The mind is an awesome tool that needs to be used, but it pales in comparison to the inner wisdom of your intuition. Trust in yourself. Trust in the Universe. Open up to your higher guidance, and have the courage to follow this guidance, even if it seems to defy logic, which is usually the case.

Exercise: Think of a time in your life where you listened to your intuition

  • Did you doubt yourself at first?
  • Did it prove to be the correct response?
  • What can you do to listen to your inner central spirit?

Share your thoughts about intuition below in the comments. 

This article has been updated for relevancy and accuracy. It’s original publish date was 05/21/10.

The Power of Gratitude: Avoid the Scarcity Model

Posted on by 423

“Be grateful.” We hear this phrase all the time in a community of fellow seekers. After all, we all want to grow our financial success, and we all want to achieve spiritual peace. However, in these quests, we can lose track of what we already have. Throughout all of life’s highs and lows, this motto reminds us of the power of gratitude. No matter where we are in life, there is always something to be grateful for.

How the Scarcity Model Diminishes the Power of Gratitude

It’s easy to be grateful when it doesn’t really require a ton of effort, like saying “please” or “thank you.” Even when big things are going really well for us, it’s easier to pause and appreciate what we have around us. However, what about when things aren’t going quite as planned?

Everyone’s been there. The mind starts focusing on what’s wrong, what we are lacking, and what is just too much for us to deal with. We tend to overthink, making it even more difficult to overcome obstacles in order to reach our goals. In some ways, this is a natural response. When it becomes a habit, though, it can become a problem. At this point, the pity party is simply a safe choice rather than the right choice.

The truth is, it takes much more courage to appreciate what we have, no matter how little it may seem at the time. It’s much easier to surrender to the scarcity model and let ourselves off the hook from taking action because we feel like 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 being “content” instead of happy.

Avoiding the Scarcity Model

The scarcity model tells us that there simply aren’t enough resources to meet everyone’s wants and needs. At the end of the day, you may feel like you’re the one getting shorthanded. This isn’t necessarily the case though. By practicing the power of gratitude, you can avoid falling into the scarcity model trap.

Learning to appreciate what you currently have doesn’t mean you’re tricking yourself into “settling.” Just because you’re buying an economy car now because it’s more practical doesn’t mean you won’t want a Ferrari three years from now when you’re rich. Choose to be grateful that you own reliable transportation — regardless of whether or not it is flashy. There are plenty of people in this world that don’t have that at all.

The proactive mind continuously hungers for more, like a squirrel hoarding nuts for winter. The scarcity model allows us to constantly overlook and discount what’s right in front of us. To fight this, we have to consistently remind ourselves to look for what’s right in our lives instead of searching for what’s wrong.

With enough practice, we’ll be more likely to remember to show our appreciation to the people who are closest to us: our family, friends, loved-ones, co-workers, and employees. We’ll even start considering and appreciating the everyday strangers in our lives. From teachers to postal workers, these people make our day-to-day better and enrich our larger communities. Let’s not forget to say “thank you” to the Universe for our many blessings.

How Gratitude Affects Your Finances

Everyone should be grateful for and properly manage whatever wealth you have now, even if you don’t think it’s much. If you’re not appreciating what you already have, that means you’re not maximizing what’s available to you right now. If you can’t do that, then why should the Universe believe you can handle more?

Exercise: Power of Gratitude

Now that you’ve listened to me, I want you to put these ideas into practice. Declare your gratitude to the millionaire mind community with these simple steps:

  • Step 1: Think about things to be grateful for. To help, you can ask yourself these questions:
    • Who and what have you not fully appreciated?
    • What are some of the things that you tend to take for granted?
  • Step 2: List the people and things in your life for which you are grateful.
  • Step 3: Show your appreciation to the people who mean the most to you for all that you have.

For Your Freedom,
the power of gratitude

Maybe even after incorporating gratitude, you feel unhappy. If so, I want you to ask yourself these questions: Do you have everything that you want in life? Success? Inner peace? Amazing health? Fabulous relationships? If not, join me on one of my upcoming web classes, “Don’t Believe A Thought You Think,” where you’ll learn exactly how to have all the success, inner peace, health, relationships, etc. that you want and deserve.

Click here to reserve your free seat today!

the power of gratitude

Share in the comments your thoughts on the power of gratitude and the scarcity model.

UP NEXT: How You Can Be Both Spiritually and Financially Really Rich

The Power Of Timing: Understand Ground-Floor Opportunity

Posted on by 3

We’ve all heard the saying “Timing is everything,” but what exactly does that mean? Is it luck coincidentally taking advantage of a situation that happens to present itself? In business, knowing the best time to make a move is a skill. Learn more about the power of timing through the ground-floor opportunity approach.

Why Timing Is So Important In Business

The power of intuition can never be underestimated, and instinct can only help in getting your timing right. Good timing isn’t always just about being in the right place at the right time, though. It’s also a skill that can be learned, and at times it just takes a little present moment awareness. It can be as simple as persuading someone by listening to them first and presenting your case later.

In business, good timing means matching your product or service to the wants and needs of the current marketplace. It requires the right place and the right time. Think of it this way, business ideas and opportunities are like cars. You have your NASCAR speed demons, and you have your beat-ups that make you worry whether or not they’ll get you where you need to be.

If you’re trying to make money fast, are you trying to create your riches with a race car or a jalopy? In other words, if you don’t have a concept or at least one product or service that’s super hot right now, your chances of creating wealth in your business quickly diminish.

The Ground-Floor Opportunity

Unfortunately, most people hop on a trend when it’s already too late. On the other hand, being too early is no better. You have to learn how to gauge and time the market. You have to know when to get in and when to get out!

Your intention must be to get in on a “ground-floor opportunity”, meaning demand is high and supply is low. That’s when the elevator is going up. When supply overtakes demand, it’s time to get off the hell off!

There are a couple ways to take advantage of ground-floor opportunities:

  • Copy someone who is making a mint 
  • The Piggyback technique

By copying someone else, you can do the same thing they’re doing and improve upon it. Use the original as a proven blueprint to success.

The Piggyback technique is a way for you to affiliate with someone or something that’s already a winner. It brings new meaning to the phrase “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!” It’s often faster and easier to affiliate with a company that’s already up and running rather than to start from scratch. Why reinvent the wheel? They may have exclusive products or a major distribution network in place, rare technology, or expensive production facilities already established.

Exercise: Find A Ground-Floor Opportunity

Can you think of an easier way to “get rich quick” than to have the rights to a hot, highly-in-demand product, and then market the hell out of it? Timing is everything. If you choose the right product at the right time, your road to wealth will be decidedly faster and easier!

What product or service can you sell and market that is in demand currently? Please share your examples in the comments!

This article has been updated for relevancy and accuracy. It’s original publish date was 05/07/10.

Road To Success: Learn From Your Mistakes

Posted on by 39

The road to success is never straight. The textbook definition of “straight” is something that has no bends, angles or curves. Can we apply that same definition to life? Absolutely not. There really isn’t such thing as “straight” in the universe. At the core of everything, including us, is energy. Energy doesn’t travel straight, it travels in waves. Imagine throwing a pebble into a lake, watching the ripples gliding across the surface.

Right after you throw your pebble, someone else also tosses a pebble in the same lake, and now the ripples from that pebble collide with the ripples from yours. That’s how everything in this universe works.

Take Control: Create Your Road To Success

People and events are constantly colliding. This creates new pathways, situations, and actions. The chaos of life makes it almost impossible for anyone to always go “straight” to where they planned. Some people thrive on chaos and change, but most people don’t. They get frustrated, down, and ready to throw in the towel because they usually have expectations, and these expectations are usually almost impossible to meet.

We might as well just accept it: the road to success comes with twists, turns, ups, downs, stops and reverses. Once we really understand and accept this, we’re less likely to be deluded into having unrealistic expectations that there’s a straight line to the top. So when we come across bumps, flat tires, and raised bridges along the way, we won’t be so quick to get upset or give up. Getting off track is normal and therefore “perfect”.

The Ideal of Success and Perfectionism

You have to expect to spend a great deal of time making mistakes, or if it sounds better “making corrections”, on your road to success. There’s a reason why perfectionists have a hard time being highly successful. Perfectionism is a form of fear, based on fear of failure or the fear of disapproval.

If perfectionists don’t get it exactly right, then they don’t have to finish, follow through, and move on. They get to stay stuck “until it’s right”, but of course it’ll never be right. Perfectionists will never have to face the possibility of rejection or disappointment.

We need to consider mistakes as “feedback” rather than something to be avoided at all costs. Mistakes are our perfectly natural learning curve. They are the feedback we need to get ourselves back on track.

Take Action

We can do the same thing we already know we need to do in order to keep moving forward: Take action!

Those actions will produce results, and sometimes more mistakes. Then we just get that feedback, use it to correct our course again, and take more action. This is the non-linear cycle toward success. As long as you use this cycle , and persevere, it’s virtually impossible to fail.

Remember, we’re all ripples in the lake of the universe. You never know how a comment, observation, or shared experience can change the course of your life or another person’s life!

Exercise: Your Road to Success

  1. What are your stories about the ‘bumpy’ road to success? What unexpected events – totally beyond your control – have happened to you?
  2. How did you react? Did it set you back or help you move forward with new and better actions?
  3. How did you deal with the setbacks or successes?

Share your experience with us in the comments!

For Your Freedom,

For most people, the inevitable setbacks on the road to success can result in a lack of confidence and low self esteem, but it doesn’t have to be this way. So to help prevent this from happening to you, I created a free e-book called MindFrick, “Master The Inner World To Succeed In The Outer World”, that I’d like to give to you for free. Click here to download it now.
Older posts