hey there welcome to the business of the 21st century bar Rob Ki this awesome book is all about teaching you how to be successful in the world of business and making money K is a super smart guy who has made a lots of money as an investor and entrepreneur and he wants to say his secret with you and this aible book kosaki talks about how business is changing in the 21st century it covers things like new technology Trends and opportunities that are shaping the world of business today from starting a business online to thinking creatively and positively kosaki gives you all the tools you need to be successful in the modern business world so if you want you learn how to be successful in the business and make a lots of money make sure to keep listening to this a book Ki has a lot of great advises to share with you an introduction the economy is in tatters your job is in trouble if you still have a job and you know what I've been saying it for years it took a Global Financial meltdown for most to hear it but this book isn't about how or why everything has gone to Hell in a hand basket it's about why this bad news turns out to be very good news if you know what to do about it I learned about business from two people my father who was a very well-educated highly placed government employee and my best friend's father who was an eighth grade Dropout and self-made millionaire My real father suffered financial problems his entire life and died with little to show for all the long years of hard work my best friend's dad became one of the richest men in Hawaii I thought of these two men as my poor dad and my Rich Dad I loved and admired my real dad very much and vowed that I would help as many people as possible avoid suffering the kinds of indignities and failures that plagued his path after I left home I had all kinds of experiences I served in the Marines as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam I went to work for Xerox starting out as their worst salesperson and leaving four years later as their best after leaving Xerox I developed several multi-million doll International businesses and was able to retire at the age of 47 to pursue my passion to teach others how to build wealth and live the lives they dream of living instead of settling for mediocrity and Sullen resignation in 1997 I wrote about my experiences in a little book I must have touched Accord with at least a few readers Rich Dad Poor Dad shot to the top of the New York Times bestseller list and stayed there for more than four years and has been described as the bestselling Business book of all time since then I've put out a whole series of Rich Dad books and although each one has a slightly different Focus they all deliver the exact same message as that first book and it's the message at the heart of this book you now hold in your hands take responsibility for your finances or get used to taking orders for the rest of your life you're either a master of money or a slave to it your choice I was incredibly fortunate in my life to have experiences and mentors that showed me how to build genuine wealth as a result I was able to retire completely from any need to work ever again up until that time I was working to build my family's future since then I've been working to help build yours for the past 10 years I have devoted my life to finding the most effective and practical ways to help people transform their lives in the 21st century by learning how to build genuine wealth through our Rich Dad books my partners and I have written about many different types and forms of Enterprise and investment but during these years of intensive research I come across one business model in particular that I believe holds the greatest promise for the largest number of people to get control of their financial lives their Futures and their Destinies one more thing when I say genuine wealth I'm not talking about money alone money is part of it but it's not the whole building genuine wealth is as much about the Builder as it is about the built in this book I'm going to show you why you need to build your own business and exactly what kind of business but this isn't just about changing the type of business you're working with it's also about changing you I can show you how to find what you need to grow the perfect business for you but for your business to grow you will have to grow as well welcome to the business of the 21st century e part one take control of your future why you need to have a business of your own chapter 1 the rules have changed we live in troubled times the last few years have brought us a steady parade of fear and panic in the headlines boardrooms and kitchen tables Across America globalization Outsourcing downsizing foreclosures subprime mortgages and credit default swaps on schemes Wall Street fiascos recession it's just one piece of bad news after another during the first few months of 2009 us company layoffs reached about a quar million per month as I write this in late 2009 unemployment is at 10.2% and still rising and underemployment where your job stays in place but your hours and pay are drastically cut back is even worse the rampant decline in gainful employment is is a ravaging epidemic to which few are immune from Executives and middle managers to Administration Employees and bluecollar workers from Bankers to retail clerks all are at risk even the healthc care industry until recently considered a jobs safe zone is trimming away significant chunks of its Workforce in the fall of 2008 a lot of people's retirement portfolios suddenly lost half their value or more real estate crashed what people thought were their solid reliable assets turned out to be about as solid as water vapor job security is gone a thing of the past in a 2009 USA Today survey 60% of Americans ped said they see today's economic situation as the biggest crisis in their lifetime of course you already know all this but here's what you may not know none of this is really news sure it took a major economic crisis for people to start waking up to the fact that their livelihoods were at risk but your income didn't become at risk overnight it was always at risk most of the US population has been living for years on the knife edge precipice between solvency and ruin relying on the next paycheck or two to meet each month's expenses typically with only a very thin cushion of cash savings or more often no cushion at all that paycheck is called trading your time for money and during a recession it is the least reliable source source of income there is why because when the number of employed people starts dropping there is less disposable income in circulation to pay for your time I told you so not to be and I told you so but I told you so I've been saying this for years there is no longer such a thing as a safe and secure job Corporate America is a 20th century dinosaur trembling on the edge of Extinction and the only way for you to have a genuinely secure future is for you to take control of that future here's what I wrote in 2001 in a book titled the business school for people who like helping people in my opinion the United States and many Western Nations have a financial disaster coming caused by our Educational Systems failure to adequately provide a realistic Financial education program for students that same year in an interview for nightingale conut I said if you think mutual funds are going to be there for you if you want to bet your life on the upss and downs of the stock market that's your retirement you're betting on what happens if the stock market goes up and then comes crashing down again when you're 85 years old you have no control I'm not saying mutual funds are bad I'm just saying they're not safe and they're not smart and I wouldn't bet my financial future on them never before in the history of the world have so many people bet their retirement on the stock market that is in insane do you think Social Security is going to be there to take care of you then you also believe in the Easter Bunny and in an interview I did in March 2005 I said this the number one strength of a paper asset is its liquidity and that is also its number one weakness we all know there's going to be another market crash and we're going to be wiped out again why would you do that so what just happened there was another market crash and many people got wiped out again why because our habits and mindset caught up with us in 1971 the American economy went off the gold standard this happened without the approval of Congress by the way but the important thing is that it happened why is that significant because it cleared the way for us to start printing more and more money as much as we liked without it being tied to any actual hard real value this shift away from reality opened the gates for the biggest economic boom in history over the next three and a half decades the American middle class exploded as the dollar devalued and the on the books value of real estate and other assets inflated ordinary people became millionaires suddenly credit was available to anyone anytime anywhere and credit cards began popping up like mushrooms after a spring rain to pay off those credit cards Americans started using their homes as ATMs refinancing and borrowing borrowing and refinancing after all real estate always keeps going up in value right wrong by 2007 we had pumped as much hot air into this financial balloon as it could take and the fantasy Came Crashing Down to Earth again and it wasn't just lhan brothers and be Sterns that collapsed Millions lost their 4001 K their pensions and their jobs in the 1950s when General Motors was the most powerful Corporation in America the Press picked up a statement by GM's president and turned it into a slogan that carried for decades as GM goes so goes the nation well folks that may not be all good news because where GM went in 2009 was into bankruptcy and by that same summer the state of California was paying its bills with IUS instead of cash right now the percentage of Americans who own their homes is dropping mortgage foreclosures are at an all-time high the number of middleclass families is dropping savings accounts are smaller if they exist at all and family debt is greater the number of people living officially below the poverty line is rising rapidly the number of people who are working beyond the age of 65 is increasing the number of new bankruptcies is going through the roof and many Americans do not have enough to retire not even close has all this bad news got your attention sure it has and you're not alone Americans everywhere have finally stopped rolling over and hitting the snooze button great now you're awake to what's going on and it isn't pretty so let's take a deeper look and see what it really means and what there is you can do about it it's a new century when I was a kid my parents taught me the same formula for Success that you probably learned go to school study hard and get good grades so you can get a secure high-paying job with benefits and your job will take care of you but that's Industrial Age thinking and we're not in the Industrial Age anymore your job is not going to take care of you the government will not take care of you nobody's going to take care of you it's a new century and the rules have changed my parents believed in job security company pensions Social Security and Medicare these are all worn out obsolete ideas left over from an age gone by today job security is a joke and the Very idea of Lifetime employment with a single company an ideal so proud championed by IBM in its Heyday is as anachronistic as a manual typewriter many thought their 4001 k retirement plans were safe hey they were backed by Blue Chip stocks and mutual funds what could go wrong as it turned out everything could go wrong the reason these once sacred cows no longer give any milk is that they are all obsolete pensions job security retirement security it's all Industrial Age thinking we're in the Information Age now and we need to use Information Age thinking fortunately people are starting to listen and learn it's a shame that it takes suffering and hardship to bring the lesson home but at least the lessons are hitting home every time we experience a major crisis the.com bust the economic aftermath of 911 the financial Panic of 08 and recession of 09 more people realize that the old safety nets just won't hold up anymore the corporate myth is over if you've spent years climbing the corporate ladder have you ever stopped to notice the view what view you ask the rear end of the person in front of you that's what you get to look forward to if that's the way you want to view the rest of your life then this book probably isn't for you but if you are sick and tired of looking at someone else's behind then read on don't be fooled again as I write this unemployment is still on the ride by the time you read these words who knows the situation may have changed don't be fooled when employment and real estate values turn around and credit loosens up again as they inevitably will don't be lulled into that same old sense of false security that got you and the rest of the world into this mess in the first place in the summer of 2008 gas prices were soaring over do4 a gallon SUV sales sank like a stone and suddenly everyone was on the small car and hybrid bandwagon but look what happened next by 2009 gas prices had fallen back down below doll two and so help me people started buying SUVs again what do we really think fuel prices are going to stay nice and low that gas prices are down for good now and therefore gas guzzlers make perfect sense to buy can we really be that short-sighted I'm trying to be nice here the word I was going to use was stupid unfortunately the answer is yes we aren't just fooled once we let ourselves be fooled over and over again we all grew up hearing the Fable of The Ant and the grasshopper but the overwhelming majority of us keep living with the foresight of a grasshopper anyway don't be distracted by the headlines there is always some idiotic Buzz going on that tries to pull your attention away from the serious business of building your life it's just noise whether it's terrorism recession or the latest election cycle scandals it's got nothing to do with what you need to be doing today to build your future during the Great Depression there were people who made fortunes and during the greatest boom times like the real estate surge of the 80s there were millions and millions of people who neglected to take charge of their future who ignored everything I'm going to share with you in this book and ended up struggling or broke most of them in fact are still struggling or broke today the economy is not the issue the issue is you do are you angry at the corruption in the corporate world at Wall Street and the big banks that let this happen at the government for not doing enough or for doing too much or for doing too much of the wrong things and not enough of the right things are you angry at yourself for not taking control sooner life is tough the question is what are you going to do about it moaning and groaning won't secure your future neither will blaming Wall Street the big Bankers Corporate America or the government if you want a solid future you need to create it you can take charge of your future only when you take control of your income Source you need your own business chapter 2 the Silver Lining on July 13th 2009 Time Magazine ran a piece on page two they called 10 questions for Robert kosaki one of the questions asked of me was this are there opportunities to create new companies in this turbulent economy are you kidding was my first thought here is how I answered this is the best time when times are bad is when the real entrepreneurs emerge entrepreneurs don't really care if the Market's up or down they're creating better products and better processes so when somebody says oh there's less opportunity now it's because they're losers you've heard an awful lot of bad news about the economy ready for the good news actually the bad bad news is the good news I'll tell you the same thing I told Time Magazine a recession is the best time to start your own business when the economy slows down entrepreneurialism heats up like a stoked up wood stove on a cold winter night Q what do the Microsoft and Disney empires have in common besides the fact that they are both hugely successful billion-dollar businesses that have become household names a they were both launched during a recession in fact more than half the corporations that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average got their starts during a recession why simple in times of economic uncertainty people get creative they break out of their comfort zones and take initiative to help make ends meet it's a matter of good old-fashioned American entrepreneurialism at its best when the going gets tough the tough get going for one thing the market for new opportunity is ripe during tough Economic Times 5 years ago when housing values were soaring and credit was available everywhere nobody was hungry people's bellies were full they felt safe and few were looking for any alternative means of income employees weren't worried about the financial stability of their employers or whether a pink slip might be in their future but now that layoffs are rampant and everyone is worried about what the future holds millions of people are soberly re-evaluating their finances and realizing that if they want to have a secure future they can count on they're going to have to come up with a plan B people today are hungrier than ever to earn extra money and because of that they are more receptive and more inclined to open their minds to new avenues in fact this was true even before the recent economic meltdown ever since the 80s and especially since the turn of the century the drive to control our own economic Futures has been building here's what the US Chamber of Commerce said in a 200 7 report titled work entrepreneurship and opportunity in 21st century America millions of Americans are embracing entrepreneurship by running their own small businesses now I'm no Economist but I know someone who is Paul Zayn pser Paul is a whiz kid was City bank's youngest ever vice president and left the banking world to make millions going into business for himself he's had a few New York Times Best Sellers predicted the Savings and Loan crisis before it happened and served as an economic adviser in two presidential administrations he's someone worth listening to Paul talks about a 180 deegree shift in cultural values around the nature of career paths with the conventional corporate employee career structure giving way to the entrepreneurial path the traditional wisdom in the second half of the 20th century says Paul was to go to school get a good education and go to work for a large company the idea of going into business for yourself was most often regarded as risky admirable perhaps but risky and maybe a little crazy today it's completely the other way around Paul's right that us Chamber of Commerce report I mentioned also refers to a Gallop poll finding that 61% of Americans say they would prefer to be their own boss another poll this one by the Fresno research firm decipher found that 72% of all adult Americans would rather work for themselves than for a job and 67% think about quitting their jobs regularly or constantly and it's not just about making a living it's also about the quality of how we're living people are waking up to the fact that they want more control over their lives they want to be more connected to their families be in charge of their own time work from their homes determine their own Destinies in that decipher study 84% of respondents said they would be more passionate about their work if they owned their own business the number one reason they gave for wanting to work for themselves to be more passionate about my work life what's happening is that the 20th century myth of job security with its promise that the path to a long happy fulfilling life is to find a job working for someone else is crumbling before our eyes the employment mythology most of us are so brainwashed by our circumstances that we think of employment as normal but far from being historically normal the whole concept of being an employee is actually a fairly recent phenomenon during The Agrarian age most people were entrepreneurs yes they were farmers who worked the king's lands but they were not the king's employees they didn't receive a paycheck from the king in fact it was the other way around the farmer paid the king a tax for the right to use his land these Farmers actually made their living as small business entrepreneurs they were butchers Bakers and Candlestick makers who passed on their trade through the family lineage and what have come down to us as common last names Smith for The Village Blacksmith Baker for Bakery owners farmer because their family's business was farming Tor derived from the Tailor's profession and Cooper the old term for the barrel makers trade it was not until the Industrial Age that a new demand began grow growing the demand for employees in response the government took over the task of mass education adopting the Prussian system which is what most western school systems in the world are still modeled after today have you ever wondered where the idea of retirement at age 65 came from I'll tell you where Otto von bismar the president of Prussia in 1889 actually Bismark plan kicked in at age 70 not 65 but it hardly matters promising their old folks a guaranteed pension after age 65 was not much of an economic risk for Bismark government at the time the life expectancy of the average Prussian was about 45 today so many are living well into their 80s and 90s that the same promise might well bankrupt the federal government within the next Generation when you research the philosophy behind Prussian education you will find that the purpose was to produce soldiers and employees people who would follow order ERS and do as they were told the Prussian system is for Mass producing employees in America in the 60s and 70s companies like IBM made employment for Life the gold standard of job security but employment at IBM hit its peak in 1985 and the whole concept of the solid reliable corporate career has been in Decline ever since as GM goes so goes the nation here we are half a century later and things aren't going so well for GM does that mean America is doomed no but here's what is doomed the myth of corporate security and the 40-year plan entrepreneurial fever I'm not saying employment is a bad thing I'm just saying it's only one way of generating income and one that is extremely limited what's happening right now is that people are waking up to this fact these people including you are realizing that the only way they're going to have what they really want in life is by setting foot on the path of the entrepreneur and by the way I'm not the only one who sees this you may or may not have heard of Muhammad yunice author of Banker to the poor but the Nobel Committee in Oslo Norway has heard of him they gave him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his concept of microcredit for third world entrepreneurs all people are entrepreneurs says Eunice but many don't have the opportunity to find that out he said that before the economy started tanking in 07 and 08 and in the wake of all the financial bad news more and more people are actively seeking the opportunity to do exactly what Mr Eunice is talking about entrepreneurial fever has been kicking into high gear because when the economy slows down entrepreneurial activity heats up in fact entrepreneurs flourish in downtimes in times of uncertainty we look for other ways to generate income when we know we can't rely on employers we begin to look to ourselves we start thinking maybe it's time to break out of our comfort zones and get creative to help make ends meet a US Federal Reserve survey shows that the average household net worth for entrepreneurs is five times that of conventional employees that means entrepreneurs are five times more likely to come out of this downturn unscathed and even stronger than before because they've created their own strong economy a recent survey found that most us voters view entrepreneurship as the key to solving the current economic crisis history has repeatedly demonstrated that new companies and Entrepreneurship are the way to bolster a flagging economy said the survey's executive director no kidding maybe those most us voters who say they believe that will actually get off their duffs and do something about it it's possible though I'm not holding my breath but right now the flagging economy that I'm most interested in seeing bolstered by entrepreneurship is yours these may be economic hard times for the majority but for some entrepreneurs the ones who are open-minded enough to understand what I'm going to explain in the next few chapters These are times pregnant with economic potential not only is now the time to have your own business but in fact there has never been a better time than right now today as I said when the going gets tough the tough get going and if that's true which it is then that leaves just two questions first are you willing to be tough and if your answer is yes then question no two is get going doing what I can't answer that first question for you but I know exactly how to answer the second one answering that question is what this book is all about chapter 3 where do you live so you've been working hard for years climbing the ladder maybe you're still near the B bottom of the ladder or maybe you even got near the top where you are on the ladder doesn't really matter what matters is the question that you may have forgotten to stop and ask before putting in all that time and effort climbing where is this ladder planted as Steven R cvy Points out it doesn't matter how fast or high you climb on the ladder if it's leaning against the wrong wall the purpose of this chapter is for you to stop climbing for a minute and see where your ladder is planted and if you're not happy where it is to find out where you might want to move it how do you make the money you make most people assume that their financial standing is defined by how much they earn how much they're worth or some combination of both and there's no doubt that this has some bearing Forbes Magazine defines rich as a person who earns in excess of $1 million per year about $ 83,5 $3 per month or just under $20,000 a week and poor as someone who earns less than $25,000 a year but even more important than the quantity of money you make is the quality of money you make in other words not just how much you make but how you make it where it comes from there are actually Four distinct sources of cash flow each is quite different from the other and each defines and determines a very different lifestyle regardless of the amount of of cash you earn after publishing Rich Dad Poor Dad I wrote a book to explain these four different income worlds many people have said that this book cash flow quadrant is the most important writing I've done because it goes right to the heart of the crucial issues involved for people who are ready to make true changes in their lives the cash flow quadrant represents the different methods by which a cash income is generated for example an employee earns money by holding a job and working for someone else or a company the self-employed are people who earn money working for themselves either as solo operators or through their own small business a business owner owns a large business typically defined as 500 employees or more that generates money investors earn money from their various investments in other words money generating more money e equal sign employee s equal sign self-employed or small business owner b equal sign business owner I equal sign investor which quadrant do you live in in other words from which quadrant do you receive the majority of the income on which you live the E quadrant the overwhelming majority of us learn live love and leave this life entirely within the E quadrant our educational system and culture train Us From the Cradle to the Grave and how to live in the world of the E quadrant the operating Philosophy for this world is what my poor dad My real father father taught me and what you probably learned too when you were growing up go to school study hard and get good grades and get a good job with benefits at a great company the S quadrant driven by The Urge for more freedom and self-determination a lot of people migrate from the e quadrant to the S quadrant this is the place where people go to strike out on their own and pursue the American dream the S quadrant includes a huge range of earning power all the way from from the Teenage freelance babysitter or landscaper just starting out in life to the highly paid Private Practice lawyer consultant or public speaker but whether you're earning doll8 an hour or $80,000 a year the S quadrant is typically a trap you may have thought you were firing your boss but what really happened is that you just changed bosses you are still an employee the only difference is that when you want to blame your boss for your problems that boss is you the S quadrant can be a thankless and difficult place to live everyone picks on you here the government picks on you you spend one full day a week just in tax compliance your employees pick on you your customers pick on you and your family picks on you because you never take any time off how can you if you do you lose ground you have no free time because if you take time off the business doesn't earn money in a very real way the S stands for slavery you don't really own your business your business owns you the B quadrant the B quadrant is where people go to create big businesses the difference between an S business and a b business is that you work for your s business but your B business works for you I have many B businesses including my manufacturing business my real estate business mining companies and others those who live and work in the B quadrant make themselves Recession Proof because they control the source of of their own income the I quadrant this is not rocket science my rich dad taught me to live in the I quadrant by playing Monopoly and we all know how that works four green houses one red Hotel four green houses one red Hotel changing jobs is not changing quadrants now let me explain why it's so important to understand these different quadrants how often have you heard someone complain about their job then decide to make a change only to end up a few years later with the same old complaints I keep working harder and harder but I'm just not getting ahead every time I get a raise it gets eaten up by taxes and higher expenses I'd rather be doing Fillin the blank but I can't afford to go back to school and learn a whole new profession at this stage of my life this job stinks my boss stinks life stinks Etc these and dozens of others like them are all statements that reveal a person who is trapped trapped not in a certain job but in an entire quadrant the problem is most of the time when people do get up the initiative to actually make a change in their lives all they do is change jobs what they need to do is change quadrants breaking away from those typical job structures and creating your own stream of income puts you in the best position to weather an economic storm simply because you are no longer dependent on a boss or on the economy to determine your annual income now you determine it the left hand side the e and s quadrants is where most people live that's where we are brought up and trained to live get good grades so you can get a good job we're told but your grades don't matter in the B quadrant your Banker doesn't ask to see your report card he wants to see your financial statement breaking away from those typical job structures and creating your own stream of income put you in the best position to weather an economic storm simply because you are no longer dependent on a boss or on the economy to determine your annual income now you determine it at least 80% of the population lives in the left hand side of this picture the E quadrant especially is where we are taught we will find Safety and Security on the other hand the right hand side the B and I quadrants is where Freedom resides if you want to live on that side then you can make it happen but if you want the relative SA safety of the leftand side then maybe what I have to share here is not for you that's a decision only you can make which quadrant do you live in which quadrant do you want to live in chapter four your core Financial values the four quadrants are not just four different business structures it's even more about four different mindsets which quadrant you choose to earn your primary income from has less to do with external circumstances your education training the economy what appear to be the available opportunities around you and much more to do with who you are at your core your strengths weaknesses and Central interests it is a matter of your core Financial values it is these core differences that attract us to or repel us from the different quadrants this is important to grasp because it means that shifting from the e or S quadrant over to the B quadrant isn't as simple as filling out a change of address form at the post office you not only change what you do but in a very real way you also change who you are or at least how you think some people may love being employees While others hate it some people love owning companies but do not want to run them certain people love investing While others see only the risk of losing money most of us are a little of each of these characters it is also important to note that you can be rich or poor in all of the four quadrants there are people who earn millions and people people who go bankrupt in each of the quadrants living in any one quadrant does not in itself necessarily guarantee financial success you can tell which quadrant people are living in by listening to their words when I was 9 years old I began sitting in with my Rich Dad when he interviewed people for possible hiring from these interviews I learned to listen for people's core values values that my Rich Dad said came from their souls here are some key phrases that emerge from each quadrant along with a snapshot of the core values of each security Independence wealth building Financial Freedom equ quadrant values I am looking for a safe secure job with good pay and excellent benefits for someone living in the E quadrant the core value is security you might be the top earning vice president of a company yet still share the same core values as the company's janitor who earns a tenth of your salary a person in the e quadrant regardless if he is the janitor or the president often thinks or says words such as I am looking for a safe secure job with benefits or how much do we get for overtime or how many paid holidays do we have when I'm having a conversation with someone in the E quadrant and I talk about how much I love starting my own businesses he may say yeah but isn't that risky we each see life from our own core values what is exciting for me is frightening to someone else this is why when I'm in the company of people who live in the ens quadrants I usually talk about the weather sports or what is on television s quadrant values if you want something done right do it yourself for people in the S quadrant the core value is Independence they want the freedom to do what they want when a person says I'm going to quit my job and go out on my own the path taken is from the e quadrant to the S quadrant people found in the S quadrant are small business owners mom and pop businesses Specialists and consultants for example I have a friend who installs big screen televisions phone systems and security systems in rich people's homes he has a staff of three and is happy to be the boss of just three people he is a hardcore hardworking s commission salespeople such as real estate agents and insurance brokers are in the S quadrant the S quadrant is also filled with professional people such as doctors lawy ERS and accountants who do not belong to a large medical legal or accounting firm people living in the S quadrant often take great pride in the work of their own hands or brains if they had a theme song it would be either Nobody Does it Better or my way yet behind the facade of Independence you will often find a lack of trust at the core of this person's approach to business which also means his approach to life because how we view our business tends to be how we view everything an s is often paid by commission or by the amount of time spent on a job for example an S may be heard saying words such as my commission is 6% of the total purchase price or I charge $100 an hour or my fee is Cost Plus 10% whenever I meet someone from the e or S quadrant who is having difficulty making the transition to the B quadrant I usually see a person with great technical or management skills but little leadership ability my rich dad used to say if you're the leader of the team and you're also the smartest person on the team your team is in trouble people in the S quadrant often don't work too well with teams they may even have a bit of an ego problem to make the jump from s to b quadrant what is needed is a Quantum jump not in technical skills but in leadership skills as I've said many times before in the real world the a students often go to work for the C students and the B stud students work for the government if you've ever heard yourself saying if you want something done right do it yourself or if you tend to think that way it might be a good time to take a good long look at that philosophy B quadrant values I'm looking for the best people to join my team for people in the B quadrant the core value is wealth building people who start from nothing and build great B quadrant businesses are often people with powerful life missions who value a great team and efficient team teamwork and want to serve and work with as many people as possible while a person in the S quadrant wants to be the best in his or her field a b quadrant person wants to build a team out of other people who are the best in their fields Henry Ford surrounded himself with people smarter than he was while an S quadrant business person is often the smartest or most talented person in the room this is often not true for a b quadrant business person when you own a b quadrant business you will often deal with with people who are much smarter more experienced and more capable than you are my rich dad had no formal education but I watched him deal with bankers lawyers accountants investment advisers and experts many of whom had Advanced degrees in raising money for his businesses he often dealt with people who were far richer than he was if he had lived by The Motto if you want something done right do it yourself he would have ended up a complete failure when it comes to being paid a true B quadrant person can leave his or her business and still get paid in most cases if someone in the S quadrant stops working the income stops also therefore a question you may want to ask yourself now is if I stop working today how much income continues to come in if your income stops in 6 months or less then chances are you are in the e or S quadrants a person in the b or I quadrants can stop working for years and the money will continue to come in I quadrant values what's my return on investment what people in the I quadrant value most is Financial Freedom the investor loves the idea of his money working instead of him working investors invest in many things they may invest in gold coins real estate businesses or paper assets such as stocks bonds and mutual funds if your income comes from company or government retirement plans rather than your own personal investing knowledge then that is income from the e quadrant in other words your boss or the business is still paying its bill for your years of service words and investor might be heard saying are I'm receiving a 20% return on my assets or show me the company's financials or how much deferred maintenance is on the property different quadrants different investors in today's world we all need to be investors however our school systems do not teach us much about investing oh I know that some schools teach stock picking but to me that is not investing that's gambling years ago my Rich Dad pointed out to me that most employees invest in mutual funds or savings he also said just because you're successful in one quadrant such as the e s or B does not mean you will be successful in the I quadrant doctors are often the worst investors my rich dad also pointed out to me that different quadrants invest in different ways for example a person in the S quadrant might be heard saying I don't invest in real estate because I don't want to fix toilets a person in the B quadrant addressing the same investment challenge might say I want to hire a good property management company to fix my toilets at night in other words an S quadrant investor will think he has to do the property maintenance on his own and a b quadrant investor will hire another company to do the property maintenance for him different people different mindsets different quadrants different values by now you've probably figured out where I'm going with this it comes down to a pretty simple thing if you want to get rich you're going to have to move you don't need a new job you need a new address if you want control over your life and Destiny if you want real Freedom the freedom to call your shots set your schedule spend time with your family and with yourself doing the things you love to do if you want to live the life you were designed to live No Holds Barred a life of passion and excitement and fulfillment in short if you want to be rich and live rich then it's time to pack up your stuff and move it's time to leave the left side of the chart and move over to the BNI quadrants chapter five the mindset of an entrepreneur after finishing College I enrolled in a traditional business school to pursue my MBA so I could be a trained in educ educated entrepreneur I lasted 9 months before dropping out needless to say I did not receive my MBA upon leaving these days Business Schools often invite me to come speak to their students in classes on entrepreneurship I probably don't need to point out that I sometimes find this ironic common questions these students ask me are how do I find investors and how do I raise capital I understand the questions because they haunted me when I left the security of a traditional job and became an entrepreneur myself I had no money and no one wanted to invest with me the big Venture Capital firms were not knocking on my door so what do I tell these business school students I tell them you just do it you do it because you have to do it if you don't you are out of business today even though I have enough money all I do is raise capital for an entrepreneur that is job no one we raise capital from three groups of people customers investors employees your job as an entrepreneur is to get your customers to buy your products if you can get customers to give you money by buying your products your investors will give you lots of money and if you have employees your job is to get them to produce and make you at least 10 times more money than you pay them if you can't get your employees to produce at least 10 times more than you pay them you're out of business and if you're out of business you don't need to raise any more money this is not the answer most MBA students are looking for most are looking for the magic formula the secret recipe the quick business plan to riches this doesn't seem to be the answer their instructors are hoping I'll give either because I notice them squirming when I say this stuff why because while they teach entrepreneurship most of them are not themselves entrepreneurs which is why they have a steady teaching job with a steady paycheck and are hoping for tenure my point point is not that you have to raise money in fact in the business model I'm going to share with you in this book you do not have to raise the capital to create your business because that has already been done for you but you do have to build your business my point is that this is what defines an entrepreneur you make things happen you pull yourself out of the rows of Passenger seats walk to the head of the bus and get behind the wheel of your life what does it take to be an entrepreneur entrepreneurs are the richest people on Earth we know the names of the famous entrepreneurs Richard Branson and Donald Trump Oprah Winfrey and Steve Jobs rert Murdoch and Ted Turner but most wealthy entrepreneurs are people you and I will never hear of because they don't command media attention they just quietly live rich lives I often hear people debate the question are entrepreneurs born or can they be developed some think it takes a special person or a certain magic to be an entrepreneur to me being an entrepreneur is not that big a deal you just do it let me give you an example there's a teenager in my neighborhood who has a thriving babysitting business and hires her Junior High classmates to work for her she is an entrepreneur another young boy has a handyman business after school he is an entrepreneur most kids have no fear while for most adults that's all they do have today there are Mill millions of people who dream of quitting their jobs and becoming entrepreneurs running their own businesses the problem is for most people their dream is just a dream so the question is why do so many fail to go for their dream of becoming an entrepreneur I have a friend who is a brilliant hair stylist when it comes to making women look beautiful he is a magician for years he's talked about opening his own Salon he has big plans but sadly He Still Remains small running a single chair in a large Salon constantly at odds with the owner another friend has a wife who became tired of being a flight attendant two years ago she quit her job and went to school to become a hair stylist a month ago she had a grand opening for her Salon it is a spectacular environment and she has attracted some of the best hair stylists to work there when the first friend heard about her Salon he said how can she open a salon she has no Talent she is not gifted she wasn't trained in New York like I was and besides she doesn't have any experience I give her a year and she's going to fail maybe she will fail statistics show that 90% of all businesses fail in the first 5 years on the other hand maybe she won't the point is that she's doing it she has grasped the impact that courage has in shaping Our Lives it takes courage to discover develop and donate your Genius to the world of us lottery winners who win in excess of $3 million each 80% are bankrupt within 3 years why because money alone does not make you rich these people may add numbers to their checking accounts but the mere numbers do not make them Rich because they do not change how they think your mind is infinite it's your doubts that are limiting Ein Rand the author of Atlas Shrugged said wealth is the product of man's capacity to think so if you are ready to change your life I'm going to introduce you to an environment that will allow your brain to think and you to grow richer what do you want to be when you grow up when I was a kid my real dad often told me go to school and get good grades so I could get a safe secure job he was programming me for the E quadrant my mother would urge me to consider becoming a doctor or lawyer that way you'll always have a profession to fall back on she was programming me for the S quadrant my Rich Dad told me that if I wanted to grow up to become rich I should become a business owner and an investor he was programming me for the bnii quadrants when I returned from Vietnam I had to make up my mind which advice I would listen to you are faced with the same Choice one reason you want to create your own business is to get your dignity back don't underestimate the importance of this reason the world is full of bullies and small-minded people and whether they are your boss your manager your neighbor or even your friend you don't want them pushing you around anymore you want to take control of your life you want to have the courage not to care when other people bully you around you want to have the freedom to think and act for yourself a Maserati mind now let's ask that question again where do you live now you can appreciate what shifting from one Cashflow quadrant to another means it's not just a different structure it's a different approach to life yes it's about the business but at the same time it's not really about the business that's only the external form putting a horse farmer behind the wheel of a Maserati doesn't make him a racing car driver he needs the skills the training and most important the mindset of a racing car driver the same is true of your financial life you need to adopt the mindset of an entrepreneur that mindset comes down to this an entrepreneur is self-determining you make things happen happen which means you don't get to blame anyone or anything outside yourself not that you're going to have to do it all yourself from the ground up like I did with my businesses now one of the beauties of the business of the 21st century is that all the groundwork of the business is already done for you and you get to have experienced leaders committed to your success to guide you but make no mistake if it's going to happen for you you are going to be the one who makes it happen and for that to happen you need to have the mindset of an entrepreneur if you don't then no matter how good the business is or how great your teachers are the business is going to have a tough time getting results the business model we'll explore in part two of this book as a Maserati but you are the one behind the wheel first and foremost it's about you are you prepared to take the wheel do you have what it takes chapter 6 it's time to take control it was 1985 and my wife Kim and I were homeless we were unemployed and had little money left from savings our credit cards were exhausted and we lived in an Old Brown Toyota with reclining seats that served as beds at the end of a week of sleeping in our car the harsh reality of who we were what we were doing and where we were headed began to sink in after a friend realized our desperate situation she offered us a room in her basement when friends and family were in formed of our plight the first question was always why don't you just get a job at first we attempted to explain but we had a hard time clarifying our reasons to our well-meaning inquisitors when you're talking to someone who values having a job it is difficult to explain why you might not want a job we occasionally earned a few dollars doing a few odd jobs here and there but we did that only to keep food in our stomachs and gas in our house I mean our car I must admit that during moments of deep personal doubt the idea of a safe secure job with a paycheck was appealing but because job security was not what we were looking for we kept pushing on living day-to-day on the brink of the financial Abyss we knew we could always find a safe secure high-paying job both of us were college graduates with good job skills and a solid work ethic but we weren't going for job security we were going for Financial Freedom by 1989 we were millionaires I often hear people say it takes money to make money that's BS and I don't mean a Bachelor of Science degree our journey from homelessness to being millionaires in four years and then onto genuine Financial Freedom in another 5 years did not take money we had no money when we started in fact we were in debt and nobody gave us anything along the way either it also does not take a good formal education a college education is important for traditional Prof professions but not for people looking to build wealth if it doesn't take money to make money and it doesn't take a formal education to learn how to become financially free then what does it take it takes a dream a lot of determination a willingness to learn quickly and an understanding of which sector of the cash flow quadrant you're operating in hard work will not make you rich there is this strange idea in our culture that says if you work really hard you'll be okay what a pile of baloney and what's so tragic about it is that most people have been brainwashed to believe it and they do believe it even though we're all surrounded by tons of evidence to the contrary what evidence just look around you do you know anyone who has worked really hard his entire life only to end up living a life that hovers just above or just below the indignity and heartbreak called subsistence level of course you do we all do the world is full of people who work hard and are most definitely not okay and perhaps the worst part about it is that many of these unfortunates come to the conclusion that it was their fault their personal failing they did all the right things right but it still didn't work maybe they just didn't try hard enough or didn't get the lucky breaks maybe they were just not cut out for Success nonsense the problem is that the hard workor myth is just that a myth now don't get me wrong I'm not saying that Building Wealth and Financial Freedom doesn't take hard work it does and lots of it I hope you're not naive enough to believe the idiots who will tell you they can show a way to wealth that's easy that's quick or that's painless because if you are I know a bridge you can buy real cheap and an entire system of subprime mortgages and credit default swaps that might be just right for you no it takes hard work all right the question is hard work doing what I can already hear you thinking doing what making money of course but not so fast because here's the cold hard truth lurking behind that sad error of our cultures thinking working hard at making money will never create wealth people who work for income work harder and harder only to be taxed more and more forget working hard at making money all you'll do is spend it and then have to work hard all over again you might be asking okay so what do I do you take control take control of what after after all most things in life you cannot control no matter how hard you try you can't control the market you can't control employees you can't control the economy what can you control you can control the source of your income the problem building a business is the way most of the very rich became Rich Bill Gates built Microsoft Michael Dell created Dell computers in his dormatory room still historically there have been very very few people who have truly lived in the B quadrant the B quadrant is the best place to begin generating genuine wealth but at the same there are some barriers to entry that have kept most people out for one thing most people don't have the cash it takes to start their own business today it costs an average of $5 million to start your own business and for another thing building your own business from scratch Remains the riskiest of all ways to become rich the failure rate for new businesses is about 90% in the first 5 years and if your new Venture fails guess who just lost $5 million in my early years of starting businesses I failed twice and while it never pushed me into bankruptcy and I never got any government bailouts it did cost me millions of dollars typically when you start your own business you have to make sure your rent utilities and the rest of your overhead are paid your employees are paid and your suppliers are paid or you're out of business so guess who doesn't get paid you in the course of starting a new business and I'm talking here about a successful business you can easily go 5 to 10 years without taking a paycheck remember Kim and me sleeping in our beat up Toyota it wasn't fun we could have taken jobs that would have immediately put a roof over our heads but as miserable as it was and believe me it was we chose homelessness over employment because we believed in our dream of being business owners and living in the B quadrant most people do not have have the mental emotional physical or financial stamina to handle these conditions it can be brutal and usually is what about a franchise a franchise takes a great part of the risk out of it with an established franchise like McDonald's or Subway your odds of success improve significantly and a lot of the groundwork is done for you but you're still stuck with problem no1 you have to come up with the cash the cost of purchasing one of the better known franchises can range from $100,000 to $1.5 million or even more and that's just for the rights to the franchise then there are monthly payments to headquarters for training advertising and support and even all this support is still no guarantee of great wealth many times a person must continue to pay money to the franchise or or headquarters even when his or her personal franchise is losing money even if you are one of those who succeeds at a franchise chances are very good that you still won't make any money yourself for the first few years and one in three franchises eventually go broke when my poor dad was 50 years old he had the tarity to run for governor of Hawaii and the incumbent he was running against happened to be his boss not only did he lose the election but his boss fired him and told him he'd never work in Hawaii again he took all his savings and used it to buy a popular franchise one that was built as a never lose franchise the franchise that couldn't lose L lost and so did my dad in fact he lost everything in theory a franchise is a great idea but in reality it's a Gamble and it's a gamble where you have to Pony up a fortune just to Sidle up to the table and play the power of passive income have you ever used one of those spring-loaded water faucets that some public restrooms install to save water when you turn the water on you have to hold the faucet there because when you let go it B bounces back to the off position most people's income Source works just like that faucet you get a little money flowing and then when you let go it bounces back to off you can never build Freedom that way what you want is a money faucet that you can let go of once you've turned it on because it stays on by itself it's not just about having income today tomorrow and next week it's about securing your income in perpetuity this is passive income also known as residual income income that continues coming in over and over long after you finished expending the effort and capital it took to create the source of the income shifting yourself into the B quadrant is a strong step in that direction but not all businesses will create passive income if you own a restaurant you earn income only when you prepare and sell a meal if your business fixes air conditioners you earn income only when you provide that service even high salar doctors and lawyers earn money only when they see patients or clients if no patients or clients require their knowledge and services in a particular week the income faucet Springs shut again and there's no money coming in that week chapter 6 it's time to take control it was 1985 and my wife Kim and I were homeless we were unemployed and had little money left from savings our credit cards were exhausted and we lived in an Old Brown Toyota with lining seats that served his beds at the end of a week of sleeping in our car the harsh reality of who we were what we were doing and where we were headed began to sink in after a friend realized our desperate situation she offered us a room in her basement when friends and family were informed of our plight the first question was always why don't you just get a job at first we attempted to explain but we had a hard time clarifying our reason to our well-meaning inquisitors when you're talking to someone who values having a job it is difficult to explain why you might not want a job we occasionally earned a few dollars doing a few odd jobs here and there but we did that only to keep food in our stomachs and gas in our house I mean our car I must admit that during moments of deep personal doubt the idea of a safe secure job with a paycheck was appealing but because job security was not what we were looking for we kept pushing on living day-to-day on the brink of the financial Abyss we knew we could always find a safe secure high-paying job both of us were college graduates with good job skills and a solid work ethic but we weren't going for job security we were going for Financial Freedom by 1989 we were millionaires I often hear people say it takes money to make money that's BS and I don't mean a Bachelor of Science degree our journey from homelessness to being millionaires in four years and then onto genuine Financial Freedom in another 5 years did not take money we had no money when we started in fact we were in debt and nobody gave us anything along the way either it also does not take a good formal education a college education is important for traditional professions but not for people looking to build wealth if it doesn't take money to make money and it doesn't take a formal education to learn how to become financially free then what does it take it takes a dream a lot of determination a willingness to learn quickly and an understanding of which sector of the cash flow quadrant you're operating in hard work will not make you rich there is this strange idea in our culture that says if you work really hard you'll be okay what a pile of baloney and what's so tragic about it is that most people have been brainwashed to believe it and they do do believe it even though we're all surrounded by tons of evidence to the contrary what evidence just look around you do you know anyone who has worked really hard his entire life only to end up living a life that hovers just above or just below the indignity and heartbreak called subsistence level of course you do we all do the world is full of people who work hard and are most definitely not okay and perhaps the worst part about it is that many of these unfortunates come to the conclusion that it was their fault their personal failing they did all the right things right but it still didn't work maybe they just didn't try hard enough or didn't get the lucky breaks maybe they were just not cut out for Success nonsense the problem is that the hard workor myth is just that a myth now don't get me wrong I'm not saying that Building Wealth and Financial Freedom doesn't take hard work it does and lots of it I hope you're not naive enough to believe the idiots who will tell you they can show a way to wealth that's easy that's quick or that's painless because if you are I know a bridge you can buy real cheap and an entire system of subprime mortgages and credit default swaps that might be just right for you no it takes hard work all right the question is hard work doing what I can already hear you thinking doing what making money of course but not so fast because here's the cold hard truth lurking behind that sad error of our our cultures thinking working hard at making money will never create wealth people who work for income work harder and harder only to be taxed more and more forget working hard at making money all you'll do is spend it and then have to work hard all over again you might be asking okay so what do I do you take control take control of what after all most things in life you cannot control no matter how hard you try you can't control the market you can't control employees you can't control the economy what can you control you can control the source of your income and by the way that's not just a book title we do want you to be rich wealth is not a zero sum game it's not like if you become rich then you're taking it away from me or Donald or anyone else this is an astonishing and abundant world we live in and there is way more than enough energy material Ingenuity creativity and ambition to allow every every human being on the planet to be wealthy so what did we discover we found that one business model stood out from the rest this particular business model creates passive income but requires relatively little cash investment to start up it has very low overhead and can be operated on a flexible part-time basis until it generates enough cash flow for the entrepreneur to transition out of his current full-time job that business model is called network marketing and it's what the rest of this book is all about part two one business eight wealth building assets eight reasons network marketing can secure your future 33 chapter 7 my years in the business I need to start here with full disclosure I've never really been in the business of network marketing I am not a distributor for or owner of a network marketing company have no financial interest in any network marketing company and do not promote any one specific company but I have been very much in the business for years as a champion and advocate of the network marketing business as a whole and in this chapter I want to tell you why I first encountered network marketing in 1975 when a friend invited me to a presentation on a new business opportunity since I make it a habit to investigate business and investment opportunities I agreed to go although I thought it was a little strange that the business meeting was at a private home rather than in an office I listened for three hours while he talked about the value of building your own business instead of working at a job I agreed with most of the points he made at the end of the evening the friend asked me what I thought about what I'd heard it's interesting I replied but it's not for me I was already thoroughly involved in the process of building a business why would I need to build a business with other people and besides it was network marketing I really had no idea what that meant but I thought I knew what it meant and I was sure it held no value for me soon after my first network marketing meeting the sports wallet business that I had started with two friends boomed my two years of hard work started paying off success Fame and Fortune seemed to pour down upon my two partners and me we had pledged we would all be millionaires by the age of 30 and through our hard work and sacrifice we had reached our goal and this was the 1970s when a million dollars was actually worth something our company and products were written up in such magazines as Surfer Runner world and gentleman's quarterly we were the hot new thing in the Sporting Goods world and business poured in from all over the globe I was an allout success I never gave network marketing another thought at least not for the next decade the opening of a mind over the years that followed my mind began to open up that incredibly successful business failed a few years after it started it was a humbling experience and a very positive one because it caused me to look closer at the world around me and to ask questions more of what my rich dad had taught me began to sink in and my perspective grew it was not long before I had built another successful business and then another and then another and unlike that first business these lasted during those years years I also became powerfully drawn to the idea of not only becoming rich myself but also finding ways to help others become rich I came to realize that while personal success is fulfilling it's much more fulfilling when you can help many others create their own success as well for the next 15 years I kept hearing negative things about network marketing mostly from people I knew eventually I decided to check it out for myself in the early 1990s I ran into to a friend named Bill who was a retired multi-millionaire we got talking and lo and behold Bill told me that he was involved in building a network marketing business bill is a very sharp very Savvy guy I knew he had just completed commercial real estate projects worth over1 billion I asked him why on Earth he was involved in network marketing for years he told me people have asked me for real estate investment tips they want to know if they can invest with me but they can't because most don't have the $50,000 or $100,000 it takes to get into my level of real estate investments in fact many of them have absolutely no money at all some are two paychecks away from bankruptcy so they look for these cheap no money down deals that are often very bad investments in network marketing I can actually help people make the kind of money they need to do some serious investing the more people I help do that the more investors I have besides he added I really love working with people who are hungry to learn and grow it's a drag working with people who think they already know it all which is what often ends up happening in my real estate deals the people I work with in network marketing are genuinely excited about new ideas after a few more minutes of conversation I had to make a dash for the airport but over the next few months we continued our dialogue and as we did my respect for network marketing and what it represented grew in 1994 I started researching the industry in Earnest I went to every presentation I heard about and listened closely to everything I heard I studied the literature of company after company looked at their track records and examined them closely the way I would do my due diligence on any business venture I was considering investing in I even joined a few companies if I liked what I saw just so I could learn more about them and see what the experience was like from the inside eventually I began meeting some of these companies leaders and I was stunned to find that they were some of the most intelligent kind ethical moral spiritual and professional people I had met in all my years of business once I got over my own prejudices and met people I respected and related to I saw that I had found the heart of the industry and I was amazed at what I had found when I had first stumbled upon the concept in that first opportunity meeting in 197 75 my mind had been closed tight to the idea now some 20 years later my view had completely changed people sometimes ask me why do you recommend network marketing to people as a way they can build wealth when you did not become rich that way yourself actually it is because I did not gain my fortune through network marketing that I can be a bit more objective about the industry I came to appreciate this business as an outsider and only after I had already built my own wealth and established my own Financial Freedom all the same if I had to do it all over again today and start from scratch rather than building an old style business I would start out by building a network marketing business so what exactly is network marketing I said that I've never actually been involved in network marketing as a participant but I know someone who has and I invited him to join me in these pages to share some of his insights my friend John Fleming started out in life as an architect he once worked for the legendary M van a row and that's one of the reasons I admire his approach to network marketing he brings that same passion for practical design and functional construction to this business he's a man in other words who appreciates the value of building structures that last John brings to these Pages his nearly 40 years of experience in network marketing he has owned and operated his own company and has held many different executive positions in others including a 15-year tenure at one of the industries largest and most well-respected companies as a regional vice president and then Vice President of Sales strategy training and development he has also been actively involved in the industry's various trade groups in 1997 the direct selling Education Foundation awarded Jon with its highest honor their circle of honor award today Jon serves as publisher and editor-in-chief of direct selling news a respected trade publication serving direct selling and network Marketing Executives Robert John for those readers who may not already know what exactly is network marketing and what makes it tick John network marketing has been around in various forms since the middle of the last century the basic idea is as simple as it is brilliant instead of spending tons of money on all sorts of professional agencies and marketing channels to promote products or Services why not pay the people who love them most to just tell others about them that's exactly what a network marketing company does does they pay a portion of every sales dollar received back out to their field of independent Representatives who typically are also the products most committed and enthusiastic consumers Robert let me play devil's advocate for a moment how can that really work I mean can a bunch of ordinary people who are not skilled marketers really compete and generate any serious level of sales John actually that's the beauty of it as every marketing professional Hollywood producer and corporate giant knows the single most powerful form of promotion in the world is personal word of mouth that's why television commercials spend Millions to hire actors to talk just like your mom your spouse your best friend or your kids they are imitating personal Word of Mouth in network marketing we use the real thing the real power of the model what you talk about Robert as Leverage is that as a representative you aren't paid commissions only on products used by the people you refer to the company but often on products bought by the people they refer directly and indirectly that can really add up so does it work you know the answer to that one direct selling network marketing today does well over $110 billion in annual sales globally which makes it an economic block roughly the size of New Zealand Pakistan or the Philippines I often describe this business model with both the terms direct selling and network marketing because today most direct selling companies employ a network marketing Focus however for the purposes of this book I will just use network marketing in my references one reason that the total sales from network marketing keeps growing is that it's a true win-win the company gets an amazing level of Market penetration and customer awareness that would be very tough and very expensive to get with traditional marketing and the independent rep has the opportunity to create some very serious cash flow how by harnessing the power of Word of Mouth person-to-person relationships to build a substantial Network that represents the company's line of products Andor Services Robert you talk about a b quadrant business being one that has at least 500 employees in network marketing you don't hire employees you sponsor individuals who are all independent Representatives but the same Financial Dynamic applies by the time your network independent Representatives grows to be 300 400 or 500 strong you've got a serious organization that delivers significant residual income what others say about network marketing as John says the model is powerful because it works and we're not the only ones who say so either Tom Peters the legendary management expert and author of the classic best seller in search of Excellence describes network marketing as the first truly revolutionary shift in marketing since the Advent of modern marketing at Proctor and Gamble and Harvard Business School over 50 years ago the emerging success of network marketing has been written about in such journals as Forbes Fortune Newsweek time US News and World Report USA Today the New York Times And The Wall Street Journal 15 years ago you couldn't have gotten a single one of these journals to give this business the time of day now look at what a recent issue of Fortune set about network marketing an Investor's dream the best-kept secret of the business World an industry with steady annual growth healthy cash flows High return on invested capital and long-term prospects for Global expansion Warren Buffett and Richard Branson couldn't be more different Buffett drives a pickup and lives in Omaha Branson flies his own Airline and lives on his own island in the British Virgin Islands but they have three things things in common they are both billionaires they are both extremely practical men and they have both owned network marketing companies does that tell you something City Group jockey L'Oreal Mars Remington and Unilever guess what they all have in common they've all put a toe in the network marketing water in some cases right up to their hips today network marketing is recognized by many experts and accomplished business people as one of the fastest growing business models in the World chapter 8 it's not about income it's about assets that generate income it's no wonder so many people don't understand the value of network marketing many of those who are actually involved with it themselves don't fully grasp the value of what they hold in their hands when people go to hear network marketing presentations often their main question is if I join this business how much income can I earn here and no surprise when you listen to people promote their network marketing business often that's exactly what you will hear them talk about how much you can earn on a per month basis the reason people want to know how much they can earn per month is that they are thinking in terms of living in the E quadrant or S quadrant they are thinking about supplementing or replacing their current e quadrant or S quadrant income but that's not where the real value of network marketing lies the problem with earning inome come is that it's an incredibly limited linear process work an hour earn a dollar work two hours earn $2 it depends on you which means you can never stop as I said before it's a trap most people instinctively sense that but they assume that the way out of the Trap is to earn more income but earning more income doesn't change the basic fact of being tied to your income in fact often earning more income only serves to draw The Noose tighter the BNI quadrants are not about earning more income they're about owning assets that generate income the truth about your house the things that most people think of as assets are not assets at all in fact they're liabilities what defines whether something is an asset or a liability is cash flow not some abstraction of value in other words is it generating money that goes into your pocket or is it taking money out of your pocket everything will either make you money or cost you money if it doesn't make you money it's not an asset it's a liability for years now people have been using their houses as ATMs borrowing against them to scarf up cash they could use to pay off their credit cards take vacations buy that SUV whatever maybe you've done this yourself if you have the reason you did is that you bought the conventional line that your house was an asset and not what it really is a credit card with shingles and a driveway let me explain what an asset is most people are so confused about this that they have it backward they run to the dictionary and find that an asset is something that's worth something well maybe the problem is that tricky word worth let me ask you a question what is your house worth before you answer let me ask you the same question a different way how much income does your house bring you month in and month out chances are good your answer is well no in fact I spend a good chunk of change on it every month in upkeep repair and so forth exactly that's because your house is not an asset it's a liability but wait a minute you say my house is worth a couple hundred thousand oh really when when you sell it at some theoretical point in the future but then where would you live would you take the proceeds of your sale and buy another house to live in of course so where's the worth the actual discretion AR income that you can hold in your hands and use to buy or invest in anything you like it isn't there there isn't any your house is not an asset it's a hole in the ground into which you pour money how to know your asset from a hole in the ground forget the dictionary definition for a moment let's talk about the real world an asset is something that works for you so you don't have to work for the rest of your life my poor dad always said work for a job my Rich Dad said build assets the powerful thing about living in the B quadrant is that when you build a business you are building an asset in our Rich Dad business we have offices throughout the world whether I'm working or sleeping or playing golf the checks come in that's passive income residual income while I won't work hard for a job I'll work really hard to build an asset simply because I think like a rich person not like a workingclass person because owning a business is owning an asset when you build a network marketing business you're not only learning critical life skills you're also building a genuine asset for yourself in a job you earn income in network marketing instead of earning income you build an asset your business and the asset generates income I only invest in things that make me money if it makes me money it's an asset if it takes money from me it's a liability I have two Porsches the their liabilities I own them free and clear but they're not putting money in my pocket they're taking money out of my pocket it's not rocket science for people who understand this the num one asset is usually a business and the non two asset is typically real estate and even with real estate you have to understand the difference between cash flow and capital gain most people don't understand this distinction when they invest they invest for capital gain they'll say my house went up in value my car went up in value that's capital gain not cash flow the purpose of owning real estate is to keep it as an asset not to sell it for a profit if you buy a piece of real estate for $100,000 and then sell it for $200,000 that's not an asset you just generated a $100,000 capital gain you had to shoot the asset to get that money you've killed the asset it's like selling your cow for money I'd rather own the cow and sell the milk this is the biggest problem with having a job a job is not an asset you can't sell it on eBay you can't rent it out you can't take dividends from it why spend decades the best years of your life working a way to build something that is not an asset or to put it more accurately to build someone else's asset but not your own because make no mistake about it when you work at a job you are building an asset it's just not your asset we've had this this idea drilled into us that there is some sort of inherent value in having a good job but there is absolutely no value in it zero and to add insult to injury the income from your job is then taxed at a higher rate than any other form of income talk about the deck being stacked against you yet that is the price some people are willing to pay for the Safety and Security of the E quadrant network marketing is not about selling products or earning income the biggest popular misconception about network marketing is that it's a selling business but selling is just earning more income the problem is if you stop the activity the income stops a salesperson has a job if you work behind the counter at a department store you're in the E quadrant if you're in business for yourself selling insurance or homes or jewelry you're in the S quadrant but either way you have a job and your job is to sell that's not going to build your wealth or your Freedom what you want is not another job you want another address one over in the B quadrant John Robert that's exactly right people often assume that being successful in this business means being great at sales but the point of network marketing is not to become great at selling your particular product or service because no matter how good you might be at doing that and let's be honest if you're like most people you don't think you're very good at it there's only so much income you can earn selling after all there are so many hours in the day right in network marketing the whole point is not to sell a product but to build a network an army of people who are all representing that same product or service to share with others the goal is not for you or any other individual to sell a lot of product it's for a lot of people to be their own best customer sell and service a reasonable number of customers and recruit and show a lot of other people how to do the same thing and here's the reason you want to build that army of independ Representatives once you do you know what you'll have an asset that generates income for you passive income in Chapter 13 I'll ask John to explain more fully why network marketing is not about selling or being a salesperson and I hope you pay really close attention because this is a key point one that most people just don't get for now here's the key nail I want to hammer home network marketing is not about earning more income it's about build building an asset actually it's about building eight assets all at the same time and in the next chapters we'll take a look at each one in turn chapter n asset hash1 a real world business education I have a confession to make I am a slow reader I do read a lot it's just that I read very slowly and I often have to read a book two or three times before I really understand what I'm reading what's more I am also a very poor writer in fact I failed writing twice in high school so you want to know something ironic this C student who failed his writing courses in school and who to this day is not a very good writer has had seven books on the New York Times bestseller list my point good grades aren't everything don't get me wrong I'm not putting down education I believe in education in fact I believe in it with a passion it's just that the education I believe in most is the education that truly teaches you what you need to learn to be successful in your life when I recommend that people build their own network marketing business the number one reason I always give is not for the many excellent even life-changing products you might represent and it's not for the money you can earn or the Financial Freedom you can create yes the products are often excellent and yes I put a great deal of value on its ability to give you a real path to Building Wealth but these are not the most important benefits you gain from the experience the number one value you get from the experience is a real world business education three kinds of Education if you want to be financially successful there are three different types of Education you require Scholastic professional and financial education Scholastic education teaches you how to read write and do math it is a very important education especially in today's world personally I did not do well with this level of Education as I've said I was a SE student most of my life simply because I was not that interested in what I was being taught professional education teaches you how to work for money in other words It prepares you for life in the ens quadrants during my youth the smart kids went on to become doctors lawyers and accountants others went to professional schools that taught them to become medical assistants plumbers Builders electricians and automobile mechanics I didn't Excel here either since I had not done well at Scholastic education I was not encouraged to become a doctor lawyer or accountant instead I became a ship's officer and then a helicopter pilot flying for the Marine Corps in Vietnam by the time I was 23 years old I had two professions one as a ship's officer and the other as a pilot but I never really used either of them to make money Financial education is where you learn to have money work for you rather than to have you work for money you might think you'd get a financial education in business school but by and large that's not what happens what business schools generally do is take the smartest kids and train them to be business Executives for the rich in other words they train their students for life in the upper echelon of the E quadrant but it's still the E quadrant after I returned from Vietnam I considered going back to school to get my MBA but my Rich Dad talked me out of it he said if you get an MBA from a Traditional School you are being trained to be an employee of the rich if you want to be rich yourself you don't need more Scholastic education you need a real world financial education the important skills being an entrepreneur and building a b quadrant business is not easy in fact I believe building a b quadrant business is one of the toughest challenges a person can take on the reason there are so many more people in the ens quadrants is that those quadrants are less demanding than the B quadrant if it were easy everyone would be doing it if you are going to be successful in business there are technical skills you need to learn that you probably did not learn in school for example the ability to get organized and set your own agenda this is bigger than it might sound people who enter the arena of network marketing sometimes experience a type of culture shock because they are used to being told what to do you may work very very hard in the E quadrant yet have absolutely no experience at setting goals organizing a plan of action setting your agenda managing your time and executing a clear sequence of productive actions it's shocking how many people do not have these basic skills shocking but not surprising after all in the E quadrant you really don't need them but if you're entering the B quadrant they are not an option they are every bit as important as skills like knowing how to balance a checkbook write a financial plan and read an annual report tax advance ages and the lesson they teach people who are brand new to network marketing are often quite surprised to learn about the significant tax advantages that come from having your own home-based business most people have at least a vague idea that the rich enjoy all sorts of tax advantages that they themselves do not but since they have lived their entire lives within the E quadrant they typically have no concept of what those advantages are or how they actually work therefore people are often shocked to realize that they too can enjoy those very same tax advantages and put significant amounts of money in their pockets from the very first day of their new businesses with recent changes in tax policies and more Insurance programs tailored for small businesses and the self-employed it's easier than ever before to create your own benefits package that Rivals and even surpasses anything the standard big Corporation could offer by starting a network marketing business in your spare time and keeping your regular job you begin to gain the taxes advantages of the rich a person with a part-time business can take more tax deductions than employees can the above are just some examples of things you already spend money on that may become legitimate tax deductions once you begin your own home-based network marketing business note this list is given here for illustration purposes only for tax advice on your own situation you should consult your tax professional for example you may be able to deduct car expenses gasoline some meals and entertainment obviously you need to check with a CPA for exact rulings on your situation and when you do you'll find that the cost of that visit to your CPA is tax deductible too in other words the government will actually give you a tax break for the cost of getting professional advice on how to pay the government Less in taxes my point in going into all this is not only to let you know about this significant economic leverage that comes on day one of new business from tax savings more than that I wanted to drive home this point most people have no clue what it's like to be in the B quadrant the reason most people are shocked when they learn about the tax advantages available here is that for the great majority of people the B quadrant might as well be the lost continent of Atlantis one of the beauties of network marketing is that it pulls away the veil of mystery and starts to show you life in the B quadrant welcome to your real world business educ ation life skills when it comes to creating business success it's not a simple matter of technical skills even more important are the life skills it takes to successfully negotiate the B quadrant the key to long-term success in life is your education and skills your life experiences and most of all your personal character for example I had to learn how to overcome my self-doubt shyness and fear of rejection another personal de development skill I had to learn was how to pick myself up after I failed and keep going these are the personal traits a person must develop if they are to be successful in a b quadrant business regardless whether it is a network marketing business a franchise or an entrepreneurial startup if you don't learn these things in school and you don't learn them in the workplace and you were not taught them in your home while growing up where are you going to learn them where on Earth will you find a business that will invest the time in your education and personal development as well as help you actually build your business in network marketing that's where John it's interesting Robert that you always cite the business education as the no one benefit you see in the business and I think there's a lot of Merit to that point often people learn skills and develop aspects of themselves through their experience in network marketing that they might otherwise never learn network marketing teaches people how to overcome their fears how to communicate how to understand the psychology of other people saying no to them and how to maintain persistence in the face of rejection and other real world challenges here are some of the critical skills that the real world education of network marketing teaches good network marketing companies provide a solid program of training in all these areas and I agree this kind of education is absolutely Priceless in fact you'd be hardpressed to find a situation anywhere else where you could pay good money to gain all this training let alone a situation where they pay you to learn it we have a common expression in network marketing that it's a business where you earn while you learn it's a great saying because it underlines this key point about the business you learn to do it by doing it not by sitting in a classroom for years hearing someone talk about doing it in network marketing the training is more than Theory it's experiential and regardless of whether or not you reach the top of the specific program you're in or make a great deal of money the training itself is of tremendous value for the rest of your life many people actually end up in other businesses where they become very successful due to the business training and experience they first received in their network marketing experience and that's the real Point here and the biggest reason that I've been recommending this business to people for a decade when you join a good network marketing company they don't just give you ATT track to run on they also support you in developing the skills and qualities you need to succeed network marketing is a real world business school for people who want to learn The Real World skills of an entrepreneur rather than the skills of an employee chapter 10 asset hash2 a profitable path of personal development I know what you're probably saying kosaki have you gone soft what's all this touchy feel talk about a path of personal development I don't need an encounter group I need to make ends meet I want to build wealth not sing Kumbaya not so fast I haven't gone soft on you I'm just being realistic becoming rich is not about putting your lucky 50 cent piece into the right slot machine and you are not simply looking at a new way to earn a supplemental income you are actually making a change in your core values it's not just about changing what you do in a very real sense it's about changing who you are my friend Donald Trump is worth billions today but there was a time when he lost it all during a real estate crash he talks about the experience of being $9.2 billion in debt I passed a beggar on the street and realized he was worth $9.2 billion more than I was yet before long Donald was back on top again why because of who he is or more accurately who he had become I had a simp experience by age 30 I was a millionaire 2 years later my company had gone broke losing a business was not a pleasant experience but it was a great education I learned a lot in those few years a lot about business but even more about myself after the crash Rich Dad told me money and success make you arrogant and stupid now with some poverty and humility behind you you can become a student again he was right the lessons I learned from The Experience proved over time to be Priceless building and then losing a worldwide business provided me with a real world education that ultimately made me Rich even more important it was an education that Set Me Free and the most important things I learned in the course of that education were not about business or money they were about me let me ask John a question about this and if his answer is what I think it's going to be you'll see what I mean Robert John obviously not everyone who goes into network marketing has the same level of success in your experience what is the no one reason that some people fail to reach the level of success they hoped for in network marketing John success is defined differently by different people what may be important for one person may not be for another some people are satisfied with supplementing their current level of income While others are truly looking for a business opportunity that can be transforming in terms of income potential and lifestyle goals you have to Define failure in a very broad sense being able to earn $1,000 a month may be seen as failure for the person who is attempting to build a significant business but great success for the mother whose goal was to significantly supplement the household income regardless of the goal we know that those who persist in network marketing tend to get only better and better in fact the only way I believe people fail is to quit but this needs a little but more detail to be fully accurate it's not simply a matter of whether or not one quits the company that is resigns one's distributorship and formally declares I'm out the issue here is not about quitting the business it's about quitting on yourself that's exactly what I thought it goes back to what I said at the very beginning of this book this isn't just about changing the type of business you're working with it's also about changing you I can show you the perfect business but for your business to grow you will have to grow as well the winner in you and the loser in you there are two words for what John just described one is quitter the other is loser each of us has a winner and a loser inside of us that includes me too there's a winner in me and a loser in me and they often compete for airtime the reason most people just get by instead of truly succeeding in life is that they let the loser inside them dominate I don't I insist that the winner win out how do you know when the loser is speaking up oh I can't afford that oh that's too risky or what if I fail the winner is up for the risk but the loser thinks only of Safety and Security it's ironic the loser yaps and squawks about Safety and Security and ends up stuck in a career and a life that is never truly safe or secure what's safe about working a 40-hour a weak job for a corporation that will probably lay you off within the next few years or sticking your meager earnings into a 401k that gets sucked up by a mutual fund that tanks or into a fund managed by a financial adviser who turns out to be another Bernie madeof inside each of us is the winner and the loser the rich guy and the poor guy the one who works out and the one who sits on the couch that's the battle the reason you want to join a network marketing company is that they will support the rich person inside of you to stand up and be counted your loser friends want you to stay on the couch they want you to play it safe and work your 40 hours because if you do then you won't be challenging them to do anything different not your network marketing sponsor your network marketing team wants to see you Excel to Step Beyond what you're used to doing to go beyond your history and become the more exceptional extraordinary you instead of remaining the ordinary you it's easy to say I can't afford that or it's just too expensive or I just want my benefits I don't want to have to work that hard or take those risks that's the loser speaking and you shouldn't feel bad about that we've all got one I have one in me and lots of times he gets the upper hand at least for a short time every morning I make that choice who got up this morning the rich me or the poor me the winner or the loser that's our battle in fact we each have an entire C cast of characters inside us a whole spectrum of who we could potentially turn out to be I wanted the person who was happily married who made a contribution to the planet and who was spiritually inclined for Freedom every time we let our fears our doubts or our low self-esteem win the loser emerges and holds sway learning to share your vision and tell a powerful persuasive story is learning how to override the loser inside you and allowing the winner to rise to the surface learn learning how to tell a powerful story is learning how to show up as the winner you are most people don't have the ability to keep going to handle disappointment and never lose sight of the vision of where they're going they simply haven't been trained in that skill but that's critically important that's the real skill of someone who has mastered the B quadrant that is thinking like an entrepreneur and that's the single most important attribute you can learn from building your own network marketing business it took me two full years when I first went to work for Xerox Corporation to begin stepping into my power and letting the winner in me emerge I was on the brink of being fired at the end of those two years but fortunately for me that's when my self-confidence finally began to grow my sales improved and within another two years I was consistently number one or no two in my office increasing my self-esteem was more important than my paycheck rebuilding my self-confidence and my self esteem has been priceless and it has helped me earn millions of dollars for that I will always be grateful to the Xerox Corporation and the staff that taught me how to overcome My Demons doubts and fears today I strongly recommend network marketing because the industry offers the same opportunity to strengthen and rebuild your self-confidence that the Xerox Corporation offered me network marketing gives you the opportunity to face your fears deal with them overcome them and bring out the winner that you have living inside you and make no mistake about it just because you join a network marketing company and start building your business doesn't mean you have left the loser behind it will take years to build up your genuine Freedom we talk a lot about freedom in this country but you don't really have freedom until you have Financial Freedom and that takes time to create I was born with nothing and I made and lost my fortune several times along the way so I know what it feels like to lose everything it's easy in those difficult times for the loser to take over there will be times when you will feel tested when your friends are telling you I told you so and your family members are whispering to you don't you think it would be better if you just put more energy into your little job and let that Network thing go I promise you there will be times when it will be so tempting to let the Loser run the show Don't Do It win flight school all caterpillars make C Coons before becoming butterflies flight school was my cocoon I entered as a college graduate and exited a pilot ready to go to Vietnam if I had gone to a civilian flight school I doubt I would have been ready for war even though I was a pilot what we had to learn as military Pilots is far different from what civilian Pilots have to learn the skills are different the intensity of training is different and the reality of going to war at the end of the training makes things different it took took me nearly 2 years to get through basic flight school in Florida I received my wings and then was transferred to Advanced flight training at Camp Pendleton California the training there escalated in its intensity at Camp Pendleton we were trained to fight more than to fly after we had finished flight school and became Pilots we had one year to prepare to go to Vietnam we flew constantly often under conditions that tested us mentally emotionally physically and spiritually about 8 months into the program at Camp Pendleton something changed inside me during one training flight I finally became a pilot who was ready to go to war up to that point I was flying mentally emotionally and physically some people call it flying mechanically on that one training Mission I changed spiritually the mission was so intense and frightening that suddenly all my doubts and fears were forced out of the way and my human Spirit took over flying had become a part of me I felt at peace and at home inside the aircraft the aircraft was part of me I was ready to go to Vietnam it was not that I had no fear I still had the same fears about going to war the fear of dying or even worse of becoming crippled the difference was that I was now ready to go to war my confidence in myself was greater than the fears my process of becoming a business person and investor followed much the same process as becoming a pilot ready to go into battle it took my failing twice in business before I suddenly found that quality that is often called entrepreneurial spirit that is the spirit that keeps me on the B and I side of the cash flow quadrant map no matter how tough things get I stay on the B and I side rather than slipping back to the safety and comfort of the e and s side I would say it took me 15 years to gain the confidence to feel comfortable in the B quadrant you're luckier than I am you don't need to spend that long or go through the failures and struggles I did you can get that same kind of life-changing education right here in your own flight school network marketing how my business skills changed my life now that I've talked about military training and learning to fly under battle conditions in the jungles of Vietnam I want to tell you one more story about the honing of character this one not on the battlefield but in the field of love if I had not gone through my own intense form of schooling to learn real world business skills I doubt I would have been fortunate enough to marry the woman of my dreams but I did and I did when I first met Kim I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world I was speechless and completely terrified at the idea of going up to talk with her however my business training had taught me to overcome my fear of failure and rejection and that training was about to pay off big time instead of hiding in the back of the room and staring at her from afar which is exactly what I would have done years earlier I walked boldly forward and said hi Kim turned and flashed her beautiful smile and I was in love she was right out of my dreams but when I asked her out she said no an earlier Robert kosaki might have slunk away and admitted defeat but I had been toughened by my business training I collected my nerve and asked her out again again she said no now my self-confidence was bruised and my ego was fading but I asked her out once again and again the answer was no this went on for 6 months each time she said no I went into hiding to lick my wounded ego I was hurting inside if I had not learned how to overcome my own self-doubts I could never have kept asking for 6 months but I did and finally one day she said yes we have been together ever since I tell this story not just because it's a warm and fuzzy story of how Robert and Kim went according I tell it because it makes a critical point this is not just about business and money this is your life we're talking about how you earn your money and build your career is how you earn your destiny and build your legacy chapter 11 asset hash3 a circle of friends who share your dreams and values this may be tough to hear but if you want to create a different economy in your life you may need to get new friends more than you need to get a new job why because even though they love you and even though they don't mean to the friends you hang with right now might be holding you down you may have heard that your income tends to be about equal to the average income of your five closest friends and you've no doubt heard the saying birds of a feather flock together that also holds true for rich people poor people and middle class people in other words the rich Network with the rich the poor network with other poor people and the middle class hangs out with the middle class my Rich Dad often said if you want to become rich you need to network with those who are rich or who can help you become rich many people spend their lives hanging out and networking with people who hold them back financially in a network marketing business you hang out with people who are there to help you become richer ask yourself this are the people with whom I spend time dedic ated to me becoming rich or are they more interested in me continuing on as a hard worker by the age of 15 I knew that I wanted to become financially free and that one way to do that was to learn how to network with people who could help me become financially free I decided I would seek the Friendship of friends who were interested in me becoming a rich person rather than becoming a loyal employe working for the rich this was a life-changing moment it was not an easy decision because at 15 I had to be very careful about who I spent my time with and which teachers I would listen to if you are considering building your own business a you need to be acutely aware of who you're spending your time with and who your teachers are it's a crucial consideration the hardest thing about leaving Xerox was that I had to let go of some friendships most of my friends and family were in the E quadrant and they had different values than I did they valued security and a steady paycheck and I valued freedom and financial Independence this made my decision a painful experience but it was a necessary decision to make if I was going to grow you may well experience something similar in network marketing you may find that there are friends or family members who don't understand or sympathize with your decision to look into network marketing or who may even actively try to discourage you you may have friends tell you that you're nuts you're a sucker or you're making a huge mistake you may even Lose Friends I hesitate to write that sentence because it sounds harsh but that's because it is Harsh it's reality and mind you this has nothing to do with network marketing itself what's really going on here is that you are making a seismic shift in your life from living in the e or S quadrant to living in the B quadrant this is not simply taking a different job it's more like moving to a different country changing your religion or switching political parties the English poet John Dunn wrote no man is an island entire of itself every man is a piece of the continent a part of the main he said that way back in 1623 and it's a thousand times truer in the incredibly interconnected world of today you can't get rich in isolation you are only as good as the community of people you hang out with talk with work with and play with John that's true everywhere in life but it's especially true and especially relevant in network marketing because when you build a network marketing business you actually build around yourself a powerful brand new community of friends who are learning the same kinds of values and real world business skills you are this is also one of the great advantages of a network marketing business rather than being surrounded by people who are competing with you for that next promotion here your business is filled with people who are just as committed to your success as you are because your success is what assures their success chances are good that some of them will become your new best friends in fact according to the direct selling Association DSA a significant number of people who join network marketing companies and stick with them rank The Social Network they belong to as an even higher priority than the income they earn network marketing not only provides a great business education it also provides a whole new world of friends friends who are going in the same direction as you are and share the same core values as you do the English poet John Dunn wrote no man is an island entire of itself every man is a piece of the continent a part of the main he said that way back in 1623 and it's a thousand times truer in the incredibly interconnected world of today you can't get rich in isolation you are only as good as the community of people you hang out with talk with work with and play with John that's true everywhere in life but it's especially true and especially relevant in network marketing because when you build a network marketing business you actually build around yourself a powerful brand new community of friends who are learning the same kinds of values and real world business skills you are this is also one of the great advantages of a network marketing business rather than being surrounded by people who are competing with you for that next promotion here your business is filled with people who are just as committed to your success as you are because your success is what assures their success chances are good that some of them will become your new best friends in fact according to the direct selling Association DSA a significant number of people who join network marketing companies and stick with them rank The Social Network they belong to as an even higher priority than the income they earn there you have it network marketing not only provides a great business education it also provides a whole new world of friends friends who are going in the same direction as you are and share the same core values as you do to me the kind of friendship John is talking about is every bit as Priceless as the best business training today I have friends in all four quadrants but my core friends the ones I really hang out with the ones whose time means the most to me are in the B and I quadrants and by the way those friends I left behind at Xerox they are still great friends today they will always be great friends because they were there for me at a transitional phase of my life but for me it was time to move on if it is time for you to move on and the B quadrant is calling you you may want to join a network marketing business and begin to meet new friends chapter 12 asset hash4 the power of your own network one of the first things that intrigued me about this business model when I started looking into it seriously in the 1990s was the simple fact that it used the word network I remembered that my Rich Dad really respected this term Thomas Edison was one of my rich dad's Heroes people today often think of Edison as the inventor of the light bulb but this is not true Edison did not invent the light bulb what he did do was improve it and perfect it even more important he figured how to turn it into a business after dropping out of school because his teachers thought he wasn't smart enough to succeed there Edison took a job selling candies and magazines on the railroads soon he began printing his own newspaper and within a year he had hired a team of boys to sell candies along with his newspaper he had gone from employee to business owner the power is not in the product the power is in the network if you want to become rich the best strategy is to find a way to build a strong viable growing Network young Edison grew Restless selling newspapers and learned how to send and receive Morse code so he could get a job as a telegraph operator soon he was one of the best Telegraph operators around and this is where he learned the secret that would make him a millionaire as a telegraph operator he saw what had transformed the invention of the telegraph into such a success it was the system of lines poles skilled people and relay stations it was the power of a network while Edison is famous for tinkering with the light bulb and perfecting the filament that made the bul bulb practical Edison's true stroke of Genius was to create a company that strung the electric lines that allowed the light bulb to penetrate Society the company Edison founded would make him a multi-millionaire it was called General Electric what made Edison's business so revolutionary was not the light bulb itself but the system of electrical lines and relay stations that powered the light bulb it was the network my rich dad told me the richest people in the world build networks everyone else looks for work from the shipping magnates and railroad Barons to Sam Walton Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos the great fortunes of the world have been made by those who figured out how to build networks Sam Walton didn't manufacture goods for people he built the distribution Network that delivers the goods Bill Gates didn't build computers he built the operating system that ran on those computers Jeff Bezos didn't go into publishing books he created the online Network Amazon that delivers those books the power is not in the product the power is in the network if you want to become rich the best strategy is to find a way to build a strong viable growing network of course most of us are not Thomas Edison Sam Walton or Bill Gates and never will be yes there will be handfuls of remarkably creative Pioneers in every generation who create new multi-billion dollar networks from scratch as these men did but it's not a reason reasonable ambition for tens of thousands of people let alone Millions that's why network marketing is so brilliant the companies that make up the network marketing industry now offer millions of people just like yourself the opportunity to build their own network rather than spend their lives working for someone else's Network meta's law Robert metcafe the founder of 3om and one of the creators of ethernet is credited with creating an equation that defines the value of networks V equals sign N2 in other words a Network's economic value equals the number of the Network's users squared putting metcalf's law in simpler terms it means that as you add users its value increases geometrically think of a network of telephones if you have just one telephone that single telephone has no real economic value if you're the only one with a phone who would you call the moment you add a phone according to meta's law the economic value of of the phone network is squared the economic value of the network would go from 0 to 2 squared or four add a third phone and the economic value of the network is now nine in other words the economic value of a network goes up exponentially not numerically networks come to the business world the classic Industrial Age business model operated much like an Empire it was controlled by a strong central government that maintains a its strongly centralized identity no matter how big it grew in the 1950s a new type of business emerged one that maintained its coherence not by controlling all its parts with a single central office but instead by using the model of a network this idea was so revolutionary that many criticized it and the US Congress came within 11 votes of declaring it illegal but it survived its early years and today is responsible for more than 3% of American retail sales and is thriving around the globe some of its more famous Brands include Ace Hardware Subway and of course the most famous of them all McDonald's that radical business model is called a franchise a franchise is a type of business Network in which multiple business owners all work off the same blueprint in a very pragmatic sense you could say they all share the same values but franchising was just one step in the process of developing networks in the business World I'll let John tell you what happened next John Robert's right this isn't just a question of paying a commission differently or Shifting the responsibility of marketing to a different party it's really an entirely different way of looking at business one that reflects an Information Age economy through networking rather than an industrial age economy through centralized Mass advertising after franchising the next step in the development of networked businesses began in the 1960s and really got underway in the 1970s and 80s instead of a network of franchised businesses this model built itself through a network of franchised individuals in a sense you could call this a personal franchise like the original franchise model this new type of business also came under a lot of criticism yet despite its critics it has survived and thrived that model is called network marketing Robert and by the way the truth about franchising is that as a franchise owner you are part of a network but you don't own the network you own only your particular business as a Network marketer on the other hand John as a Network marketer you not only build the network but you actually own your own network and as you put it Robert that gives you tremendous financial leverage in other words as a Network marketer you get to personally harness the power of meta's law how this doesn't happen simply by affiliating with a network marketing company that's like having a telephone when you are the only one with the telephone to harness the power of meta's law you have to grow the network by duplicating yourself in someone else just like you a partner the moment there are two of you the economic value of your network is squared when there are three of you the economic value of your network goes from 4 to 9 when the two people you brought in also develop two more people each the economic value of your network begins to look like a rocket taking off for the moon you are working arithmetically but your economic value is growing exponentially in plain language meta's law means that a network acts as a lever it allows you to leverage your time and effort Archimedes the engineer of ancient Greece credited with discovering the principle of Leverage declared give me a place to stand on and I can move the world to demon Strate the virtually Limitless power of Leverage he set up an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys and attached this vast Matrix of ropes to an entire fleet of Greek warships when everything was ready and the crowd watching him grew silent Archimedes grabbed this one wooden beam and pulled with all his might and the entire fleet of ships began moving in the water That's The Power of a network through that Matrix of ropes Archimedes could perform a feat that would normally take the combined strength of several thousand ormen and what exactly was that Matrix of ropes a network that's the phenomenal force that makes rumors spread one person tells three who each tell three who each tell three and pretty soon everyone in town knows about it that's how fashion trends spread and that's the core strategy of a network marketing business harnessing the power of meta's law to duplicate your efforts through a network of people network marketing is one of the fastest growing business models in the world today yet most people still cannot see it why not people might see the product the home care or wellness products or the Telecom Financial or legal services but they don't realize that that isn't really the business the real business is not the product but the networks through which the product travels not Edison's light bulb but his electric grid people still don't grasp the value of network marketing because it is invisible it is ual not Material you cannot see it with your eyes because there is very little to see it is a genuine Information Age business model to grasp its value it's not enough to open your eyes you need to open your mind there are no golden arches no green mermaids beckoning you to come into their place of business the business of network marketing has exploded throughout the world yet the masses often still do not see it businesses such as General Motors and general elect are Industrial Age businesses franchises McDonald's Subway The UPS Store Ace Hardware and the rest are transition businesses that sprang up to bridge the passage from the Industrial Age into the information age network marketing businesses are genuine Information Age businesses because they deal not with land and materials factories and employees but with pure information as a Network marketer you might think your job is to demonstrate and sell a product it's not your job is to communicate information to tell a great story and build a network chapter 13 asset has5 a duplicable fully scalable business here's a critical truth about network marketing that may surprise you it is not a business for those who are gifted in sales I promised a few chapters back that JN would say more about this and Now's the Time Robert John would you agree that the most successful people in network marketing are not necessarily the best natural salespeople John Not only would I completely agree but in fact I would say that in a way the opposite is true for a born salesman to succeed in network marketing often the first thing he or she has to do is forget everything they know about selling many of the most successful Network marketers I've ever seen have been coaches moms pastors teachers people who really enjoy telling stories and helping others network marketing is about sharing information and personal stories and not about hard selling it is also about caring about the success of those you bring into the business which is a good thing by the way because only one person in 20 is a natural-born Salesman anyway the key to success in sales is what you can do the key to success in network marketing is what you can duplicate Robert sometimes when I say that this business is not about sales I get a a skeptical reaction yeah but aren't you kind of splitting hairs I mean whether you call it selling or sharing information isn't it pretty much semantics John no it's not semantics and you're not splitting hairs and it's that duplication factor that really dramatically shows you the huge difference between sales and network marketing here's what I would tell that person if you are an amazing uniquely skilled Superstar salesperson then you can do great in sales and chances are good you will do lousy in network marketing why because while you might sell a lot of products most people in your network won't be able to duplicate what you do consequently your network cannot grow and it dies an early death Robert because you smothered it in the Cradle John that's right and I've seen it happen many times I often watch talented and creative people start out in network marketing and run into this brick wall because they think that the way to be success ful is to use their Ingenuity talent and unique skills to be amazing but it's not a question of what you can do it's what you can do and then what others can do too I have also seen companies make the mistake of too strongly recognizing high levels of personal sales as opposed to placing more emphasis on showing everyone how to duplicate their efforts in the performance of others the ability to duplicate is the magic key here not the ability to be a top salesperson when network marketing companies fail to make this clear they impair their ability to continuously develop and energize their growth engine the people who duplicate themselves Robert that's fascinating because when you talk about people who try to be ingenious about it you know what that is that's thinking like a person in the S quadrant not in the B quadrant when you live in the S quadrant then by all means be brilliant and creative and unique but in the B quadrant Kiss of Death Henry Ford did not create cre an Empire and change the face of the planet by building a business model around his workers unique skills and talents now he could have hired Craftsman to handmake his cars they would have been amazing cars and he would have sold maybe a few hundred of them instead he designed a model where Ordinary People could plug in their time and effort and mass-produce millions of cars Ford thought like a person who lived smack in the B quadrant John I wouldn't have thought of putting it that way but that's exactly what it is and if you want to be successful in network marketing that's how you have to think again what gives your network marketing business its real power is not what you can do it's what you can duplicate in other words you want to build your business in a way that virtually anyone else can readily copy why because others copying what you do is exactly what you want to happen what you need to have happen that's what creates your success we'll rejoin this discussion of duplication in a moment but first I want to talk a little about that term scalable information tools for infinite scalability another way of saying what John is talking about when he says the secret is duplication is this the power of your business is in its scalability a business that is scalable simply means a business that can operate on any scale this is often the make or break issue with entrepreneurs the world is full of would be entrepreneurs who create businesses that are wonderful as long as they're operating on a scale so small that they can personally control every aspect of the business but there are very few entrepreneurs who grasp how to design their tiny little business model so it can be multiplied and replicated many times over without their direct participation this is the secret of Ray Croc's Brilliance in creating the McDonald's phenomenon he didn't seek out an elite core of especially talented restaurant tour ERS with highlevel expertise to run his multiple operations instead he designed the expertise right into the operation that's exactly what smart network marketing companies have done instead of trying to recruit only the most highly skilled speakers presenters and salespeople they have designed the presenting into the system itself in the form of information tools and as John explains it that didn't happen overnight John in the early days of network marketing it's practitioners faced a thorny challenge while it is true that anyone can learn to give a presentation it is not true that just anyone can give an effective presentation this meant that while theoretically anyone could be successful in this business it often wasn't that way in reality in the early days the business really did rely on people with great presentation skills and a big part of learning the business was learning how to make a great presentation but just as with sales very few people are ever going to get truly skilled at making a polished professional presentation so this put a serious limitation on the business's ability to grow Robert and that's where presentation tools come into the picture John that's right years ago people tried to do this with brochures and sales books and they had a degree of success while the average person might not be able to become a great presenter he or she could walk a prospect through a brochure or catalog but brochures and booklets are are simply not engaging enough to capture someone's interest in the way a great live presentation from a dynamic presenter can over the past few decades though there has been a seismic shift in presentation technology the explosion of digital technology has leveled the playing field digital tools CDs DVDs and online media have now made it possible to recreate that fully engaging Dynamic quality of a live presentation I find it interesting that you're calling this book The Business of the 21st century Robert because even though it has been around for decades in a very real way this business model is just now coming into its real potential and what we're talking about right now is one of the reasons why today when you start your own network marketing business you don't have to become an Adept public speaker in fact trying to be one can actually work against you because again that's a highly specialized skill and therefore not very duplicable instead of attempting to train yourself to become an expert speaker and presenter you simply use the business tools provided by your company to do the presentations for you what's more these business tools are highly affordable both because it is in the company's interest to make them affordable and also because technology has now made it possible lowcost high-quality CDs DVDs and online presentations often including highquality streaming audio and video have made possible the dream of a truly Democratic and fully scalable network marketing operation creating a business model that has allowed Millions to gain access and Excel do you realize what this means it means that as you build your networking business you are building a fully scalable asset in plain English it means you can grow a business as big as you want before we go on though I have to play The Devil's Advocate one more time Robert John I have to ask you the question I've heard Skeptics ask when they hear this point about being duplicable so if you don't really have to be a top salesperson and you don't have to be an expert speaker or presenter what do you do why does the company even need you John you network that's why it's called network marketing and that's why the company needs you and why they pay you as a Network marketer your job description so to speak is to connect with people invite them to experience the products you are excited about and take take a look at the information you have and then follow up with them then once they've decided to join you in the business you share with them your enthusiasm your experiences and you help them learn to do what you have learned to do here again there are digital tools that can take a huge amount of the burden and expertise of training off your shoulders your job is to build relationships have conversations explore possibilities get to know people and help them get to understand what this business is is all about invite present followup train so there are parts of this business that a tool can do better than you can that's the presentation and to an extent the training and there are parts that only you can uniquely do and that's the human connection part here is the core idea in network marketing you are the messenger not the message gone are the days of carting around a heavy pack of products to sample setting up an entire retail store in your living room or having to memorize long lists of product features and financial statistics this is the 21st century in today's network marketing the tools do all that your job is to connect and invite and by the way this doesn't mean you don't need to be skilled you absolutely do you need to develop the skills we looked at as part of asset hash one the ability to have self-confidence withstand rejection communicate be a great Storyteller care about people coach people and the rest but these are skills available to anyone if you've ever helped build a soccer league PTA group or chess club ever been part of a political campaign or church committee ever coached Little League or formed your own band then you know what it's like to build a network you don't need highly skilled salespeople to duplicate what you do you need people who are willing to learn basic business and communication skills and grow themselves personally into self-determining entrepreneurs and team Builders very few people are truly skilled at sales but practically anyone can become skilled at networking coaching and team building which means this business is open for business to hundreds of millions of your neighbors which means you have a readily duplicable fully scalable business once you've grown it to five people and then 50 you've mastered the basic skills it takes to grow it to 500 5,000 and Beyond which brings us to leadership chapter 14 asset # 6 incomparable leadership skills when I was first researching the world of network marketing I went to many meetings and events where I heard dozens of people speaking from the front of the room in their efforts to inspire others to find their own personal greatness as I listen to these individuals tell their stories of starting with nothing and eventually becoming wealthy beyond their wildest dreams I realized that this business was doing for these people exactly what my rich dad told me to do it wasn't simply teaching them the principles of business it was shaping them into leaders while they seemed to be talking a lot about money these people were really inspiring others to get out of their shells go beyond their fears and go for their dreams to do that required leadership skills on the part of the speaker the reason it takes leadership is that while many people repeat the same overused words and phrases about dreams more time with family and freedom few people Inspire enough trust and inspiration to cause others to follow those words and phrases it's not a matter of memorizing and repeating the right words it's developing the ability to speak directly to other people's Spirits this is a quality that goes beyond words this is genuine leadership you might think that leadership skills would be included as part of asset hash one a real world business education or asset hash 2 a profitable path of personal development that's reasonable you could make a case for both but the truth is having the capacity to lead is a skill set so valuable so powerful and so rare that it is genuinely an asset unto itself and deserves its own chapter all the other business skills are important ingredients leadership is the force that makes it all come together lead leadership is what builds great businesses speaking directly to Spirit I grew up in the 50s and 60s and John F Kennedy was one of the greatest speakers I have ever heard when he told the nation in May 1961 that we were going to put a man on the moon within the decade our scientists really didn't have a clue how we could possibly accomplish such a thing it was beyond ambitious it was outrageous and yet we did it even though JF K was killed Less Than 3 years later with 3/4 of the decade left to go his leadership was so compelling and so powerful that his vision persisted after his death despite his assassination despite the catastrophe of Vietnam despite the nation being rocked by riots and Division and the presidential mantle passing from JFK's vice president to his former rival Richard Nixon in 1968 what did we do we put a man on the moon in 19 1969 sure enough within the decade that's leadership the power to make things happen through the sheer force of the vision you share genuine leaders can move mountains in Vietnam I discovered that great leaders were not tough people who yelled and screamed or were physically abusive In the Heat of battle I found that great Brave leaders were often quiet yet when they spoke they spoke to our souls and our Spirits all great leaders have been Master stor story tellers who were able to communicate the vision in such a vivid way that others saw it too look at Jesus Christ Buddha Mother Teresa Gandhi Muhammad they were all great leaders which means they were great storytellers money does not go to the business with the best products or service money flows to the business with the best leaders a business that has forgotten how to tell its own story is soon out of business even if it has tons of inventory when I find a business that is struggling financially it is often because the leader of that business cannot communicate the company's Vision he or she cannot tell the story they may be smart but they are poor communicators the leadership skills you need to develop for the B quadrant are very different from the management skills most often required for the E and S quadrants don't get me wrong management skills are important but there is a vast difference between management skills and Leadership skills managers are not necessarily leaders and leaders are not necessarily managers I meet many people in the S quadrant the Specialists or small business owners who would like to expand their businesses but cannot for one reason they lack leadership skills no one wants to follow them their employees do not trust them are not inspired by them I have met many middle managers who fail to climb the corporate ladder because they cannot communicate with others the world is full of lonely people who cannot seem to find the man or woman of their dream simply because they fail to communicate what a good person they are money does not go to the business with the best products or service money flows to the business with the best leaders all great leaders have been Master storytellers who were able to communicate the vision in such a vivid way that others saw it too look at Jesus Christ Buddha Mother Teresa Gandhi Muhammad they were all great leaders which means they were great storytellers money does not go to the business with the best products or service money flows to the business with the best leaders a business that has forgotten how to tell its own story is soon out of business even if it has tons of inventory when I find a business that is struggling financially it is often because the leader of that business cannot communicate the company's Vision he or she cannot tell the story they may be smart but they are poor communicators the leadership skills you need to develop for the B quadrant are very different from the management skills most often required for the eens quadrants don't get me wrong management skills are important but there is a vast difference between management skills and Leadership skills managers are not necessarily leaders and leaders are not necessarily managers I meet many people in the S quadrant the Specialists or small business owners who would like to expand their businesses but cannot for one reason they lack leadership skills no one wants to follow them their employees do not trust them are not inspired by them I have met many middle managers who fail to climb the corporate ladder because they cannot communicate with others the world is full of lonely people who cannot seem to find the man or woman of their dreams simply because they fail to communicate what a good person they are communication affects every aspect of life and this is the numb one skill that network marketing teaches network marketing leaders sometimes describe themselves as highly paid storytellers in fact they are among the most highly paid storytellers and there's a very simple reason for this they are among the best storytellers when I started attending network marketing business trainings I got to meet highly successful real world business owners who had started their businesses from scratch many were great teachers because they were teaching from experience and not from Theory sitting through many of the business seminars I often found myself nodding in agreement with their straight talk about what it takes to survive on the streets of the real world of business after the seminars I would often talk to the instructors I was amazed at how much money they made not only from their businesses but also from their Investments several made significantly more than many top CEOs in Corporate America yet there was something else to these instructors that impressed me even more although they were rich and certainly did not have to be leading these events they had a passion for teaching and helping their fellow human beings I began to realize that a network marketing business is based on the leaders pulling people up while a traditional corporate or government business is based on promoting only a few and keeping the masses of employees content with a steady paycheck these instructors in the network marketing world were not saying if you don't perform you lose your job instead they were saying let me help you do better and better as long as you want to learn I'll be here to teach you we're on the same team a very special type of leader many people have leadership qualities within them but these qualities are never brought out they never have the opportunity my Rich Dad understood this one reason he encouraged me to go into the Marine Corps and then on to Vietnam was that it would develop my leadership skills but you don't need to join the Marines to have the chance for the leader within you to Blossom you can have that chance through network marketing and and the real beauty of a network marketing leadership program is not simply the fact that it develops leadership but the particular type of leadership it brings out the military develops a type of leader who inspires men and women to defend their country the world of business develops a type of leader who builds teams to beat the competition network marketing tends to develop the type of leader who influences others by being a great teacher teaching others to fulfill their life's Dreams by teaching others to go for their dreams dreams network marketing tends to develop the type of leader who influences others by being a great teacher teaching others to fulfill their life's Dreams by teaching others to go for their dreams instead of beating the enemy or beating the competition most network marketing leaders simply Inspire and teach others to find the financial Bounty this world offers without harm to others the opportunity to develop the capacity to lead is a value uniquely intrinsic to network marketing sure you could learn leadership in any other field from the military to government to corporate life every sphere of Life produces leaders but not very many genuine leadership is extremely rare except in network marketing John has an interesting perspective on why this is so John what is unique about network marketing is that it marries a broad compensation structure to a field of people made up of 100% of volunteers you will not find a single Le network marketing distributor who punches a Time clock or has to show up for work as independent Representatives no one is hired or fired everyone is there voluntarily nobody can tell you what to do no one can give you orders so why does it work what's the engine that drives the machine the answer comes in one word leadership and the leadership you develop in your network marketing business will show up in every other sphere of your life the four elements of leadership traditional schools train you to be a good employee they focus on one thing only your mental ability if you can solve equations and do well on tests then you're considered smart enough to run a company that's ridiculous the reason I am a successful entrepreneur today is because of the training I received in the Marines military schools prepare you to be a great leader by focusing not only on your mind but also on your emotional physical and spiritual abilities they teach you how to operate under extreme pressure I had the smarts to fly a helicopter in Vietnam but I never would have made it back without the development of my spirituality if that had not been strong then fear emotion would have set in and I would very likely have Frozen up physical at the controls of the gunship having these four elements mental emotional physical and spiritual working in harmony helped me make it through my missions this also armed me with the knowledge and understanding it took to be a good leader in the business world because these are exactly the same four elements of leadership required to be successful in business mind Spirit body emotions if you cannot control these four aspects of yourself then you will fail and if you are not able to help develop these four elements in your employees and in so doing help them to become effective leaders then you will fail it's as simple as that here's another thing military schools teach you being on the front lines means not caring about whether or not you are liked of course we all want to be liked but to be a great leader you have to set boundaries monitor the behavior of your staff and take corrective action when necessary sometimes you're going to tick people off yes it's going to happen there's no way around it but here's what's also going to happen you are going to create the best team possible one that understands what you expect and what you will and will not tolerate chapter 15 asset hh7 a mechanism for genuine wealth creation Thomas Jefferson and John Adams two of the three creators of the Declaration of Independence were great lifelong friends although their friendship was not without differences even huge ones they were temperamental opposites and at one point they became bitter political iCal Arch Rivals diametrically opposed on many issues for years our second and third presidents refused to speak with one another but in their later years they reconciled and their lengthy correspondence is one of the great Treasures of American literature they died on the very same day on July 4th 1826 50 years to the day from the signning of the Declaration of Independence that they had co-authored with Benjamin Franklin there is one more more Curious fact about these two men their relationship to wealth Jefferson was the classic Virginia aristocratic landowner possessing an estate encompassing thousands of Acres Adams was a Massachusetts Barrister from a fairly Poor Farm family and lived his long life without ever having much in the way of wealth and yet on the day of their death Adams was worth about $100,000 and Jefferson's estate was about $100,000 in debt Jefferson had money and property but it slipped through his fingers Adams never had much money but though he lived simply he had a firm grasp on how to build wealth one of the central Reasons I'm writing this book is to make sure you grasp The crucial difference between money and wealth why does the typical Million dooll lottery winner end up broke within three years after earning his or her Millions because while they had a sudden windfall of money they had no concept of wealth wealth is not the same thing as money wealth is not measured by the size of income wealth is measured in time Jefferson had money and property but it slipped through his fingers Adams never had much money but though he lived simply he had a firm grasp on how to build wealth one of the central Reasons I'm writing this book is to make sure you grasp The crucial difference between money and wealth why does the typical Million dooll lottery winner end up broke Within three years after earning his or her Millions because while they had a sudden windfall of money they had no concept of wealth wealth is not the same thing as money wealth is not measured by the size of income wealth is measured in time if all I have to my name is $1,000 in savings and checking combined and my living expenses are $1100 a day then my wealth equals 10 days wealth is the ability to survive so many number of days forward ask yourself if I stop working today how long could I survive financially your answer is equal to your wealth at this moment actually let's deepen that definition wealth is measured by the richness of your life experience today plus the number of days into the future that you have the capacity to continue living at that level of experience one reason the rich get richer is that the rich work for a different kind of money they don't work to generate income they work to build wealth there is a vast difference between the two one of the most profound values of a network marketing business and it is one that the great majority of people who look at this business do not quite grasp is that it is an engine of personal wealth creation my simple four-step path to Financial Freedom Kim and I were able to retire early in life without jobs without government assistance and without any trading of stocks or any mutual funds why no trading of stocks or mutual funds because we believed they were very risky investments in my opinion mutual funds are some of the riskiest of all Investments Kim and I used a simple four-step plan to retire young and Rich it took us nine years from 1985 to 1994 starting with nothing and retiring financially free without a single share of stock or mutual funds it goes like this one build a business two reinvest in your business three invest in real estate 4 let your assets buy luxuries let's look at how this sequence works one build a business building a business allows you to generate a lot of money furthermore the tax laws of the United States are very favorable to people who earn their income in the B quadrant and punish people who earn their money in the E quadrant a business is like a child it takes time to grow while it can take less time and can certainly take more getting a business off the ground typically takes about 5 years two reinvest in your business the key to this process is that you don't try to use your business as an income source to live on a lot of firsttime network marketers make this mistake as soon as they start seeing an income stream develop from their new business they use that new income to expand their living expenses buy a second car buy a bigger house take expensive vacations and so forth why people do this it's not because they're idiots I've seen very intelligent well-informed people follow this pattern they do it for one reason and one reason only they are still living breathing and thinking in the E quadrant if you want to build wealth you have to get your head out of the left hand side of that diagram and start thinking B and I first keep your day job your goal is not to replace your job with your business that's just treating your bus business like your new job you'll never build wealth that way instead once your new business is making some money go right to step two reinvest your new income in that business in order to grow it still further but I don't want to keep my day job I hate working there isn't that the whole point I want to stop working as an employee fair enough you want to get out of the E quadrant and quit that job maybe you hate your job or you may be like a lot of professionals I've met who actually love what they do but don't love the fact that they have to keep doing it 40 50 or 60 hours a week whatever your reasons here's the blunt truth if you suck all the income out of your new business to burn on monthly living expenses then you're not building a business you're just building yourself another job a true business owner never stops investing and reinvesting to build the business the reason so many people fail to achieve great wealth in any business is simply that they fail to reinvest continually in the business so what does that look like in network marketing John a traditional business might reinvest by building a new Warehouse spending money on National advertising developing new product lines or buying new distribution channels but as a Network marketer you don't have these expenses the network marketing company itself makes these types of Investments for you how do you reinvest in your business then there are certainly places where you can invest some money wisely on training and educating yourself on travel to support your growing Network in other cities on Promotional and Educational Tools and resources to help nourish the business the reason so many people fail to achieve great wealth in any business is simply that they fail to reinvest continually in the business fair enough you want to get out of the E quadrant and quit that job maybe you hate your job or you you may be like a lot of professionals I've met who actually love what they do but don't love the fact that they have to keep doing it 40 50 or 60 hours a week whatever your reasons here's the blunt truth if you suck all the income out of your new business to burn on monthly living expenses then you're not building a business you're just building yourself another job a true business owner never stops investing and reinvesting to build the business the reason so many people fail to achieve great wealth in any business is simply that they fail to reinvest continually in the business so what does that look like in network marketing John a traditional business might reinvest by building a new Warehouse spending money on National advertising developing new product lines or buying new distribution channels but as a Network marketer you don't have these expenses the network marketing company itself makes these types of Investments for you how do you reinvest in your business then there are certainly places where you can invest some money wisely on training and educating yourself on travel to support your growing Network in other cities on Promotional and Educational Tools and resources to help nourish the business for the most part though network marketing is a business whose major capital investment is not your money but your time and effort which means the better part of your networking income becomes available to you to feed the serious process of building your wealth but notice I did say building your wealth not squandering your wealth don't make the mistake I've seen people make and start spending every last dollar from your new commission checks on a bigger car bigger house bigger lifestyle don't abuse your new business income by pouring it into bigger holes in the ground treat it with the respect it deserves invest it three invest in real estate as your business income continues to grow you begin using that supplemental income to buy real estate State you'll notice there are no mutual funds stock portfolios or other paper Assets in this plan that's because even though they are the easiest assets to build all you have to do is buy them trading in stocks and mutual funds is risky profits made are taxed at the capital gain rate and investing takes Financial education to lessen risk the idea here is to use your new supplemental money to build an income generating asset there are many types of assets that can generate income but the one I recommend most often is real estate for two principal reasons first the tax laws are written in favor of business owners who invest in real estate second your Banker loves to lend you money for Real Estate try asking your Banker for a 30-year loan at 6.5% to buy mutual funds or stocks they'll laugh you out of the bank people often ask me how can I buy real estate when I barely earn enough money to pay the rent good question you can't not that is until you have the extra cash that's why this step comes after building a business and reinvesting in its continued growth so you have the extra cash but let me explain what I mean when I say invest in real estate because many people completely misunderstand how real estate works as an asset most people think that the point of real estate is to buy a property at one price and then sell it either quickly after some Hasty improvements or at a later time for a higher price wrong that's just buying a cow and then selling it for Stakes what you want to do is buy a cow and keep it forever so you can sell its milk the purpose of buying real estate is not to sell it the purpose of buying real estate is to build an income generating asset learning how to do this takes time education experience and money as with learning anything new it's difficult not to make some mistakes and mistakes in real estate especially in Property Management can be very expensive unless you have the extra steady income and the tax advantages that come with a B quadrant business real estate is either too risky or too slow the reason many people fail to become rich in real estate is that they don't have the cash it takes the truth is the best real estate deals are usually expensive if you don't have much money often the only real estate deals you can get are deals that people with real money have passed on the reason so many people try looking for no money down Investments is that they have nothing to put down unless you are really experienced and have plenty of cash on hand to use when you need it putting nothing down could be the most expensive investment of your life four let your assets buy luxuries for many years even long after we could have afforded to do more Kim and I continued to live in a small house with a monthly Mor mortgage of about $400 and drove average cars meanwhile we were using whatever extra cash we generated to build our business and invest in real estate today we live in a large home and have six luxury cars between us but we didn't buy that house or those cars our assets bought them we just enjoy them when I say luxury I don't necessarily mean something extravagant or ostentatious I mean something that you want and enjoy and that exists beyond what you need I'll give you an example think of anyone you know who works for a living but does not love their job if you told them hey you don't like your job you should just quit what would they say I'd love to but I don't have that luxury that's right for many people simply not having their job is one of the very first luxuries they want how do you get that luxury the same as any other you let your business and or your real estate holdings buy it for you for that to happen you have to build those assets to the point where they can buy it for you you see how it works you don't use your income to buy yourself luxuries you use your income to build your assets your business and real estate Investments and then once they're sufficiently built to be able to do so you let them buy your luxuries which brings us to the matter of Dreams chapter 16 asset ash8 Big Dreams and the capacity to live them one of the most valuable things about network marketing companies is that they stress the importance of going for your dreams notice I didn't say the importance of having dreams they don't just want you to have dreams they want you to live those dreams what's more they encourage you to dream big one of the most refreshing things that happened to me when I started looking into network marketing was that I found myself dreaming even bigger dreams than I already had traditional businesses are often not too keen on you having big dreams they operate better if you have modest dreams a brief summer vacation maybe a small time share a hobby you enjoy a good game of golf on a Sunday afternoon that kind of thing I'm not saying there's anything wrong with having such small dreams all I'm saying is that's a small life growing up I often heard my parents use the phrase phrase we can't afford it my Rich Dad however forbade his son and me from saying those words and insisted instead that we ask ourselves how can I afford it as small as the difference between those statements may seem it makes all the difference that small shift in thinking multiplied by the experiences perceptions and decisions of a lifetime will take you to a place that is millions of miles away from where you would have landed without that shift when you make a habit of asking yourself how can I afford that you train yourself to dream bigger and bigger dreams and not only to have those dreams but to believe that you can make them come true saying I can't afford that on the other hand snuffs out your dreams like a wet towel on a candle flame there are already plenty of other people in the world who try to smother your dreams Without You adding your voice to the mix oh they don't mean to perhaps but well-meaning or not their words are deadly you can't do that that's too risky do you know how many people have failed trying to do that don't be silly where do you come up with such ideas if it's such a good idea wouldn't someone else have already done it oh I tried that years ago let me tell you why it won't work these are dream killing words and I've noticed something interesting about the people who say them they are almost always people who have already given up on their own dreams when Kim and I were br broke we told each other that when we had made over $1 million we would buy a big house we did and we loved being in the house but the house itself was not important to us and even being able to afford the house was not important to us what was important was who we became in the process it is striving learning and doing your best to develop your personal power to be able to afford the big house and who you become in the process that are important people who dreams small dreams my rich dad told me continue to live lives as small people everyone has dreams but not everyone dreams in the same way my rich dad taught me that there are five kinds of dreamers bigger dreams those who dream in the past these are the people who believe that their greatest achievements are behind them they will regail you with stories of their college days their army days their High School football days their life on the farm where they grew up but try to engage it is striving learning and doing your best to develop your personal power to be able to afford the big house and who you become in the process that are important when Kim and I were broke we told each other that when we had made over $1 million we would buy a big house we did and we loved being in the house but the house itself was not important to us and even being able to afford the house was not important to us what was important was who we became in the process it is striving learning and doing your best to develop your personal power to be able to afford the big house and who you become in the process that are important people who dream small dreams my rich dad told me continue to live lives as small people everyone has dreams but not everyone dreams in the same way my rich dad taught me that there are five kinds of dreamers achieving them so end up with nothing bigger dreams those who dream in the past these are the people who believe that their greatest achievements are behind them they will regail you with stories of their college days their army days their High School football days their life on the farm where they grew up but try to engage them in a conversation about the future and they'll probably just shake their heads and say ah the world's gone to Hell in a hand basket a person who dreams in the past is a person whose life is over they may not be dead but they are no longer truly alive and the only way they can come back to life is to rekindle a dream those who dream only small dreams some people limit themselves to Dreaming only small dreams because that's the only way they can feel confident they can achieve them the ironic thing is that while they know they could achieve their small dreams they often never do why not who knows perhaps it's because they know know that if they did achieve them they would have nothing left to live for unless they then challenge themselves to come up with larger dreams in other words they would rather live small than face the risks and thrill of living large later in life you'll hear them say you know I should have done that years ago but I just never got around to doing it I once asked a man I had met if you had all the money in the world where would you travel he replied I would fly to California to visit my sister I haven't seen her in 14 years and I would love to see her especially before her children get any older that would be my dream vacation at the time that trip would have cost him about $1500 I pointed that out and asked why he had not yet taken the trip he told me oh I will I'm just too busy right now in other words this was the dream vacation that he would rather dream about taking than actually wake up and take my rich dad told me that these dreamers are often the most dangerous they live like turtles he said tucked away in their own quiet padded room if you knock on the shell and peak in they might lunge out and bite you the lesson let dreaming turtles dream most aren't going anywhere and that seems to be just fine with them those who achieve a dream and then live bored a friend of mine once said to me 20 years ago I dreamed of becoming a doctor so I became a doctor and I enjoy being a doctor but now I'm bored with life something is missing boredom usually is a sign that it's time for a new dream my rich dad told me there are a lot of people who work in professions they dreamed of in high school the problem is they've been out of high school for years it's time for a new adventure those who Dream Big Dreams but with no plan on how to go about achieving them so they end up with nothing I think we all know someone in this category these people say I've just had a major breakthrough let me tell you about my new plan or this time things will be different or I'm turning over a new Leaf or I'm going to work harder pay off my bills and invest or I just heard of a new company coming to town and it is looking for someone with my qualifications this could be my big break my Rich Dad said people like this often try to achieve a lot but they try to do it on their own but very few people achieve their dreams on their own these people should keep dreaming big make a plan and then find a team that will help them make their dreams come true those who dream big achieve those dreams and go on to dream even bigger dreams I think that most of us would like to be this kind of person I know I would wouldn't you my Rich Dad said it this way big people have big dreams and small people have small dreams if you want to change who you are Begin by changing the size of your dream as you know I've been broke totally Flatout broke living in my car with my bride I know what it's like but broke is a temporary condition poor is different poor is a state of mind you can be broke and still be rich in spirit rich in ambition rich in Courage rich in determination it costs nothing to dream big and it costs not one cent more to dream huge no matter how broke you might be the only way you will become poor is by giving up on your dreams the unique thing about the network marketing lifestyle is that you don't frame your dreams as something you reach only after 40 years or only for a few weeks out of the calendar or only on Sunday afternoons when you start building your network marketing business you start living your dreams albe it in small ways at first from day one it is a shift in mindset from I can't to I can from being at the mercy of circumstance to being at the helm of your life from being enslaved to being free in his conclusion to Walden his meditation on the self-determined life thorough wrote I learned this at least by my experiment that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and Endeavors to live the life which he has imagined he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours I couldn't have said it better myself chapter 17 a business where women Excel by Kim kosaki by now you've heard me refer to my wife Kim quite a few times you've read about how we met and how I pursued her about our early struggles our goals and our strategies and how our life together has turned out before closing this part of the book I thought it was high time you had the chance to hear from Kim directly RK Robert has told you quite a bit about network marketing and the many ways it can create great value for you I want to tell you about one more it is a powerful business for women when you look at the basic statistical profile of the network marketing Community one of the first things you notice is also one of the most remarkable it is populated by more than four times as many women as men you heard me right according to the direct selling Association of the 15 million people in the United States who are in network marketing about 88% are female and while they do not provide a breakdown by gender of the more than 62 million people in the business worldwide the proportions on a global scale are probably close to the same as in the states why historically one reason is that many households have started their network marketing businesses as part-time Ventures and for families where the man the supporting coaching nurturing relationship of a network marketing sponsor to her growing network of apprentice networkers is the kind of relationship and interaction in which women Excel why historically one reason is that many households have started their network marketing businesses as part-time Ventures and for families where the man is the primary Breadwinner that has often meant it was the woman who engaged in the part-time stay-at-home business a parallel factor is the fact that it is a home-based business which means that building a network marketing business is uniquely compatible with the demands of raising a family but I think it goes beyond these practical and historical circumstances network marketing is at its core a relationship business as Robert has explained it's not a business that revolves around making sales it is a business that revolves around making connections it's about establishing relationships coaching and training and teaching and mentoring the actual day-to-day work of building a network is less like carving out a sales territory than it is like building a community and the supporting coaching nurturing relationship of a network marketing sponsor to her growing network of apprentice networkers is the kind of relationship and interaction in which women Excel of course none of this means that men can't be successful in network marketing too there are millions of men who are proving that every day but the bottom line of the business is simply this it is a business model where women Excel what women need and it's a good thing too because today's women really need to learn how to build their own wealth a young journalist approached me a few years ago and said with obvious passion we have to make women aware that they have to take charge of their money they cannot depend on someone else to do that for them as we talked together I soon learned where her passion was coming from from it turned out her 54-year-old mother had recently moved in with her after going through a divorce that had left her with basically nothing she was now supporting her mother as well as herself that was enough of a wakeup call in itself but what had really shaken her up was when she took a close look at her finances to see what resources she had to support the two of them she realized that if her steady paycheck were for any reason to stop suddenly the only thing she had to fall back on was about 7,000 000 in savings for a household of two $77,000 wouldn't go very far she and her mom were both a few thin paychecks away from poverty and even homelessness no wonder she was passionate about the subject of women taking control of their finances fortunately for me I am not in this young woman's position Robert and I are financially set for the rest of our lives regardless of what the economy does but even though I don't have that sword hanging over my head I I am just as passionately driven as this young woman was on the subject of women creating their own Financial Independence the howt of network marketing are no different for women as they are for men however the driving reasons why women build their network marketing businesses are often very different from those of their male counterparts we know that we lead very different lives than our mothers did but you may be surprised at just how different here are six reasons why women need to get into this game called wealth building one the statistics the statistics about women and money are startling the following are US statistics yet for other countries throughout the world the statistics are very similar or are trending in the same direction in the United States financially responsible for themselves caretaker for the home a woman is away from the workforce an average of 14.7 years as compared to 1.6 years for men add this fact to the lower salaries women still receive and you have retirement benefits that are only about one quarter those of men National Center for Women and Retirement Research an leesi June 12th 2000 which means they must provide for those extra years however married women who are baby boomers can expect to outlive their husbands by 15 to 20 years on average what do these statistics tell us that more and more women are not educated or prepared to take care of themselves financially especially as they grow older we've spent our entire lives taking care of our families but have no ability to care for ourselves in this vital way two avoiding dependency you don't get into a marriage expecting a divorce you don't begin a new job expecting to be laid off but it happens and today with more and more frequency women if you are depending on a husband a boss or anyone else for your financial future think twice they may simply not be there too often we may not even realize just how dependent we are until we're faced with our own personal wakeup call three no glass ceiling along with all the challenges facing the corporate employee in this post2 2008 World women still face one additional huge obstacle the infamous glass ceiling yes it's true even today because of our gender women can move only so up the corporate ladder and for women 50 or older trying to re-enter the world of corporate employment you don't even want to know in the world of network marketing the very idea of a glass ceiling for women is ludicrous your network marketing company doesn't care if you're female or male black or white a college grad or a high school dropout it only cares about how diligently and effectively you build your network and as I pointed out there are four times as many women as there are men doing exactly that the key is your skills education and experience there are no limits and No Ceilings glass or otherwise for women in the world of network marketing four no limits on income because of the glass ceiling and the still presentent wage inequality between men and women in the job market a woman is often Limited in the amount of income she can make studies show that women with the same education and experience as their male counterparts earn about 74 cents for every dollar their male peers earn but a network marketing business is fully scalable regardless of gender in network marketing the size of the income stream you can generate by building your network is without limit five increased self-esteem personally I think this is one of the greatest benefits and rewards to a network marketing business and it is one of the strongest reasons women become involved in the business it's not unusual for a woman's self-esteem to be l to her ability to provide for herself being dependent on anyone for your financial life can lead to a reduced sense of self-worth you may do things you otherwise would not do if money were no issue I've seen women's self-esteem SAR once they know how to make it on their own financially and when a woman's self-esteem Rises the relationships around her tend to improve higher self-esteem leads to Greater success which ultimately leads to the greatest gift of all freedom six control of your time when it comes to devoting energy to building genuine wealth one major impediment women often have far more than men is the simple matter of time this is especially true for mothers who spend many hours taking care of children I hear from many women after I come home from work I have to get dinner ready help my kids with their homework and clean up the dishes by the time everyone's in bed and I have a free moment to myself I'm exhausted as a Network marketer you are in control of your time this business is something you can do part-time or full-time it is something you can do from your home on the phone and computer in the evenings weekends anytime anywhere it is a business Warren Buffett in 2002 saw a 5% increase in recruiting during that same time period what's the message here party plan companies offer a lowrisk highly rewarding opportunity for any woman looking to take charge of her fin ancial future I recommend it for stay-at-home moms looking to join the ranks of new entrepreneurs working women looking to supplement their paychecks college students hoping to earn a few extra dollars any woman who wants to give herself the opportunity to create wealth and have fun doing it know what's important on our very first date Robert asked me what I wanted to do with my life I told him I wanted to run my own business someday he said I I can help you with that within a month we had a business going together but he also started talking to me about larger things too about spirituality and asking me about my life's purpose this was in the 1980s when people were Workaholics and proud of it by the '90s people began taking a closer look at their lives and asking some harder questions but it was really after 9/11 that people started saying whoa wait a minute why am I running around like a hamster on a wheel what am I doing with my life where is it all going I hear women all the time say they are too busy to get involved in a part-time home-based business I tell them here's the key to making your business successful you have to look at your life really look at it and ask yourself what is it that is so meaningful to me that I have to have it in my life what is important enough to you that you'll make the time and devote the effort to building a business that generates its own income and then use that income to build wealth that will take care of you for the rest of your life because if you don't identify what that is it's just not going to happen freedom is different for everyone success is different for everyone it's personal and it should be personal numbers are abstract whether it's $5,000 or $1 million it doesn't really mean anything until you give it the meaning it has in your own life early in our marriage Robert and I were both passionately committed to being in business for ourselves to not having other people tell us what to do and to being in control of our own Financial Destinies that was so important to us that we were willing to put up with just about any hardship to make it happen and it took years really about 10 years at times the stress of having no income was enormous we had all sorts of friends who were telling us we were crazy that we should just go get regular jobs with regular paychecks but that was what we absolutely did not want to do finally we decided we had to do something Robert began teaching some courses I went to a friend who had a clothing line and asked her to let me market her clothes I went to hair salons and set up little mini boutiques there was no paycheck in it no guarantees only sales commissions and in truth I really made very little in commissions but it got me out there doing something I learned that this is the essence of being an entrepreneur you have to go out there and make things happen and the only way you are going to do that is if you know what is really truly important to you and you realize that the only way you are going to have that is to create it yourself in the initial chapters of Rich Dad Poor Dad Robert kosaki masterfully lays the foundation for a paradigm shift in the way we perceive and approach wealth the dichotomy between his biological father the Poor Dad and his best friend's father the Rich Dad serves as a compelling backdrop for the exploration of key financial principles Kiyosaki challenges conventional beliefs about money success and education setting the stage for a profound re-evaluation of our financial mindset the audiobook begins with kosaki reflecting on his upbringing contrasting the contrasting philosophies of his two influential figures while the Poor Dad represents the conventional path of Education leading to a stable job the Rich Dad advocates for financial education entrepreneurship and the creation of assets this Stark dichotomy serves as a catalyst for the listener's own introspection prompting a Critical examination of their financial beliefs and choices as we delve deeper into the Audi book kosaki emphasizes the crucial role of financial education in Building Wealth he highlights how traditional schooling often neglects to teach practical money management skills leaving individuals ill equipped to navigate the complexities of the financial World Through The Eyes of his Rich Dad kosaki introduces Concepts like the importance of building assets understanding the difference between assets and liabilities and the power of passive income the first part of the book serves as a wake-up call urging listeners to break free from societal norms and embrace a mindset that empowers them to take control of their financial destiny kiyosaki's narrative resonates not only with the desire for financial success but also with the pursuit of personal fulfillment and and Independence the second part of Rich Dad Poor Dad delves into the practical application of the principles introduced earlier kosaki offers tangible strategies for Building Wealth emphasizing the need to cultivate assets that generate passive income he demystifies the concept of working for money and advocates for making money work for you through Investments and Entrepreneurship the audiobook transforms from a theoretical exploration to a Hands-On guide for financial empowerment kosaki shares real life examples and practical advice illustrating how individuals can Implement these principles in their daily lives The Listener is not only inspired but also equipped with the tools to embark on a transformative Journey towards Financial Freedom as we end up our journey to the business of the 21st century we hope you feel inspired and ready to take the word of business kosaki teachings are full of wisdom and can help you succeed and Achieve Financial Freedom so keep working hard stay positive and never give up on your dreams so thanks you for joining us on this awesome adventure