The Re-reading of Rich Dad Poor Dad.

As a Future Millionaire it’s something that you should do often. Mainly because it’s a hard concept to embrace. It tells you everything that you ever learned about making money is false….similar to what I do here on this blog. When you get through the first two chapters you start feeling one of three ways:

1. Rober Kyoski is full of sh*T

2. Why didn’t I read this sooner, I feel so dumb.

3. Glad to know I’m on the right track.

In no uncertain terms, Mr. Kyoski basically says that going to work everyday makes you a Jack Ass. He portrays it as having a carrot dangled in front of you while you pull the cart. You identifiy yourself with that donkey, pulling the corporate American cart.  I shouldn't say that going to work makes you a Jack Ass, but going to work and expecting to make it something it's not makes you a Jack Ass.

That’s not where you want to be.

In the middle of the book you start to think, “I want to be the farmer with the carrot”.

That’s not toally true either. You are still working everyday. You still have to get up in the morning, load the cart, put the carrot on the string and dangle and walk for hours.

Yes you have all the carrots you can eat so you are better off then the mule, but you still had to get up at the butt crack of dawn to make that happen.

WHERE DO YOU REALLY WANT TO BE?
You want to be the guy who owns all the farms. You buy and work the first farm. You get it to the point where it is making $2000.00 per month. You streamline the process and pay someone $1500 per month to run it.

Move to the next farm. You get it earning $2000 per month, you pay someone $1500 to run it. Move to the third farm and fourth farm. You are good at this so you do it with less work in less time. Now you have four farms, with four farmers working them. Each one is happy to make $1500 per month, and you are making the same $2000 you were making before, but you get up at noon now.

You play golf and spend time with your family. You have four farmes with their mules handing out carrots.

The Owner, the Farmer, the Mule. Don’t kid youself, just because you hanve an MBA, a big office and a good job, but a slong as you have to go to work every morning you can still be a jackass!

-MJL

You Must Be Crazy to Dream Big

I realized the bigger your dreams are, the crazier you must be. Period.

Over the past week, week and a half I have been reading and watching about Hitler and Steve Jobs. Not to compare the two, because as we all know comparing anyone to Hitler will get you kicked off of ESPN, however there are similarities. Ouch!! Wait…..hear me out.

There was a show on the History channel that dove into Hilter and the architecture that surrounded him in the 1940’s . That man was crazy. You couldn’t tell him what to do or what not to do. He wanted a dome over his capital building that was so big you could fly a mini helicopter in it. He would not take no for an answer . Steve Jobs, same thing. He wanted to do away with the keyboard, and I think if you gave him five more years, he would have done it. I have to imagine Thomas Edison, Leonardo Da Vinci, these guys were visionaries cut all of for the same cloth.

How Does this Apply To Us?

The world pushes you into what it thinks you should be, what it thinks you should do, how it thinks you should act. The more in line you are with that the less crazy you have to be. If your dad went to college and became an Engineer and you want to be an Engineer – that’s not crazy. That’s normal.

If you want to be a Lawyer and your dad was an Engineer, that’s ambitious but not crazy.

If you want to be a Rock Star and tour Europe, that’s Crazy. If you want to be a multi-billionaire. That’s considered crazy. Get it?

Crazy is Good

If you are not the right level of crazy then you won’t make it. The bigger your dream the crazier you must be. I want a net worth o 1.4 billion dollars. So how crazy am I? I’m down right nuts. I sleep, eat, and crap this dream. I don’t have regular friends anymore, I don’t watch Sunday football, I sleep 3 to 4 hours per night. I’m insane. I won’t take NO for an answer. You WILL NOT tell me this dream is not going to happen. Period.

I’m INSANE! You need to be INSANE. If you want a promotion at work, you just have to be a little crazy, so there is no reason for you not to get it. If you want to quit you job and start your own company- YOU HAVE TO BE CRAZY. The amount of sacrifice, and hard work cannot be summed up in a book . You will be working hard with no payoff for a long time. Saving money, going without sleep, getting setbacks all while you are pushing ahead. You must not take NO for an answer. Move smart, but move crazy. You will know when you can quit your day job. You can layout a plan that is safe, but crazy to execute. Then GET CRAZY and execute it.

There will be more to come on this.
-MJL

Surviving Time in Corporate America for the Entrepreneur

“Surviving” is a difficult task because it is a conflicts with our current goal and mind set. We spend most of our time plotting our escape, that we don’t actually focus on “how to survive” (until we can escape). This is an essential ingredient because by surviving well, we expend less energy, that we can use to then better plot our escape.

Got it?

The thought actually came to me while watching a prison show on “Hulu” that was on The National Geographic Channel. They were profiling an inmate who was a shear mastermind. He was your standard white guy, baby faced, imprisoned with Blacks and Hispanics (race will play a part in just a second, that’s why I’m mentioning it). He looked like he couldn’t hurt a fly. They showed him in the dining area eating, showed him in the yard playing softball, depicting him as a pillar of the prison community. In every scene he actually appeared genuinely happy.

Then they hold up pictures of some guy that was bludgeoned almost to death. Then they show another, and the voiceover states that the Baby-faced white guy was responsible for every one of those beatings. WHAT!?!?!!

Then they pan to a shot of this guy in his cell. On top of his bunk he has a variety of snacks. Honey Buns, BBQ chips, Reeses, Snickers and any other snack you could think of. He proceeds to explain how he gets his cell floors swept and waxed for the price of a few honey buns. He gets his prison uniform cleaned and pressed, for a few bags of BBQ chips and a Snickers bar. That night he was hosting a dinner party in his cell where they were having Mexican food. They found a way to cook tortillas right in the cell. This guy was hosting dinner parties in prison!!!

How did he do this? All by the power of persuasion, keeping his emotions in control and bending a seemingly rigid prison system, to cater to his needs.

That’s how you survive in Corporate America. As an Entrepreneur your goals have changed. You don’t want to be a CEO. You don’t necessarily want to be moved up. You just want to earn your check – do an adequate job, and get home to work on your other endeavors. Instead of letting the place frustrate you with its policies, procedures and politics, use them to your advantage and mold them to help you in your journey out of there.

WANT EXAMPLES? “Sure”

Although the place I work is frustrating and the people are frustrating there are a few really bright, really experienced people who work there. Gain the trust of these select few and talk with them frequently. Run ideas and business strategies by them. It’s like free counsel. Trust me, if they are really intelligent, they will welcome the discussion and began to vicariously live through you, thus really wanting to see you achieve your goals.

Printers, Xerox Machines, Fax machines

They are all accessible to you to a certain extent. Use them after or before hours to give things you are working on a certain professional flare.

Company laptop

It’s a laptop. Great!!! Now you can postpone buying one and use this one for generating your business plans and excel spread sheets for your ideas. Use it for a change of scenery when you are home working, and take it to the local coffee shop so you can keep working. Keep grinding, keep getting it in!

HAVE FUN

You are launching a new business; you have a great idea that’s going to take off in just a few months, or years (whatever your particular sentence is). Knowing that should put you automatically in a good mood. It’s as if, someone told you that in January, you would be inheriting 800,000.00. Not enough money to quit, but it’s a nice chunk of change! That would make coming to work a lot easier, you would be a lot happier, and everyone around you would notice. You wouldn’t stress out over reports, presentations, or reviews. You would just make it happen to the best of your ability and let the chips fall where they may.

Hopefully this makes sense, and it can help you survive the day to day at your 9 to 5. It’s frustrating to work on a spreadsheet when you are secretly planning to launch the next facebook, but until you do it’s necessary.

Make the best out of your prison and save that energy for “The Launch” of the next best thing!

-MJL

Celebrity Apprentice - A Lesson In Boardroom War by Richard Hatch

As some of you know I tried out for the Apprentice twice (both times getting call backs for the remaining 500 slots). I remain with the opinion that had I gotten picked for the show, Donald Trump would have held me back. So in retrospect, I’m quite happy for the experience of trying out and kind of glad that I didn’t get picked.

I wasn’t a fan of Celebrity Apprentice because the desperation to succeed hasn’t always been there. This season however, they have picked just the right line up of characters who want to be seen, need to be seen and would also sincerely like to earn money for their charities.

As great leaders it’s important to watch these competitive reality shows and watch how some of the greatest minds of our time work. They become a lesson in people management, persuasion, body language and numerous of other attributes that when skilled at, can help the road to success.

In comes Richard Hatch. This guys is a manipulator extraordinaire. He makes Russell from survivor appear humble. In his mind, he has already won. In some ways dangerous but in some ways necessary.

Richard had no qualms about stepping up to be the leader of the first challenge. He is surrounded by some of the greatest names in music, acting and sports and he was not impressed. In fact, it was as if he was resentful of them and their fame. He shouted orders out like a drill sergeant. The interesting part is that I think some of them not only didn’t mind it, but felt they needed it.

There is no doubt that his arrogance got the best of him when he pushed David Cassidy during the pizza challenge. The other thing that was obvious was that Donald Trump wanted him to stay in the game. When Richard had to pick two people to come back into the boardroom he chose Canseco and David Cassidy. When questioned for the third or fourth time about physically contacting David, his tune changed slightly, he said, “If I did push David, then I’m sorry and I apologized”. That’s a lot different then “I did not push David”. No one called him out on that. Or at least it appeared that no one called him out on it (not sure what is left on the cutting floor). That’s no different then David and Jose Canseco both agreeing that he didn’t’ take any breaks, and then state a moment later that he took 2 breaks….and he was called out.

Richard also picked up on the fighting part of the argument. Young Don, says that David was not possessing the energy to fight to stay in the game. As soon as “energy” was mentioned, Richard’s body language change sharply to portray a new sense of energy – to convince everyone that young Don was right. At that point you can even here him stating how mad he wanted to be there.

As a Project Manager that essentially got his ass handed to him, he did a remarkable job staying in the game. I bet he also learned a lot about the people he’s playing with from that one instant.

Kudos to Mark Burnett and his casting team. This cast of characters should make for a great season of Celebrity Apprentice

MJL

Success as Interpreted by The Greats

Every issue of Esquire comes with a section where they ask famous people their meanings of life. It's one of the most thought provoking but yet profound reads and is the key to many of might thoughts and motives on obtaining ultimate success.

Here are my favorite three from an interview with David Brown.

DAVID BROWN
Producer, interviewed in June 2001 by Cal Fussman.

1. WORK YOURSELF to death. It's the only way to live.
2. GOOD HEALTH is beautifully boring.
3. NEVER BE the first to arrive at a party or the last to go home, and never, ever be both.

Those are some good thoughts to start the week right.

-MJL

Doing what you love, I get it now!

Ok, it’s been since October since my last post. But if anyone knows anything they know I have been around the internet. This blogger blog was my baby, and it still is, therefore I have to return where it all started. Right?

So what have I been up to? I have been carving a piece of the net out for myself. I have started an Internet marketing company and I’m making it happen. I have about 40 websites and still counting. Some are what I call premium brand and some are just booster to the premium brand.

I'VE SEEN THE LIGHT!!
Recently the light went on. I realize now when people like Oprah, Dr. Phil, Jim Rohn, and all these super successful people say, “You have to do something you love first?” I used to think, “That’s easy for you to say – you’re making millions doing what you love”. Then I realized, if not for money, but for your sanity – you should do what you love. But maybe take a two pronged approach. First do what you have to do to get a check, then do something you love and try and monetize it. This is actually critical to living the quality of life that you deserve. Critical? Sounds severe doesn't it? We it is!

Let’s take the 97% of you out there that don’t like their jobs. Let’s split up your day and see how much out of the 24 hrs do you really truly get to enjoy.

• Sleep 7 hrs.

• Working a job you hate: 9 hrs.

• Commuting and prepare for work: 1.5 hrs.

• Gym (Exercise) 20 minutes at a minimum

• Eating: 1 hr.

• Chores for living (dishes, bill pay, ironing, etc.) 40 min

That’s 19.5 hrs out of 24 that you are not enjoying yourself. What do you do with the other 4.5?

How scary is that? Over 81% of your day is spent doing things you don't want to do. Sounds like a prison sentence.

You have 4.5 hrs to enjoy yourself per weekday. Now, If you enjoy your job, that goes up to 13.5. 3 times more. The numbers don’t lie.

If you throw children into the equation, all the numbers change drastically. The 4.5 can go down to 1 depending on the age of your children. One after school sport, help with homework, and a bedtime story can turn that 4.5 hours into 30 minutes. Then the guy working a job he loves is enjoying life 18 times more then you are.

That’s what I call a better quality of life. Think about it and take action.
If that doesn't motivate you to take control of your life then nothing will.

I’m not back – I never left.

-MJL