Where Money Hides

“Couldn’t you just buy it off the shelf?”

I was trying to tell a friend about a cholesterol lowering natural health product I had invested in, called Ideal Cardio Formula. I explained that I spent $12,000 on it so I could personally have it to use myself.

He didn’t understand.

“Couldn’t you just buy the key ingredients of the formula in separate bottles and then take that?” he asked. “It would have cost you far less.”

He was thinking like most people think. He was trying to save a buck and take care of himself.  In his mind, the “buy the basic ingredients” approach was smart thinking. It was efficient and frugal. From that limited perspective, he was right.

But he was missing a secret few people know.

I figured he could make $100,000 or more if he knew this secret, so I proceeded to explain it to him.

“Look, when my doctor said I had high cholesterol,” I began, “I wanted a solution without taking his prescribed drug, which I knew had potential dangerous side effects. So I went to a friend of mine who is also a medical doctor, but with an interest in handling health problems with herbs first.”

“I understand that,” my friend said.

“Let me continue,” I said. “My herb-loving doctor told me he had a formula that he developed himself that was a blend of twelve ingredients that he guaranteed would lower cholesterol in thirty days. I naturally wanted it.”

“I would, too,” he said.

“But he said he didn’t have any of the product, and added it would take twelve thousand dollars to make a batch of about two thousand bottles of it as a minimum run from a manufacturer.”

“Two thousand bottles!” my friend exclaimed. “Again, couldn’t you just go to a health store and buy the ingredients and take those?” he asked. “You wouldn’t have to spend twelve grand!”

He was making the mistake most people do. He was thinking of only himself. As long as he did, he wouldn’t have the secret for success.

I saw this moment as a prime chance to transform his life forever – if he’d just listen to me.

“If you don’t mind, let me give you a lesson in prosperity,” I continued. “You’re right. I could buy the ingredients in separate bottles, spend a hundred bucks, and lower my cholesterol. I’d be doing a smart thing. I’d be taking care of myself. But the smarter approach would be to take care of others and myself.”

Click image for free book

He still didn’t get it.

So I made another attempt to explain my thinking.

“By investing twelve grand in 2,000 bottles of the cholesterol lowering material, I’d become an entrepreneur who changes lives. How many people need to lower their cholesterol? Millions? I could sell those extra bottles to those other people. I just went from taking care of just me to taking care of others – and being rewarded with money!”

This is the secret few know.

Most people don’t think beyond themselves. That’s fine for survival. You do need to take care of yourself. But the real secret to success is when you take care of others and yourself.

I’m talking about a shift in perception. You might think that this is a mental operation that you’ll never be able to do. It might seem like a foreign way of perceiving the world around you.

I used to believe I couldn’t think like this, too. I remember thirty years ago listening to marketing genius Jay Abraham say he‘d walk into a gym and see a hundred ways they could make more money. He’d then rattle them off. I’d listen to him and say to myself, “How do you think like that?”

But there have been clues along the way.

When I was conducting research for my book on P.T. Barnum, the great circus promoter who I later wrote about in There’s A Customer Born Every Minute, I was baffled to learn that he could see what others could not.

P.T. Barnum's Secrets to Success

For example, when he heard of a little boy who would never grow over three feet tall, people told Barnum it was sad. But when Barnum met the little boy, his eyes saw “Super Star!”

Barnum transformed that little boy into the man the entire world loved and paid to see: General Tom Thumb.

Both Barnum and Thumb became multimillionaires.

I marveled that Barnum had the ability to see gold in what others saw as nothing special.

But today I do think like that.

How did I go from poverty thinker to million dollar thinker?

By reading books, listening to audios, going to events, getting coaching, and retraining my brain.

Now I can’t turn it off.

Now my brain looks around and sees opportunities everywhere.

I talk to people and can hear their “hidden wealth” within minutes.

In my book, Attract Money Now, I say one of the seven steps to financial freedom is to think like an entrepreneur.

How do you think like an entrepreneur?

By hearing your doctor say you need to lower your cholesterol, and then realizing others might need to do so, too. As you discover your own solution, you turn that solution into a product others will buy.

Win- win.

Here’s another example to help you integrate this new way of thinking:

A decade or so ago, a young woman wrote to me, asking questions about making money online. I met with her and listened to her story.

She talked about her life, her interests, her hobbies and so forth. She actually didn’t believe people could really make money online, and certainly doubted her own ability to do so.

But as I listened, I heard an opportunity.

She mentioned she had taught herself how to play the guitar in a weekend.

“A weekend?” I asked, a little in disbelief myself. At the time, I was an aspiring musician. (Today I have six albums out.) I wanted to know more.

“I created a basic method that let me play popular songs without much effort,” she said, completely clueless to the goldmine she was sitting on.

“Can you teach others to play guitar in a weekend?” I asked.

She said she could.

I then encouraged her to write an eBook on her method. That came as a surprise to her. She never thought of it before. She didn’t know how to write an eBook, but I told her lots of how-to manuals are available, including the one I coauthored with Jim Edwards, How to Write and Publish Your Own EBook – in only 7 days!

She went on to write her eBook, put up a site, and start selling it. To her amazement – as she didn’t think the idea would actually work – she started making sales.

But the story gets even better.

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She was a struggling college student. She was borrowing money from her parents. With the eBook selling, she had cash coming in. A little at first. But then more. One of the people who bought her product, and loved it, offered to buy the rights to her eBook – for ten thousand dollars!

For this broke college student, it was like winning the lottery.

But it wasn’t from the lotto.

It was from thinking beyond herself.

It was from thinking about all the other people who want to play the guitar, too.

In short, money isn’t really hiding from you. It’s simply waiting for you to serve people other then yourself.

Said another way, money likes it when you serve yourself and other people.

Think about it.

Ao Akua,

joe

PS – Have you ever wondered why I always end my blog posts (and emails) with a PS?