Be A Contrarian

I hate to be the one to break this to you.

Actually I don't. I LOVE being the one to break this to you:

If you want to be successful, wealthy, prosperous and abundant, you're going to have to become different from most of the people you know, see and meet.

Think about it: does it look to you like "most" people are doing well?

No? Then, doesn't it stand to reason that -- if you don't want to have their kind of life -- you'd better have different thoughts and decisions?

While this might sound a bit cynical, the truth is that most people are NOT doing well.
They're sick.
They're broke.
They're struggling.
They're frustrated.

And the reason they're sick, broke, struggling and frustrated is because they have not yet figured out that their thoughts and mindset are creating their circumstances.

But you have. So, prepare to become a contrarian. When you encounter ideas and concepts that you don't agree with, ask yourself, "If this person is happy and successful, maybe I should consider that there's something for me to learn here."

You may wind up adopting the powerful ideas of a relatively small group of people who are healthy, happy, prosperous, abundant and wealthy!

Cool, huh?

Tony Rush

Success Lessons From A Vampire??

Wow...talk about an unlikely place to find a powerful concept.

The other morning, Easton (my two-year-old) and I were the only ones awake and -- while he was pondering the joys of Thomas the Tank Engine -- I decided to flip through the channels to see if anything interesting was on.

And I happened upon a show called "Angel". If you've never heard of this show or what it is, I hesitate to even tell you because of how crazy it sounds.

But it's basically a show about a vampire who's given a soul to feel remorse for what he's done...and he spends his time in L.A. as a detective "helping the helpless".

Yeah, I know. And it went for 6 seasons.

As it turns out, this particular episode had some interesting characters and some good writing. And as I was watching, I heard something that made me bolt upright, look at the screen and say, "Yeah! That's RIGHT!"

The gist was that the main character (the vampire Angel) is telling another character about his perspective on the world. And he said

Nothing in the world is the way it ought to be. - It's harsh, and cruel. - But that's why there's us. Champions.

It doesn't matter where we come from, what we've done or suffered, or even if we make a difference. We live as though the world was what it should be, to show it what it can be.

Wow. I love that language.

"Living as though the world is what is SHOULD be....to show it what it CAN be."

Mahatma Gandhi said it a little differently: "Be the change you want to see in the world."

There's a powerful success lesson in these words and it's simply this: change starts with understanding that you are a cause, not an effect.

A lot of people get bogged down when they look a their bank account. But that's not who you ARE....that's the result of who you were being over the last few weeks or months. The same is true of your relationships. And your physical health. And your spirituality.

YOU are the cause of your life...

And if you want to start living successfully, take the advice of a vampire: "Live as though the world was what it SHOULD be...."

Be the leader. Followers are a dime a dozen.

Tony Rush

There Are Four Ways To Make Money

There are only four ways to make money. Understanding each of them will give you an idea of what you should do to start creating profits for your life (instead of just working for wages). Here they are:

A. Investing. No question about it. Real estate, gold, stocks, etc. are proven ways to make money. The obvious challenge is that you have to already have acquired some money and it's a highly intensive route. The investment-graveyard is full of people who operated on too little information. Most people add this as a 2nd or 3rd income stream which is highly recommended.

B. Sell A Skill. To me, this seems the least attractive although quite a lot of people do it. The biggest issue is that you usually have to be the one to roll up and do the job yourself. And when you're selling your time....well, there's always a limit to how much money you can earn because you've only got 24 hours in a day.

The upside is that most people do such shoddy work that -- if you're good at what you do and you come from a place of "excellence" -- then you can charge a heck of a lot of money to do something someone else doesn't want to do. This is why I've given my lawn man three raises in the last year and he deserves every penny of it.

But, in the end, the 24-hour day is the Great Equalizer. So if you're going to sell your time, charge a lot for it. You can't get it back.

C. Sell information. Ah, this is my favorite. We live in an information age. Pick any topic under the sun and there's no shortage of people who want to know how to do it. So, if you know how to do something, then you can share that information with others.

The great part about selling information is that it can be imparted in so many ways. You can offer CDs, DVDs, MP3s, study guides, workbooks, ebooks, hardback books, paperback books, personal coaching, tutoring, video clips, seminars, workshops, consulting....you name it.

And the REAL beauty here is that you don't get paid for how hard you work; you're getting paid for how much profit margin you build into your pricing. And since your pricing is always based on "value", there's no limit to how much you can earn.

And knowledge is incredibly valuable.

If I know how to show someone how to earn $250,000 in the next 12 months even if they have no experience in business.....well, that's something valuable to know.

And when I offer to teach that for a tiny fraction of what they can earn, there's no shortage of people who are lined up to work with me.

Why? Because I'm the guy who "knows how".

So, selling information is powerful. And it's my favorite way to earn money. All it takes is the confidence in yourself to realize that you know SOMETHING that someone else wants to know. I know one lady who has made a fortune as a knitter! You read that right: knitting! She's a world-class knitter and she's produced tons of books and resources to show other people how to knit beautiful designs. She turned a hobby into an enterprise. Cha-ching!

D. Sell A Product. This is the old standby. The cool thing about selling a product is that there's no limit to how many you can sell. Once you've got a successful product in the marketplace, you can just keep selling it over and over to whoever shows up. And, just like with information, your earnings are based on profit margin...not on how "hard" you work.

The trick to becoming wealthy with a product is that it depends on being UNIQUE. If you're selling the same doo-dad that everyone else is selling, then it's going to boil down to who's closest to the customer and who's got a unique selling proposition. If you're like everyone else, it'll be tricky.

But, it's not that hard to market something unique. One of the most common ways is to get involved in a business where someone else takes care of product development and let them pay you for finding customers. I got involved in a drop-ship business 3 1/2 years ago where I could sell high-profit-margin products to people who wanted them....and I didn't have to stock the products or warehouse them.

Best of all the customers pay me directly and I just place a wholesale order with the fulfillment house. Think about that! I don't even place the order with the fulfillment house until I've already received the customer's money. They send me X amount of dollars....I keep 67% of the money and place an order with the company and they take care of the rest.

Heck, they even do the customer service. I'm just the guy who makes the product available to the public.

Conclusion: Making money is a piece of cake. It's a game. And you can get in the game at any time. There's plenty of room for new players.

Wanna play?

Contact me if you'd like to see how I've combined selling "information" and "drop-shipped products" in a way that allows me to pocket a few hundred-thousand dollars extra each year without having to touch anything.

Well....other than the deposit slips. :)

Tony Rush