Double Your Salary in 12 Months or Less

If you are bored (with your job) it’s your fault. You just aren’t working hard enough at making your job interesting. It is also probably the reason you haven’t been offered anything better. Find out what you love to do and you will be successful at it”. (Mark McCormack, author of “What They Don’t Teach You At Harvard Business School”)

Source of Income:
There are 3 sources of income:

• Earned
• Portfolio
• Passive

Your extra incomes come from:

• Increased earnings
• Reduced/controlled spending
  
  

Quick Financial Health Assessment:
To assess whether we are healthy financially, we look at:

• EPF savings
• Run-Rate
• Net worth
• Debt repayment % of your monthly income
• Employability

A. CREATE THE FOUNDATION FPR WEALTH BUILDING

1. INTEGRATE SUCCESS FACTORS INTO YOUR LIFE

• Integrity
• Discipline
• Social skills
• A supportive spouse
• Hard work

2. EXAMINE AND USE THE RESOURCES AT HAND
“It isn’t the amount that matters; it’s doing all that can do with our God given abilities that really counts.” (Jim Rohn)

I. Visible Assets

• Health and vitality
• Physical/Material Possessions
• Pleasant Personality
• Talents or skills
• Good Reputation
• Loving & Supportive Family

II. Visible Liabilities

• Sickness & Fatigue
• Mortgages/Bank Loans
• Difficult to Get Along
• Illiterate/Unskilled
• Not Trustworthy
• Broken Family

III. Invisible Assets

• Creativity, imagination
• Vision, Definite Major Purpose
• Self-Control, Tolerance
• Resilience, Persistent
• Accurate Thinking
• Faith in Infinite Intelligence

IV. Invisible Liabilities

• Legalistic, inflexible
• Aimless
• Impatience
• Quit easily
• Emotional
• Faithless

3. As a beginner in the creation of MSI, there are only 3 resources we need, i.e.

• A Good Idea
• The commitment to do it
• The key contacts who posses all the other resources we need.

4. Your acres of diamonds lie under your own feet. But they are disguised as your special talents and abilities, your education and experience, your friends and contacts. Start where you are for distant fields always look greener, but opportunity lies right where you are! (Focus On your Own Acres of Diamond).

5. “In your HEAD, you have everything you will ever need to take you to anywhere you want to go, to have anything you want to have, and to be anything you want to be. (Paul J. Meyer)

6. WISE PROGRESSIVE ASSET ALLOCATION
I. Accumulation (16-30)

• Train for a career via formal education
• Start a savings program and set long-term financial goals.
• Determine life, medical or accident/disability insurance needs.
• Maximize tax-relief or tax-deferred income.
• Save at least 3-6 months of cash as reserves.
• Invest a small percentage of extra savings in low risk investments and the balance in medium to high-risk investments for maximum growth.

II. Saving (30-45)

• Invest for capital growth.
• Write a will and explore retirement goals.
• If you have children – add insurance for a growing family, provide for expanding household needs, name a guardian for your children and begin to build an education fund.
• Long-term asset allocation model outside of cash:
  a. Low risk – 25%
  b. Moderate risk – 50%
  c. High risk – 25%
  

III. Pre-Retirement (45-60)

• Shift from growth to income with your portfolio and remember to diversify your investment plans.
• Develop an estate plan and think seriously about “retirement” planning.
• Review and revise your will as necessary and explore a living will.
• Arrange for a power of attorney – reevaluate homeowner’s life, disability and umbrella liability insurance policies.
• Consider deferred compensation plans with your employer (if applicable).
• Long-term asset allocation model outside of cash:
  a. Low risk – 35%
  b. Moderate risk – 40%
  c. High risk – 20%

IV. Retirement (60-70)

• Conserve assets and maintain income flow to sustain the retiree’s standard of living until he/she dies.
• Reevaluate your spending plan to meet retirement needs.
• Reduce taxable estate and shift a portion of assets to income producing.
• Occupy time in as meaningful manner – investigate part time employment or volunteer work for retirement.
• Ensure that long-term health care needs are met.
• Review any will and trusts or insurance policies.
• Consider plans of transition for the family business (if applicable).
• Update your living will and power of attorney, and share financial decisions with other family members.
• Investigate gifts and insurance plans for children and grandchildren (if any) and explore charity-giving plans and plan for shifting business interests (if applicable).
• Asset allocation model outside of cash:
  a. Low risk – 60%
  b. Moderate risk – 30%
  c. High risk – 10%

7. Wisely balance our enjoyment of life with responsible investing, which will allow us to live consistently at the level that we have chosen. (Never Let Your Assets Run Out)

B. IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF YOUR LIFE AND WORK
1. IMPROVE YOUR ATTITUDE
I. True prosperity begins with feeling good about your self. It is the freedom to do what you want to do, when you want to do it! It is not defined by an amount of money – it is a state of mind. Prosperity or lack of it is an expression of the ideas in your head!

II. Do more Positive Affirmation For Yourself

• Relationship with Bosses
• Relationship with Others
• Relationship with Your Salary

III. Do Less Negative Defensive Thinking

• Self-Limiting Thoughts
• Overcoming Problems at Work

IV. Start to Believe that Someone Need What You Have to Offer.

V. Stop the “FIXED INCOME” Mentality

• As you conceive of more, more will come into your life!
• Affirm yourself with prosperity consciousness.
• Affirm yourself daily that you are enjoying your transformation process.

2. IMPROVE YOUR SKILL

• DO MORE THINGS of greater Value, Rewards and Satisfaction.
• DO LESS THINS THAT ARE not as helpful compared with other activities or behaviors and hurtful to the things that you want to achieve.
• START TO DO THINGS NOT DONE AT ALL, Make new choices, Learn new skills, begin new projects or activities and change the entire focus of your work or personal life.
• STOP DOING CERTAIN THINGS ALTOGETHER, stand back and evaluate your life with new eyes and decide to discontinue activities and behaviors that are not consistent.
  
  

C. UNLOCK YOUR FULL POTENTIAL
1. UNDERSTAND HOW YOY ARE PAID

• Paid for accomplishments, not activities.
• Paid for outcomes, not for inputs, or the number of hours you work.
• Our rewards are determined by the quality and quantity of results we achieve in our area of responsibilities!

2. DOUBLE YOUR VALUE, DOUBLE YOUR INCOME

• Do the things that contribute the greatest value to you and your company.
• Identify the activities in the bottom 80%, the lower value, time-consuming tasks that contribute very little to your results.
• Resolve to downsize, delegate and eliminate as many of them as possible, as quickly as you possibly can.
• You will be paid more because of making a more valuable contribution.
  

3. SEE YOURSELF AS SELF-EMPLOYED

• Accept personal responsibility for everything you are and everything you will be.
• This means we choose refuse to make excuse or blame others, complain and eliminate what-ifs and all your if-only.
• Regardless of who signs your paycheck – see your self as the president of the of your personal service corporation.
• Instead of making excuses, focus on making progress!

4. LEARN HOW TO INCREASE PROFITS FOR YOUR PERSONAL COMPANY OR ANY COMPANY

• Increase sales and revenues while holding costs constant.
• Decrease running costs, holding sales and revenues constant.
• Do something else altogether where one or both of the first two are possible.

5. DEDICATE YOURSELF TO LIFE-LONG LEARNING AND GROWTH

• Read in your field daily for at least 30-60 minutes.
• Listen to audio programs in your car as you drive from place to place.
• Attend every course and seminar that you possibly can to help you improve in your field.
• LEADERS ARE LEARNERS!

D. CREATE MULTIPLE SOURCES OF INCOMES
1. MSI = PSI + ASI

• MSI = Multiple Sources of Income
• PSI = Primary Sources of Income
• ASI = Additional Sources of Income

2. GUIDELINES FOR IDEAL MSL
I. Characteristic of An Ideal Money Making MSI

• Residual streams of income.
• Have potential for expansion.
• Low amount of time involvement.
• Be low risk.
• Require a low or no staff component.
• Have low start-up and overhead costs.
• Have high profit margins and rates of return.
• Fulfill a need for many people.
• High personal satisfaction
• High growth and educational.
• Have a unique quality.
• High speed, kind of project can give immediate monthly income.
• Have a stable, growing, long-term demand.
• Get in front of the trend and ride the wave.
• Sell to the masses.
• Have positive cash flow and low inventory costs.
• Have minimum government regulatory controls.

3. IDEAS FOR MSI

• GET MONEY TO WORK FOR YOU INSTEAD OF YOU WORKING FOR MONEY!
• Royalties
• Rental income
• Selling consumable products
• Selling businesses
• Additional products and services for existing client base
• Residual income
• Savers earn internet
• Bonds and stocks
• Your own house appreciation
• Songwriters earn royalties
• Authors earn royalties from their books and tapes
• Insurance agents get residual business
• Securities agents get residual sales
• Network marketers get residual commissions
• Actors get a piece of the action
• Entrepreneurs get business profit – owing your business
• Franchisers get franchising fees
• Investors get dividends, interest and appreciation
• Visual artists get royalties from their creations
• Database owner: rent and sell lists and related intelligence
• A new website that sells 24 hours a day
• Royalties: books, tapes, CDs, videos, seminars, films, software, games, inventions, patents, agenting, brokering.
• Partners get profits
• Real estate owners can get cash flow profits
• Celebrity endorsers get gross percentage profits
• Marketing consultants get as percentage of the profits or gross revenue.
  

4. FIVE STEPS TO CREATE MSI
“It is not impossibilities which fill us with the deepest despair but possibilities which we have failed to realize. (Robert Mallet)

• Start by focusing on your PSI until it is stable and almost permanent.
• List down what you have to offer.
• Prioritize each ASI.
• Narrow your prioritized of ASI to 3.
• Involve your Dream Team or Master Mind group like-minded people to help you sharpen your MSI’s ideas and put the resources needed to create successful MSI.
  

5. No one can hope to become rich without the help of people around him. The claim that “I did it all by myself without the help of anyone” is one that airs our arrogance which will limit our success. Although contacts, money, ideas and enthusiasm are of vital importance – they are not enough if we can’t count on people. Success Is A Team Effort.

E. Action Spot

• Write down the foundational stones of success in your lives. Print a copy and put it into your wallet to be read daily.
• Develop a plan to implement the top 3 best ideas from the group.
  · Your plan for each MSI should entail components like WHAT (what MSI?), WHY (Purpose), WHO (Your team members and their assigned tasks, if any), WHEN (Start? Finish?), HOW (Detail action steps), BUDGET (Seed funds allocated for each MSI or task), PROFIT (Expected amount of money you can make) and STATUS (Progress of each MSI) in a tabular format.
  c) Give careful thought to build in the vital internal assets to ensure your success. Identify and eliminate any harmful internal liabilities.
  

F. Think Spot

• “I am deeply fulfilled by all that I do.” How true is this affirmation for you?
• What are the top 20% of your activities that account, or can account for 80% or more of the value of your work?
• Ask yourself this question daily before you go to bed:” What percentage of what I did today actually help to create residual income?” What adjustments are you going to make in order to create more wealth?
  
  
  
  
  

How to Become Wealthy By Joshua Kennon

Nine Truths That Can Set You on the Path to Financial Freedom

#1: Change the Way You Think About Money

The general population has a love / hate relationship with wealth. They resent those who have it, but spend their entire lives attempting to get it for themselves. The reason a vast majority of people never accumulate a substantial nest egg is because they don't understand the nature of money or how it works. Cash, like a person, is a living thing. When you wake up in the morning and go to work, you are selling a product - yourself (or more specifically, your labor). When you realize that every morning your assets wake up and have the same potential to work as you do, you unlock a powerful key in your life. Each dollar you save is like an employee. Over the course of time, the goal is to make your employees work hard, and eventually, they will make enough money to hire more workers (cash). When you have become truly successful, you no longer have to sell your own labor, but can live off of the labor of your assets.

#2: Develop an Understanding of the Power of Small Amounts

The biggest mistake most people make is that they think they have to start with an entire Napoleon-like army. They suffer from the "not enough" mentality; namely that if they aren't making $1,000 or $5,000 investments at a time, they will never become rich. What these people don't realize is that entire armies are built one soldier at a time; so too is their financial arsenal. A friend of mine once knew a woman who worked as a dishwasher and made her purses out of used liquid detergent bottles. This woman invested and saved everything she had despite it never being more than a few dollars at a time. Now, her portfolio is worth millions upon millions of dollars, all of which was built upon small investments. I am not suggesting you become this frugal, but the lesson is still a valuable one. Do not despise the day of small beginnings!

#3: With Each Dollar You Save, You Are Buying Yourself Freedom

When you put it in these terms, you see how spending $20 here and $40 there can make a huge difference in the long run. Since money has the ability to work in your place, the more of it you employ, the faster and larger it will grow. Along with more money comes more freedom - the freedom to stay home with your kids, the freedom to retire and travel around the world, or the freedom to quit your job. If you have any source of income, it is possible for you to start building wealth today. It may only be $5 or $10 at a time, but each of those investments is a stone in the foundation of your financial freedom.

#4: You Are Responsible for Where You Are in Your Life

Years ago, a friend told me she didn't want to invest in stocks because she "didn't want to wait ten years to be rich..." she would rather enjoy her money now. The folly with this school of thinking is that the odds are, you are going to be alive in ten years. The question is whether or not you will be better off when you arrive there. Where you are right now is the sum total of the decisions you have made in the past. Why not set the stage for your life in the future right now?

#5: Instead of Buying the Product... Buy the Stock!

Someone once asked me why they weren't wealthy. They always felt like they were putting money aside, yet never seemed to get any further ahead. The answer is simple. I told them to stop buying the products companies sell and start buying the company itself! A survey of America's affluent (those who make over $225,000 a year or own $3,000,000 in assets) revealed that 27-30% of all the income the wealthy earned went into investments and savings. That isn't a result of being rich, that is why they are rich. When the pain of getting out of the bondage of financial slavery is greater than the pain of changing your spending habits, you will become rich. Either change, or be content to live as you are.

#6: Study and Admire Success and Those Who Have Achieved It... Then Emulate It

A very wise investor once said to pick the traits you admire and dislike the most about your heroes, then do everything in your power to develop the traits you like and reject the ones you don't. Mold yourself into who you want to become. You'll find that by investing in yourself first, money will begin to flow into your life. Success and wealth beget success and wealth. You have to purchase your way into that cycle, and you do so by building your army one soldier at a time and putting your money to work for you

#7: Realize that More Money is Not the Answer

More money is not going to solve your problem. Money is a magnifying glass; it will accelerate and bring to light your true habits. If you are not capable of handling a job paying $18,000 a year, the worst possible thing that could happen to you is for you to earn six figures. It would destroy you. I have met too many people earning $100,000 a year who are living from paycheck to paycheck and don't understand why it is happening. The problem isn't the size of their checkbook, it is the way in which they were taught to use money.

#8: Unless Your Parents Were Wealthy, Don't Do What They Did

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. If your parents were not living the life you want to live then don't do what they did! You must break away from the mentality of past generations if you want to have a different lifestyle than they had. To achieve the financial freedom and success that your family may or may not have had, you have to do two things. First, make a firm commitment to get out of debt. To find out which debts should be paid off before you invest and those that are acceptable, read Pay off Your Debt or Invest?. Second, make saving and investing the highest financial priority in your life; one technique is to pay yourself first. Purchasing equity is vital to your financial success as an individual whether you are in need of cash income or desire long-term appreciation in stock value. Nowhere else can your money do as much for you as when you use it to invest in a business that has wonderful long-term prospects.

#9: Don't Worry

The miracle of life is that it doesn't matter so much where you are, it matters where you are going. Once you have made the choice to take control back of your life by building up your net worth, don't give a second thought to the "what ifs". Every moment that goes by, you are growing closer and closer to your ultimate goal - control and freedom. Every dollar that passes through your hands is a seed to your financial future. Rest assured, if you are diligent and responsible, financial prosperity is inevitability. The day will come when you make your last payment on your car, your house, or whatever else it is you owe. Until then, enjoy the process.

The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko

It isn't a flashy get-rich-quick manual, in fact the process it recommends would disappoint some of the more entrepreneurial types. It involves the slow process of becoming successful in your career or business, saving up your money instead of spending it, budgeting down to the last cent, investing carefully and prodigiously, seeking out good advice when necessary, and spending a tremendous amount of time on money matters. Very few of the millionaires interviewed were young, this is a book more geared to someone that wants to become filthy rich by the age of 50 and retire in comfort, as opposed to the usual goal of retiring young while you still have the energy for a life of hedonism.

Thrift

A common thread that runs through the book is that people that are destined to become extremely wealthy are very careful about using credit and tend to save for things before they buy them.

The average millionaire in the book drove a second hand American built large family car, the Aussie equivalent being a Falcon, Commodore or maybe a four wheel drive of some description.

They live in middle class suburbs, not necessarily in the best house in the street. You would not know a millionaire by his house or car. Nor would you recognise him by his general lifestyle, the majority of millionaires were not members of yacht clubs and exclusive private golf clubs, and most sent their children to ordinary public schools.

The average millionaire interviewed would describe himself as a "tightwad", and never spent any money that was not absolutely necessary.

The average millionaire knows exactly what he spent over the last year on household items like food and domestic bills. They are extremely frugal and tend to avoid flashy brand name stuff, and are compulsive coupon savers and junk mail readers, with a freezer full of cheap meat and frozen vegetables.

The guys in this book avoided flashy consumer purchases at all costs. They drove normal cars, they lived in normal suburbs, they ate at normal places instead of gourmet restaurants, they drank beer instead of fine wine and generally did not own a boat. One interesting piece of advice the authors give is, "if you're not yet wealthy, but want to be some day, never purchase a home that requires a mortgage more than twice your annual income."

Clearly that is impossible advice to follow in Australia, where homes are very much more expensive compared to income. A six figure income is considered quite high in Australia and $200,000 is not considered to be a particularly high price for a house. Nevertheless I guess the point is still valid, and it concerns more than just the mortgage itself.

The authors make the point that it is much harder to live a frugal lifestyle in an expensive suburb. Keeping up with the Joneses is much easier when the Joneses can only afford a five year old Commodore Executive. Living in a street where everyone spends a fortune on keeping their lawn and garden immaculate, where the average car is a Holden Statesman at least but preferably a Lexus, BMW or Mercedes, where expensive decor is compulsory and any person of taste needs fine crystal glassware makes saving your money that much more difficult.

The project that inspired this book was originally a marketing exercise. The authors wanted to know how to market to the very wealthy. They did what most people would do first and started writing to people in the top suburbs. What they found instead was a bunch of high income earners with lots of expensive toys and lots of debt, but a low net with compared to their income. Trying to figure out why this was the case was what brought on the Millionaire Next Door book.

Benchmarks of wealth accumulation
The authors developed a formula for the amount of wealth a financially successful person accumulates as a function of their age and income. They had a complicated regression model, but it summarises nicely into:

• Multiply your age by your gross annual income from all sources except inheritances. Divide this by ten. This, less any inherited wealth is what your net worth (excluding home equity) should be.

The authors went on to classify two extremes of wealth accumulator

• A prodigious accumulator of wealth (called a PAW throughout the book) has a net worth twice as high as this formula.
• An under accumulator of wealth (UAW) has a net worth under half of this.
  

In between is the AAW (average accumulator of wealth), which is your ordinary garden variety rich guy.

Career
First generation wealthy individuals generally ran their own businesses, but they encouraged their children to enter into professional occupations. Reviewers of this book have often quote the authors as saying that most of the millionaires got to where they are by running small businesses like dry cleaning and pizza or fast food, but I didn't really get that impression from my own reading. They did point out that most were self employed but the authors did carefully point out that no specific occupation was represented any more among millionaires, there is no evidence to support the "quote" taken from the book that most of the millionaires owned laundromats, but they nevertheless were generally involved in service industries of various sorts.

Investment
Nearly all of the millionaires the authors interviewed owned stocks (about 95%), but few traded their stocks on any regular basis. Few cared what the London market did last night and few bothered following market commentaries. They just held stalwart blue chip stocks and held them a very long time.

Most millionaires were long term investors. In fact the authors hardly found any millionaire traders at all. The following table is interesting, it shows on average the frequency of most investors making changes in their portfolio.

Average holding time ======> Percentage of respondents
Less than a few days ======> Less than 1%
A few weeks ======> 1%
A few months, less than annually ======> Under 7%
Between one and two years ======> 20%
Between two and four years ======> 25%
Over six years ======> 32%

More than 42% of the millionaires interviewed had not made any trade at all in the previous 12 months. So much for the myth that to get good results you have to be a trader.

Yes, I am aware that the numbers in this table only come to 86%, but these figures come right out of the book. I have no idea why the numbers don't tally to 100%, but either way the message is clear - successful investors tend to buy and hold.

(Before anyone says this is simply because traders are a small group, I don't think that is the case at all. If anything the popularity and ease of trading via the Internet has had a huge impact on the way small investors behave, having direct stock market access has turned the market into a very addictive casino and if anything traders outnumber long term investors, and the percentage of short term traders seems to be increasing over time.)

UAWs consider cash/near cash and equivalents, such as savings accounts, money market funds and short term treasury bills to be investments. UAWs are nearly twice as likely as PAWs to hold at least 20% of their net worth in cash/near cash. Most of these cash categories are federally insured. Most are easily accessed when consumption needs arise. And, of course, it takes less time to plan cash-related investments than it does to allocate wealth the way PAWs tend to do.

PAWs are more likely to invest in categories that usually appreciate in value but do not produce realised income. They tend to have a greater percentage of their wealth invested in privately held/closely held businesses, commercial real estate, publicly traded equities and superannuation. These types of investments require planning and are the foundation of wealth.

Liquidity was generally not a huge concern for PAWs. For example the Australian equivalent of a PAW would use superannuation for a great deal of their investment. A UAW would shun super because preservation rules mean you can't get the money out while you are young. Having your money all available for immediate cashing in would be a disadvantage as far as PAWs are concerned.
UAWs tend to hold a large percentage of their net worth in motor vehicles and other depreciating assets.

Financial preparation
Often, traders spend more time trading than studying and planning.

The millionaires spent more time studying fewer offerings. Rather than getting stuck in front of a computer riding the swings all day long they tended to devote their energy to picking a prospectus to bits or reading up on a specific company. Rather than trying to know everything they decided to focus their time and energy by doing a few things very well.

PAWs on average allocate twice as many hours per month to planning their investments as UAWs.

Studying & planning (PAW ) 10 hours (UAW) 5.5 hours

Managing current investments (PAW) 8.1 hours (UAW) 4.2 hours

Another interesting point is that PAWs spent a lot of time trying to find a good financial adviser, and tend to have a rigorous process for screening candidates. UAWs were much less choosy about who they invested with.

Priorities
Millionaires believe that financial independence is more important than displaying high social status. A prodigious accumulator of wealth thinks more highly of having enough money to support him/herself and his/her family in the event of his/her income being cut off than owning a flashy car. They were generally conservative people not fond of taking huge risks, and valued security above all else.

The Carnegie Secret

The "Carnegie Secret" is a concept that Napoleon Hill studied extensively. Carnegie told Hill that the formula for success was so powerful that if learning how to apply it was taught to students, the time they needed to spend in formal schooling could be cut in half. This formula, Carnegie repeated, was used by all the leading businessmen and inventors of the late 19th and early 20th century. Carnegie asked Hill to go out and confirm the application of the formula by the 500 richest Americans (and others).

Hill in his introduction to Think and Grow Rich refers to the "formula" as a conception which is the foundation of all success, and necessary to achieve the premise of the book. Hill describes the secret in every chapter but never states it plainly, believing its use is only available to those who possess a “readiness” for the secret: a disposition Hill states as essential to the concept itself. Hill spends a great deal of time in Think and Grow Rich discussing the life of inventor Thomas Edison, whose personal belief in the practical electric light is now legend; it is stated in the book that the great inventor personally put his stamp of approval on the formula as being necessary for the attainment of all achievement, including riches. However, personal belief alone is not enough for success, requiring "The Secret" of achievement for that all important next step.

One of the basic premises of the “Carnegie Secret” or “Carnegie Formula” is that whatever your mind focuses on will attract like-minded people to you. As one element necessary for Achievement, it can also lead to failure when internal focus is so strong that like-mindedness cannot be achieved; examples are all around us, and Hill pointed them out repeatedly in his writings. Hill talked at length about the major importance of DESIRE in the lives of successful people to help achieve focus.

Hill's proposition was that if you have a desire that is great enough, literally nothing can stop you from achieving your aim(s) through the power of like-minded attraction; but only as long as this desire does not have selfishness as a component. He offered six steps to “fuel” desire so that it will become the “motivating master” of those who use the formula. Riches are what Hill's teachings promise the reader; these riches can be in the form of money or any other result aimed for, if the person applying the formula uses focus and desire properly to achieve them. Selfish use of focus and desire, Hill warned, often leads to poverty or far worse.

It is interesting to note that two very accomplished people have stated in writing that Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich was directly responsible for their success. The first was Art Williams who is listed on the Forbes 400 list as being worth over $1 Billion. He states in his book “All You Can Do Is All You Can Do - But All You Can Do Is Enough” that the “six steps” were the basis of his success in building a company that would eventually make him worth 10 figures. The second is S. Truett Cathy, the founder of the Chick-fil-A restaurants (a privately held corporation). He states in his book that he read Think and Grow Rich in high school and it changed his life. Mr. Cathy is also on the Forbes 400 list with a fortune estimated to be worth $900 Million. Both succeeded enormously in attracting like-minded individuals to work with them throughout their careers, one of the necessary ingredients for Achievement as described in detail by Hill as a "Master Mind Alliance".

Thoughts Are Things
Hill spent most of his effort on describing to his readers and students the paradox that "Thoughts Are Things." In fact, the subtitle of the introduction chapter of "Think and Grow Rich" is "The Man Who 'Thought' His Way." The ability of people to share thoughts underpins achievement, and Hill stated that this allows the success-oriented individuals to attract like-minded people in order to accomplish anything. Most of the examples in Think and Grow Rich concern the great difficulty of creating and maintaining like-mindedness, and Hill termed this concept "The Master Mind". Hill's numerous examples of racism, prejudice, war, poverty, discouragement, and fear illustrated the significant barriers that existed in his time (and still exist today) as the road-blocks to Achievement through the coordination of like-minded individuals.

The Spirit of Giving
Hill stated many times in his writings that the success formula required a complete and total understanding of the spirit of giving. He named this concept "The Golden Rule". Many times he was quoted as saying "There is no such thing as something for nothing". Hill was a devout Christian, and did not see any conflict between his success philosophy and his religious faith. Acquiring the Carnegie Secret of Achievement, Hill said after his own books were in wide circulation, could only be had by those "ready" for it; this meant understanding the entire Philosophy including elements such as the Golden Rule, Faith, and Desire. Once ready, anyone could go on to acquire great wealth as it required only application of the formula.

The Creation of the United States of Americadirectly provided a written definition of the secret of Achievement, for he was adamant it would deprive people of the ability to learn it for themselves. Hill's belief was that the U.S. Constitution was one of the finest living examples of the Philosophy of Achievement in existence, and the same power is available to all; to which there is no doubt just as much disbelief in our times as in Hill's. And yet the Constitution does exist, making Hill's claim all the more tantalizing that such a power is available to the average person; this claim alone is mainly responsible for the millions of copies of his books in circulation. There is no hard-copy record of the Carnegie Secret in existence, beyond Carnegie's own stupendous fortune which still exists today as the Carnegie Foundation. Carnegie's wealth was so great in his time that its share of the US Gross National Product was far in excess of today's largest fortunes, rivaling the USA so much that is was once thought Carnegie could become "an Emperor in Washington". And yet, Carnegie achieved this wealth as an individual, and not completely without controversy; but as a historical fact it is indisputable that one man was responsible. On this basis, Carnegie's secret formula is considered by some presently to be a long lost secret, awaiting rediscovery.

Master Mind
Hill is also credited with coining the phrase 'Master Mind' (more commonly, Mastermind). The 'Master Mind' may be defined as: “coordination of knowledge and effort in a spirit of harmony, between two or more people, for the attainment of a definite purpose.” In Think and Grow Rich, Hill discusses his creation of Master Mind groups and how these groups could multiply an individual's brain power and continually motivate positive emotions. However, the Master Mind was a deeper and more powerful connection than mere synergetic cooperation would suggest, and requires an understanding of Hill's belief's about the brain and the nature of energy (particularly thought energy) within Thomas Edison's cosmological understanding of matter and energy. In describing the Philosophy of Achievement, Hill was careful in his writings to examine the brain as a sending/receiving station for thought; and for the first time in history explained to the world that like-mindedness had a physical basis. Hence the Master Mind, governed by the laws of mutual attraction, could only exist if like-mindedness was achieved between individuals. Scientists had only recently (in Hill's time) shown that the brain was the true source of thought, and hence like-mindedness could now have a true physical underpinning from the point of view of science.

Hill states there are two characteristics of the Master Mind principle; one is economic, the other psychic. Economic advantages arise from sharing and cooperation with others utlizing the Philosophy of Achivement. As to the other, Hill states: "No two minds ever come together without, thereby, creating a third, invisible, intangible force which may be likened to a third mind." This force, Hill reasoned, was tremendously valuable and ultimately the source of true wealth. Hill also believed that the human mind is a form of energy, part of it spiritual in nature. He states that when the minds of two people are coordinated in a spirit of harmony, the spiritual units of energy of each mind form an affinity, which constitutes the "psychic" phase of the Master Mind. For his development of the Master Mind concept and other principles of success, Hill was awarded an honorary doctor of literature degree (LittD) by Pacific International University. The Litt.D. is awarded for an original contribution (or contributions) of special excellence to linguistics, literary, philosophical, social or historical knowledge.

The Stories in Think and Grow Rich
There are several examples in Hill's book Think and Grow Rich that promise to lead the reader to the Carnegie Secret, but only if the reader is ready. They are:

• Edwin Barnes desire to become Thomas Edison's business partner, which allowed him to make a fortune with the Dictaphone
• The ship captain who burned his ships after landing to take an island, and conquered the inhabitants
• A little slave girl who mastered the owner of the plantation to gain 50 cents
• An uncle of R.U. Darby who missed a fortune in a gold mining venture, and sold the equipment to someone who hired experts and found the gold.
• The department store tycoon, who after the Great Chicago Fire rebuilt his store on the exact spot; others fled, he prospered.
• The creation of United States Steel in the mind of one man; which led to Carnegie Steel being acquired by JP Morgan and made Carnegie one of the richest men in the world.

Hill stated repeatedly that these examples lead to The Secret of Carnegie's enormous achievement, as well as those of the other richest 500 Americans he studied in detail for the book. All of these individuals in the examples had to face fear, and find some way to overcome it; that is clear from the content of each story. But the secret to riches, what happens after fear is overcome, is never explained outright in the book. It is left to the reader to decide for themselves what really happens next, and the promise is that if you get the answer right, you can make money where others can only make excuses. It is a tantalizing challenge, as real today as it was in the 1930's when the first copies of Think and Grow Rich were published. Hill's genius is that he dares the reader to try.