The Butler Project

Yeah, Mark usually writes about his own millionaire interviews, but this is Emily today. And this segment of Todd’s interview is packed with good stuff.

First, a little background: Todd and his partner own a network marketing business that brings in about a million dollars a year. During his interview, Todd shared with Mark some amazing insights about who he is and how he has built himself into a millionaire.

Mark started out a little sensational, wanting to know if, at the young age of 26, Todd could reasonably retire and actually maintain or even increase his income without ever making another business phone call or holding another meeting. Todd acknowledged, yes, he thought that was a pretty reasonable assumption. In fact, he did take an entire month off recently when his first child was born and his income increased $6,000 that month. But as he thought about retirement, his question to Mark was:

Todd: What the heck would I do? Just sit around and do nothing? I’d just . . . I’d die off I think.

Right now [we're] in a very incredible growth phase . . . I want to participate in that as much as possible.

I see the opportunity much larger than what it is, and that doesn’t mean I’m only driven to make more and more money, but I’m driven to help a lot of the people within our groups make more and more money, and I really feel like . . . we’re changing a lot of people’s lives . . . it’s not just me and my own efforts, it’s built on the efforts of now you know, 10000 + people!

Mark: What does it feel like to wake up in the morning and, if you know what I mean, know that you don’t have to? You’re 26, you’re not like someone who worked for 40 years and hated it and finally you’re free of it. You can get up every morning and say, “Well, I don’t have to, I choose to” What does that feel like?

Todd: Well, honestly, that’s the thing I think everybody should experience because most people go through life completely begrudgingly; they hate what they do. Because of that, everything else in their life suffers: their relationships suffer, their own personal happiness suffers, their growth and development suffers. You know, I, by no stretch of the imagination have a perfect life, but I’m very, very happy. . . my wife loves the fact that there are days when she and I plan — a couple of weeks ago it was her birthday and she wanted to go shopping, so half of one day, when . . . most people would be working, we went and did that and went to a movie. . . [we] have that freedom to be able to do that.

At the same time I think that’s been created because of the passion and the work ethic that I have created for it, and that passion drives me to keep doing it. You know, I wake up excited to do it. . . . I don’t dread when I have to call somebody or when my phone rings or when I have to go meet with people. I really love it. I love people. I love going out and meeting with new people, seeing their lives change, introducing them to a whole new way of thinking and a new concept, and that’s really where my passion lies.

That’s the reason why I want to do more speaking and more teaching and I want to write books, is because I really believe that if people understood and were empowered with the right knowledge and they would apply that and develop in themselves their own purpose, I really think people could have everything they wanted. I don’t think that there’s just a luck factor why some people succeed and some people don’t.

Did you read that?! Todd doesn’t get up in the morning because if he doesn’t he won’t get paid; he gets up in the morning because he is changing people’s lives. He’s introducing them to a whole new way of thinking and how to apply knowledge and understanding to help them have everything they want. What is your passion? What could get you out of bed each morning excited to be up and get going?

Todd: People need to really know their “why,” and that “why” needs to be bigger than any obstacle that they have. They need to have a reason for doing it. And what I’ve found is that money is not a big enough why. What you’re going to do with the money and things you’re going to help and where your life’s going to change, maybe, but they really need to understand their purpose in what they’re doing.

The other thing is if you look at the way . . . Brian Tracy . . . back in the day when he was one of the first people that really started talking about goals, . . . one of the steps that he had was “who has done it?” And so you look at, what is it you want to accomplish [and] somebody [who has already] gone down that road . . . you look at what they had to do to do it and . . . learn from their mistakes.

For example, in [my organization] there are certain people, my sponsors, who I looked at and knew what kind of money they were making . . . I watched them and saw exactly what kind of work they had to put into it, and realized, you know, they were much further down the road in terms of their business experience, their maturity, their credibility, their contact base, and so I probably had to put even more into it than they did just because of my age. And . . . that was the price I had to pay if I wanted to have what they had.

But when you do that, you know what you want and why you want it.

You need to know why. And if you don’t have a big enough “why” in your life right now, you need to start planning how to get to that point. To the point where you’re excited and to the point where you’re doing the things that matter to you.

Our family’s eccomerce site sells trailer hitches. We’re not passionate about selling trailer hitches. So what keeps us going? A few things:

• All four of the Butler siblings live in different states. We’re all in different stages of our lives (some married, some single; some with kids, some without, some going to school, others moving up the corporate ladder, etc.) Working on the business gives us a reason to get together. Our business purchased each of us a MacBook Pro so we could ichat (video conference). We get together at least once a week to work on the business and catch up with each other’s lives.
• The business pays for family vacations. Two years ago we enjoyed “the best snow on earth” for a week over Christmas. Sometimes it just pays travel expenses when we all get together at somebody’s house. Eventually we plan to extend our Christmas vacations to two or three weeks.
• We’re having fun. Our eccomerce site is like a game for us. Higher search engine rankings, getting links, making sales, are all small victories we enjoy together.

The above reasons are all part of the “Why” for each of us. They’re the reason we can spend hours entering new products or tweaking our site design. They’re what keep us going when taxes are due or our drop shippers fail to deliver on time. We have our why, it got us through a year of making very few sales, it will get us through this year when we are growing at a fast rate, and it will keep us going when the challenge is gone and trailer hitches are still boring.

How about this site? We didn’t start this site to make money or for all the fame it’s got us (wink, wink); we started this site because we looked around and saw a lot of people struggling. Struggling with money, struggling with decisions, unhappy with their lives. After Mark did his first millionaire interview and shared it with me, we knew we were onto something powerful. We knew we needed to share.

This site is not about becoming a millionaire. It’s about living the life you want to live. It’s about you making the difference, the positive change, that you can make. Money simply makes your change easier, and, often, bigger. We’re passionate about getting this message out, sharing the experience and wisdom that financially successful people have to offer. And that’s what keeps us going, because if you think it’s easy to get someone who’s busy, passionately working out his or her own dreams to take a minute and sit down to talk about him or herself, well . . . you just haven’t read enough interviews yet.

Let me leave you with the advice Todd said he would give to people just starting out.

Todd: You need to find what your purpose is. You need to find what is it you really want to accomplish, what you want to do. And then you set out and do it. There really are limitless opportunities out there, and the ability to go and create whatever life you want to create, it’s not going to be easy by any stretch of the imagination. The focus that I would put on [you] is to become the person that then will attract the success that they’re looking for. Change the whole thought process from “What is it that I want to have?” to “What is it that I want to become?” Because when [you] do that, everything else really falls into place.

Wow. Let’s quote that again:

Change the whole thought process from “What is it that I want to have?” to “What is it that I want to become?” Because when [you] do that, everything else really falls into place.