The Butler Project

Since I quit my job two weeks ago my wife and I have moved back to our home in Utah. It was rented while we worked out of state. With the home comes the yard work, and yard work requires a lawn mower.

On Monday we headed to our local Lowe’s store to buy the lawn mower and on the way I said to my wife: “Sweetie, I’m leaning toward buying a push mower. One of those deals with no motor.” She gave me a funny look that said “Who are you and what have you done with my husband…you know - the guy who really doesn’t believe in mowing his own lawn, let alone with a motor-free mower?”

Long story short, we bought the push mower. While we were in Lowe’s my wife called my sister (because she already has a push mower) for her opinion. After a minute my wife pushes the phone at me and says “She wants to talk to you.”

Mark: Hey.

Emily: Who is this? What did you do with my brother? You’re going to buy a push mower? Yeah, we love ours, but it’s the last thing in the world I’d ever expect you to do.

You might be wondering why my wife and sister reacted so skeptically to my mower plans. It’s not that I’m opposed to manual labor. I worked construction all through college and I actually enjoy it. Their skepticism is due to the fact that I’m the world’s biggest proponent of leveraging your time.

For example, when I was still working there were quite a few Saturdays when my wife would ask me to wash the cars, and I’d tell her it was too expensive for me to do it myself. After all, I could go to work, make one sale, and the commission would be ten times the cost of driving both cars through the car wash. So I’d go to work, make the sale, and drive the cars through the car wash.

So why the change of heart? A mower with no motor is the complete opposite of leveraging your time. It will probably take twice as long to mow with the push mower, and I’ll probably have to do it twice as often.

Here’s why I bought the push mower:

I spent the last four years in a cubicle with a headset on. I liked the work, but it was devoid of physical exertion. So I got fat (I’ve gained about 30 pounds over the last four years), but I also got stressed. Did you know that a sedentary lifestyle is both a symptom and a cause of depression?

On other hand, regular physical activity is actually one of the best treatments for depression and anxiety.

So the point is, when I was commuting and punching a time clock, I felt too stressed and too short of time to do something like mow my own lawn or wash my own car. Result: fat and depressed.

Now that I’m job free and can take breaks in the middle of my workday at home to go work in my yard for an hour or two. It feels great.

I’m already happier; I have to hope I’ll get skinnier too.

What are the stress-reducing, happiness-producing things you would do if you had more control over your time?

If you’re trying to reduce and pay off your debt, high credit card finance charges are a real thorn in your side. You’re probably tempted to transfer your balances, but wonder about short introductory rates, balance transfer fees and how balance transfers affect your credit score. Before you do anything, make a simple phone call to each of the companies with whom you are carrying a balance. Try Jean Chatzky’s script to get your interest rate lowered:

“I have [name of card] with you and my interest rate is [X] percent. I received another offer in the mail from [other bank's name] for [X] percent, but before I take it, I want to see if you can lower my interest rate instead.”

If the representative says they’re not authorized to do that, you say:

“Look, you and I both know that if I transfer my balance today, next week your bank is going to send me an offer to come back at an even lower rate. Why don’t you just save the bank the cost of that effort by giving me several points today?”

If the rep says it’s not possible because your credit card is at a fixed interest rate, you say:

“Actually, that doesn’t have anything to do with whether or not you have the ability to lower my interest rate. A fixed interest rate only means that my rate doesn’t vary with fluctuations in the prime rate. In fact, the bank can raise it on my account at any time by just giving me 15 days written notice. And the bank can, if it chooses, lower the rate today.”

If the rep still says they’re not authorized to do that, you say:

“I’d like to speak to your supervisor.”

Then speak to a supervisor and follow the above script again.

Now, keep in mind paying on time every month goes a long way with the credit card companies. If you have a history of making late payments, they get a bit snippy and reluctant to help you out in any way. But, whatever your situation, it never hurts to ask to have your credit card rate reduced.

P.S. If you do get your rate(s) reduced, find the smartest place to put that extra money. My first choice would be to apply it to my most expensive debt. If you feel the need to get a little money in a savings account, by all means, do that. Don’t think of it as “free money,” use it wisely to better your financial situation.

I need to vent. I was doing a little reading today and I came across a real gem of an article titled Living Below Your Means: Control Vs. Competence. I know, the title should have tipped me off, but it didn’t.

It started off easy enough, predictably talking about the benefits of living below your means, many of the same points I used in my post yesterday.

Then, the author introduces us to “Paul Minsky, a California psychologist who specializes in money issues.” Apparently Paul “says not being in debt may make you look incompetent.”

Well, that’s just what we needed. A psychologist to tell us that if we’re not in debt, we look incompetent.

Hurry and go buy a house you can’t afford or you’ll look incompetent. Hurry!

I know. It sounds crazy, so here’s the exact quote: “The issue isn’t so much that not being in debt represents safety, security and freedom, but rather that your expenditures represent your competence.”

Minsky has more wisdom to share: “Our society promotes more spending, more credit card debt. What do you do when you don’t feel so good? Most people say they spend — that offsets the stress of being in debt. If you undertake a program of debt reduction it’s counter cultural. More is better than less, shop ’til you drop.”

Let me get this right, If I “undertake a program of debt reduction, it’s counter cultural.”

So, really I have to go into debt.

I can’t help going into debt.

We all just go into debt. That’s what we do.

Especially when we “don’t feel so good.”

What the heck is the author trying to tell us here? That, yeah, it would be great if we could all be in control of our spending and live below our means, but since our culture is set up so that having things represents competence, it just can’t be done? Does she really think, as her title suggests that you can either be in control of your money or you can look competent?

Horse Pucky! Bull Honky. Are you buying this?

I know, I know, we judge others by their stuff; I already posted about that. But, come on. Is this really going to be an excuse now? “I can’t get out of debt. People will think I’m incompetent if I don’t buy this.” What a load of crap!

Excuses

OK, so maybe I’m preaching to the choir. If you’re reading this blog, you probably have better grasp of the big picture. You’re not worried about what people are thinking. You’re laying the foundation to build the life you want to live, not the life society is trying to dictate. But this might be a good time to reflect on what excuses you’re using.

Cue the sad music: Do you not have enough time? Are the people in your life bringing you down? Is there just no way to overcome your troubled childhood? Maybe you had a teacher who was mean to you in high school. Maybe your dog died.

Don’t think I’m making fun, these are all valid excuses. But they’re just that–excuses. They are doing you no good. Let go of the excuses, get off your butt, and start doing something!

Look at the Millionaires

What did Mike (advertising exec) do after 4 clients went bankrupt in the same month and left him short 2 million dollars? Sounds like a pretty good excuse to fail at just about anything. Did Mike give up? No, he worked for 4 years paying off other peoples’ mistakes.

How about Dan, who shattered the summer sales record for his company when he was in college. Did he let the other guys pull him down when they wanted to go to the movies, take a nap, or hit the pool on a hot afternoon? No, he made a commitment to succeed and nearly doubled his own record from the summer before. Did I mention he also pulled in $180,000? Not bad for a summer gig.

Do you think M.R. worried people would think he was incompetent when both he and his wife had two jobs in order to pay off their mortgage and business debts? Do you think he looks incompetent now, completely debt free with a successful furniture business and real estate developments?

If your life is not where you want it to be and you can’t see a way to get it there, you’re making excuses. It’s time to sit down, clear your the mental clutter, and figure out “’What is it that I want to become?‘ Because when [you] do that, everything else really falls into place.”

photo credit: efleming

You hear it all the time. It’s a phrase your parents or grandparents used. There’s nothing flashy about it, in fact it sounds boring and confining, exactly the opposite of how you want your life to go.

Yet the concept behind the phrase is fundamental to true wealth creation, and I’d wager every one of our millionaire interviewees follows this motto: Live Below Your Means.

Basic. Fundamental. Essential to creating abundance in your life.

What’s the big deal with living below your means?

To me, it all comes down to one word: control. Either you control the money or the money controls you. Live below your means and you decide when, where, and how much to pay for whatever you want. Live beyond your means and you are controlled. Controlled by payments and deadlines and whatever else is written in the fine print of your credit agreements.

Living beyond your means means you’re using credit. No, you’re not just using credit, you’re buying credit. You spend money on interest. You spend money on late fees. You might even spend money just for the privilege of carrying that plastic around in your wallet.

Living beyond your means means you’re stressed. I don’t care what kind of denial you’re in; I’ve done it, and it’s stressful. Counting down the days until your next payment is due. Counting down the days until your next paycheck will come. Juggling payments. Figuring out which late fee/finance charge will be more so you can decide which payment to put off a few days. Pulling money out of savings. Calculating how much longer that savings account will last at your current rate of draining it.

Of course, if you’re spending more than you earn and not juggling payments or calculating how much longer you can keep these balls in the air, you’re just racking up the charges and piling the debt on for a long future of payments or bankruptcy. Pretending the stress is not there does not make it go away.

Oh crap, the washer broke!

Or the car needs new tires, or you have to have a root canal. Now what? How can you pay for that and make next month’s credit card payment?

That’s why we live below our means because when the washer breaks or Johnny fails the eye test at school and needs glasses, or there’s a great shoe sale, or your friend offers you a free week at a condo in Hawaii, you have the money to take care of the things you need and take advantage of opportunities for things you want.

Living below your means means you have a cushion. You have retirement savings, you have an emergency fund, and you have money to play with– to stock up on essentials at a great sale, to take a spontaneous weekend getaway, or splurge on the newest electronic gadget. Or not. You have the choice. With extra money, you can choose where and when to spend it or save it. With credit payments, you are tied to someone else’s schedule and that someone else is always looking for a way to up your interest rate or stick you with another fee.

You have a choice: you can ride through life on that cushion of a little extra money that comes from living below your means. Or, you can buy yourself some credit and live life watching out for the fine print.

Are you living below your means? If you don’t know, take some time and list all your monthly income. Now take some more time and list all your expenses. (See our post on budgeting for more help with this step) This will take a while, in fact, if you’re not already keeping track, it might take you a few months to really get a handle on where your money is going. That’s okay. Invest the time. Making a conscious decision to live below your means is the beginning of taking control of your finances and could very well start you on the path to financial independence and success. It’s worth it!

Need encouragement?

Here are a few millionaire quotes linked to their original articles:

“If you can’t pay for it, don’t buy it.” from MR, furniture store owner.

“Occasionally I’ll pull a loan, and I try to pay it off, but I’ve kind of bought as I could; if I couldn’t, I didn’t“. From interview with “G”, a Real Estate Broker, Investor, and Entrepreneur.

“Eliminate debt first.” from interview with Mike, owner of advertising company.

image credit: joeshlabotnik 

Today’s post comes from our cousin, Todd who recounted experience he had with a colleague. Todd is in his late 20s; the colleague is older, and should theoretically, be wiser.

One day, we were waiting for a meeting to start. As we stood there, he turned to me and said, “Todd, you work for [the university]. Don’t they pay you enough to move out of your townhouse and buy a real place to live?”

I bit my lip and said, “Uhh – they pay me really well. I don’t have any complaints. We live where we live because we like it. We also chose to do away with my truck, because it sat parked in front of our house, 4 days each week. We just figured it would be better to consolidate to a single vehicle.”

“Well yeah, but you should probably go back to school and get your doctorate, so you could teach. That’s where the real money is in working for a University.”

“Yes, but I already make more money than starting faculty –“

“Then you could afford a bigger house.”

At first I was pretty irritated that he would judge me like that. I didn’t want people to think that we are poor. But, last week I was at lunch with a friend who provides banking support to all of the Wells Fargo branches in the region. As we ate, we chatted about finances, and I recalled that discussion.

This friend, who lives across the street, shared some additional insights. In that discussion, he pointed out that many of the problems he sees in the lending business come from people trying to have the nicest house and nicest cars on the block.

Instead, he pointed out other things that aren’t so obvious – the fact that we have six months worth of savings, life insurance and 3 different retirement accounts, with substantial monthly contributions to each. We have a modest home, with substantial equity and very affordable payments. We own our car. The only debt we have is from reasonable student loans at a very low interest rate and our mortgage. We are saving enough money that when I start the MBA program next fall, we will have the full amount to pay cash for the program.

I love my job – I put in honest days, but I have lots of time to spend with my family. My favorite days at work are the ones that get interrupted to go feed the ducks with my wife and daughter, or the days we play soccer or golf in the hall outside my office. I live within walking distance of my office, and often run home at lunch to check and see how things are going. How can you trade that in for a few more dollars a year?

I guess we’ve come a long way from when we were first married and broke with maxed out credit cards!

What I love about Todd’s story is the way he sounds (remember, millionaires sound different than broke people). Todd’s not a millionaire, but he sounds happy, content, secure. He’s living a life he chooses to live, not one dictated by what others think of his stuff or by overwhelming payments on debt.

Don’t think Todd’s depriving himself. He loves to bike on and off road; he has nice bikes and just returned from a boys’ trip to Moab, Utah where you can ride some of the best slickrock in the world. Todd loves to climb and hike and do generally extreme things outside. He has all the gear he needs. He’s more than a bit of a tech head, and, as far as I know, he has all the technological gadgets he needs (I’m sure there are a few things he drools over and dreams about, but he’s doing alright.)

The point is, Todd spends money on the things he needs to live the life he wants, not on the things that impress others (like a bigger house or more cars.) That’s why Todd sounds secure. That’s why Todd sounds happy; he’s building the life he wants to live, not working to impress others.

Take a minute to think about your own life. Are you building the life you really want to live? Or are you accumulating stuff that is only for show?

How would it feel if you got rid of three things (or payments, or habits, or anything that is taking your time or money) that are not helping you attain your ideal life. How would that feel?

Last Thursday I quit my job. It was way past time for me to leave. My boss (and good friend) was at my office, we had a few words (for which we both apologized the next day) and I left. Months and months ago I lost all faith in the company’s product and ownership. Made life pretty miserable considering I had to continue not only keep selling the product but try to train and motivate the sales reps working for me that they should sell it too.

I have not enjoyed the last six months, but it’s over now and it’s the best feeling (professionally) I’ve had in a long time. Probably ever. I stayed out of a sense of duty to the company (one of its owners in particular who’s a good friend), and the people I managed. In the end they may have been better off if I’d quit sooner. I guess I’ll have to live with that question.

As I left, one of my employees made an interesting statement to me: “I hope you can realize that there’s more to life than a dollar.” Interesting. Apparently I had given this guy the impression that all I care about is money. He probably got that impression because I had done numerous trainings on how much better life is when you don’t have to worry about paying your bills next month, and how the ability to enjoy some travel and quality time with your family (afforded by money) is pretty nice.

The reality is I could not care less about money itself. I enjoy money, mostly I enjoy making it. It’s a game, and a really fun one. But beyond that, money itself is meaningless. I only value money in how it allows me to spend my time how I want.

It has never made sense to me to spend one-half (or more) of my waking hours away from these two:

One of my favorite quotes about money and wealth is this one:

“One of the best ways to stop worrying about money forever is to just make a bunch of it, and then move on.”

Money is too trivial to spend so much time on it in the long term. For the next few years I’ll spend 50-60 hours per week making money. When I’m finished I will have bought back the rest of my life, and I’ll be able to spend my time on the things that really matter.

The other day a friend of ours posted excerpts from a commencement address given at Standford by Steve Jobs. I’ve thought about it every day since I read it. Here’s one particularly powerful quote:

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. - From a commencement address at Stanford University given by Steve Jobs.

It bothers me that people won’t take risks when their intuition tells them they should. What is the worst that could happen? I’m not saying be reckless. Although I’m willing to risk bankruptcy to have the life I want, I’d rather avoid it. Make a plan, and be willing to do the work required to both live your passion and pay your bills. Yes, they’re both possible.

A Buddhist perspective on debt and happiness:

“Herein, householder, these four kinds of happiness are appropriate for one who leads the household life and enjoys the pleasures of the senses. They are the happiness of ownership, the happiness of enjoyment, the happiness of freedom from debt, and the happiness of blamelessness.

“And what is the happiness of freedom from debt (ananasukha)? Herein, a son of good family owes no debt, be it great or small, to anyone at all. He experiences pleasure and happiness, reflecting. ‘I owe no debts, be they great or small, to anyone at all.’ This is called the happiness of freedom from debt.

And Buddhism’s take on how we should think about money:

the Buddha stresses four areas in which householders may relate skillfully to wealth [D.III.188; A.V.176-182]:

Acquisition — Wealth should not be acquired by exploitation, but through effort and intelligent action; it should be acquired in a morally sound way.

Safekeeping — Wealth should be saved and protected as an investment for the further development of livelihood and as an insurance against future adversity. When accumulated wealth exceeds these two needs, it may be used for creating social benefit by supporting community works.

Use — Wealth should be put to the following uses: (1) to support oneself and one’s family; (2) to support the interests of fellowship and social harmony, such as in receiving guests, or in activities of one’s friends or relatives; (3) to support good works, such as community welfare projects.

Mental attitude — Wealth should not become an obsession, a cause for worry and anxiety. It should rather be related to with an understanding of its true benefits and limitations, and dealt with in a way that leads to personal development.

It is the Buddhist belief that our circumstances at birth stem in large part from how we behaved in previous lives. This excerpt discusses how that belief relates to our actions in the present:

…the Buddha praised the quality of goodness and benefit more than wealth itself. The common tendency (in Thailand) to praise people simply because they are rich, based on the belief that their riches are a result of accumulated merit from previous lives, without due consideration of the factors from the present life, contradicts the teachings of Buddhism on two counts: Firstly, it does not exemplify the Buddha’s example of praising goodness above wealth; secondly it does not make use of reasoned consideration of the entire range of factors involved.

A favorable birth is said to be a good capital foundation which affords some people better opportunities than others. A good “capital foundation” can easily degenerate. If it is used with care and intelligence it will lead to benefit for all concerned, but if one is deluded by one’s capital foundation, or favorable situation, one will use it in a way that not only wastes one’s valuable opportunities, but leads to harm for all concerned. The important question for Buddhism is how people use their initial capital. The Buddha did not praise or criticize wealth; he was concerned with actions.

Finally, the article discusses the highest and best use of wealth:

According to the Buddhist teachings, wealth should be used for the purpose of helping others; it should support a life of good conduct and human development. According to this principle, when wealth arises for one person, the whole of society benefits, and although it belongs to one person, it is just as if it belonged to the whole community. A wealthy person who uses wealth in this manner is likened to a fertile field in which rice grows abundantly for the benefit of all. Such people generate great benefit for those around them. Source

Lately I’ve been doing some reading about the financial tenets of different organized religions. It’s interesting to see that all of the religions I’ve researched so far (Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam) have specific instructions for their believers on the relationship between their soul and their wallet.

For me one of the most interesting discoveries so far is the Muslim view of debt. Although I had heard faithful Muslims are forbidden from paying or charging interest on loans, I had mistakenly taken this to mean that they couldn’t borrow or invest money. That’s really not the case.

I found a report written by a couple of Muslim scholars about how different the world would be if the wealthy nations of the world were to abide by the teachings of Islam, and cancelled debt owed them by the poorest of the world’s nations. I’d encourage any of you to go and read the report in its entirety. Just Google “does Islam fobid debt” and you should find the pdf.
I’m going to publish several excerpts from the report. I can’t say I agree with every aspect of Islamic finance as I understand it from this report, but think about how different our country’s collective financial situation would be if we employed these practices.

Islamic commands to refrain from charging interest and to share financial risk seek to avoid the concentration of wealth and the economic exploitation of the weak and thereby prevent situations such as the current debt crisis from arising in the first place.

The core belief in Islamic finance is that money should not in itself be an earning asset; therefore Islam prohibits any and all forms of interest. There are several passages in the Qur’an which clearly condemn the practice of interest…

Interest is considered an unjust and exploitative instrument of financing since the lender is assured a return without doing any work or sharing in the risk, while the borrower in spite of hard work, is not assured of a positive return. Furthermore, if the borrower’s investment is unsuccessful through no ault of his or her own, it is unfair for the lender to demand repayment. The prohibition of interest is therefore a mechanism to establish justice between the lender and borrower.

For westerners (or for me, anyway), it’s hard to think of interest as an unjust and exploitative instrument. Islam is not opposed to wise investing, but it advocates equity financing as opposed to debt financing. In other words the person who would ‘lend’ the money instead shares in the risk of the venture.

“Islam encourages legitimate commerce, trade and wealth creation but only on the basis of equitable risk sharing. Importantly, Islam does not allow gain from an economic activity unless the financial capital is also exposed to the risk of potential loss. Therefore, Islamic finance promotes investment on the basis of profit and loss sharing between the lender and the borrower10. Financing methods that share risk encourage more responsible lending since both parties share in the reward or failure of the investment and have, therefore, an interest in ensuring that funds are invested wisely and productively.”

Islam discourages heavy debt as much as possible – indeed it is something that is considered to have a serious and direct effect on a Muslim’s belief or conviction because it can lead to harmful consequences. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) used to regularly supplicate “Allah, I seek refuge with You from sin and heavy debt”. When someone remarked, “how often you seek refuge from heavy debt”, he replied, “when a man gets into debt, he speaks and tells lies, and he makes a promise and breaks it” (reported by Bukhari and Muslim). The Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) also said, “Whoever dies free from three things – arrogance, cheating and debt – will enter Paradise” (reported by Tirmidhi), and “The soul of a believer is held hostage by his debt in his grave until it is paid off” (reported by Tirmidhi). Clearly, from an Islamic point of view, accruing debt is a serious matter and should not be undertaken except in cases of real necessity. Importantly, it is incumbent upon on those providing finance to do so in a responsible manner and to not overburden borrowers.

It is worth emphasising that incurring debt to fund luxury and extravagance is contrary to core Islamic values that condemn excess and waste. The Qur’an has in very strong words condemned and prohibited extravagance and prodigality:

“Eat and drink, but waste not by excess, for God loveth not the prodigals”. (7:31)

“Squander not wastefully, surely the squanderers are the devil’s brethren.” (17:26-27)

I had my sister read a draft of this post and she said “Seems a little too socialist for me.” I agree. For me this philosophy puts and undue burden on the lender to try to evaluate the borrower’s ability to repay. Any responsible lender should be able to perform that evaluation, but for me it goes too far to cancel the debts of a borrower when they can’t make their payments.

While I find this ideology interesting, and think it would have merit on an individual case by case basis, enforcing it on the entire financial system could cripple us. After all, our economy, and the economies of the many nations we trade with, depend in large part on the fact that money on its own IS an earning asset.

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.

Here is more from my interview with Todd, network marketing millionaire. One of the things I love about Todd is that he’s very aware of his own actions–the how and the why he does things.

Mark: What do you feel has been your key attribute that has contributed most to the success you’ve had?

Todd: I think more so than anything is my ability to communicate. You know . . . you can be involved in any different type of business, but you and I and the majority of people out there are involved in the exact same business and that’s the people business. Whether you’re selling x product or whatever it is or you’re selling . . . a service . . . whatever it may be, the ability to communicate clearly and to get your point across and to understand people and develop relationships . . . I think that’s been definitely the most important piece for me.

Mark: Do you feel that is something you were born with? Or even if you were born with it, how did you magnify that ability? How do I help myself develop the skill?

Todd: There are a couple of things. I do feel like, for me personally, I feel like that’s one of the God given gifts that I was given, but I feel like any gift that you’re given, if you don’t develop and hone that skill, it’s going to go away.

I think [there are] a couple of ways you can do that: one, I personally read probably more than anybody I know in terms of leadership books, books on communication, tapes, all those types of things, and so I’m constantly trying to learn from other people in that regard.

The other thing that I’ve done is I have spent a lot of time recording myself and recording other people and going back and listening to it and practicing in assessing my ability to communicate and trying to make that better. You know, I know that in what you do, you have sales calls and . . . I’ve done millions of conference calls and recruiting calls and . . . I’ve recorded hundreds of those and gone back and listened to them and said, “OK, where can I be better? That didn’t make sense. Why did I stutter there? How can I say that a little bit clearer? How can I answer those questions? When I came across those objections, how did I handle it? Did it work? Did it not?”

And then [I] also listen to other people who I respect, who I believe . . . I want to work with them, and spend quite a bit of time assessing what they’ve done, and then try to incorporate that into what I do.

I think that you learn best, and you’re probably the best judge or the most honest judge of your ability to communicate when you listen to yourself, more so than getting feedback from anybody else because you actually listen to it when you give it to yourself.

As I was listening to Todd talk about the value of communication skills and analyzing his interactions with people, it made me think of a good friend, who is now also a business partner of mine. When I first met him, he had been working in sales at the same company as I and he was terrible. You couldn’t point to many other people in our sales force that were worse than he was. He was probably making about $50 per 40 hour work week. Yeah…Fifty Dollars.

But he was determined to succeed in sales, and told me later that he would never have quit. The only way he was going to leave the job was if he was forced out (something I had lobbied for coincidentally).

To make a long story short, he ended up being one of the most successful sales reps in the history of our company, and he has now moved on to pursue our business full time.

How did he go from being so bad to being one of the best? Every week he would go to the Quality Assurance department of our company (we worked in a sales office where all our calls were recorded) and he would ask for recordings of both his own calls and those of the most successful sales reps. He took those CDs home and studied them for hours every night. He wrote down every word the successful rep said, and then practiced saying it how they said it. This went on for weeks and then months, and he started to improve.

An additional benefit of all this study was that he became one of the best listeners I’ve known. As he listened to all these sales calls he started to understand the meaning behind the clients’ tone of voice, and their non-verbal communication.

Now my friend has these skills forever. They served him well in his previous job, they’ll help our company immensely, and he’ll use them to enhance his personal life for a long time to come.

Like Todd said, we’re all in the people business. Whether you’re a stay at home mom, a school teacher, or a construction worker, you interact with people every day. Your communication skills determine how well that interaction goes and the relationships you’ll form.