The WAY to WOW Shows
3 Success Principles that Always Work
March 8, 2023
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[0:11] foreign good afternoon and welcome to the way to wow people making money I'm your host Kevin demmel and we are here every Wednesday at 12 30 p.m Pacific Time 3 30 p.m Eastern Time an hour in for mountain and Central and we talk about all the things related to your finances building a career building a business Building Wealth and in as one of the uh nine Realms in the

[0:48] um three pillars of attainment so finances is right here it's one of the foundations of the pillar um along with learning friends and God and then on that sits things that need a foundation like our family play and then of course our identity so um last week I talked about just some basic types of investment vehicles things like Securities real estate that sort of thing and it's kind of a primer on on those topics and I invite you to go to our

[1:23] YouTube channel and view that if you'd like to kind of start getting up to speed about what what's out there to help you build wealth to help you become rich all right and uh um when you're on when you're on the channel if you haven't already please consider subscribing and that way you will get informed every time there's a new uh a new uh show posted a new or a new show being live stream like this is right now and or when a new show gets posted so I invite you to do that and and appreciate all the subscribers uh

[2:01] that I have so today I want to talk about a book that was given to me um as a bar mitzvah gift uh so that would have been back in the early 1970s my mother worked for a man named Robert swoboda uh very successful uh fellow who lived in Santa Barbara and he started a um a savings and loan basically uh in Santa Barbara my mother worked there as an accountant and from time to time I would go visit her after school

[2:36] while she was at work and Mr savoda and I never called him Robert he was always mistress maboda um would invite me into his office and and talk to me about what I was doing and what I wanted to do and uh how you know how how I thought I could be successful that kind of thing and so for my for my bar mitzvah he gave me this book and you can see it's it's it's pretty battered these days um it's called the richest man in Babylon by George S I think it's pronounced Clayson although I could be

[3:11] wrong I've never heard um the author's name spoken out loud and uh it cost a dollar ninety five back when um you know the book was was was purchased um and you know here's here's a little inscription um from them so the book was originally written in 1926 so it's been around for almost a century and it gives a set of principles on how to handle your finances

[3:46] um and I I by the way at the end of the show I will put a link um in the show notes to the book so you can you can click through to Amazon it will be a uh what do you call one of those links where if you do buy the book I think I get 10 cents or something like that an affiliate link um so you know full disclosure all that kind of stuff um but I I have read this book several times and considering how short it is and you can see it's only I think a little over 100 Pages if I remember correctly uh well 158 pages but you know big big

[4:21] print right so you can easily read it in in one sitting um over maybe you know two three hours at the most and the wisdom in this book and that's really what it is it's Financial wisdom is is is truly incredible and and some of you know me I don't use superlatives uh very often um these so it's it's kind of a parable about this guy who lives in ancient Babylon you know six thousand years ago um and the idea is that

[4:57] these principles have been around and have um served people for literally Millennia and and while this is not a true story um it is a very engaging story which is which makes it fun to read the book and while I don't know that it presents I don't recall it presenting evidence you know that this was really being used in you know Babylonia thousands of years ago but when you read the stories they resonate with wisdom of the ages and so

[5:33] while George Clayson distilled these only not quite a hundred years ago into this book I think it's fair to say that or it's reasonable to say that people have been following them for a long long time before then and were able to become wealthy as a result so I'm gonna talk I'm not going to talk about every single idea in the book that would take longer than we have I want to focus on three of the principles that the book uh talks about and in doing so

[6:09] give you three just absolutely foundational elements that I believe we need to absorb if we are indeed going to be wealthy and and so I'm gonna just start right out so the book has uh what two four six eight ten eleven chapters as you can see here and at the end of um chapter one as at the end of a lot of the chapters

[6:44] there's a little summary of the key idea for the chapter and this one says um a part of all you earn is yours to keep me imma say it again a part of all you earn is yours to keep now what does that mean so what is what it's meant to me and and this is what I've practiced most of my life because I've had this book since I was 13. is a certain percentage of everything you

[7:21] earn whether it's your salary from a job whether it's the income you earn from a business a portion of that is yours to keep meaning it's not going to go to pay expenses for running your business it's not going to go for paying ex the ex you know your expense your living expenses to pay your bills and that kind of thing it's not going to be spent on going on a vacation or going to the movies or whatever a certain percentage is yours to keep meaning to set aside in order to build

[7:58] your wealth and in the end that's the only way you're going to get there okay for most of us some people will start up a company and they'll work on it very very hard they won't save any money but they'll work very hard and they'll be the one in you know ten thousand or a hundred thousand that does very very well and then one day they'll sell the company or they'll go public and they'll have millions of dollars and and now they're set for life okay but most of us are not going to do that okay if if for only if for only the

[8:36] reason that the odds are against us doing it okay so we may start a business and it may do okay but the idea that most people who start a business are going to turn around and sell it for you know millions or tens or hundreds of millions of dollars let alone a unicorn for a billion more or more dollars doesn't happen that is not the experience most people have and so we need to accumulate our wealth over time and the earlier we start the better and so a portion of all you earn is yours to keep now I I believe it's it's

[9:12] earlier in the chapter and I think what Clayson recommends is 10 okay now for for some people 10 is not a problem for others if you're young just starting out not making a whole lot of money you know rent is very expensive food if you have a car all that is very expensive 10 may be too much so maybe start with five percent okay and and it may mean that you know you can't buy coffee out um more than a couple times a week as opposed to every day or or something

[9:49] like that um but if becoming wealthy becoming rich Building Wealth is important than you know giving up some little things like that in in the beginning to get into the habit of keeping a portion of what you earn is crucial okay now what I recommend is what what whatever however you're getting paid let's say let's say you're you know you have a job and let's say your check is being electronically deposited into your bank account uh

[10:25] twice a month okay so you're you're never really seeing a paper check like I did you know when I was a younger guy okay so great so the money goes immediately into your account then the next day you should have an automatic transfer set up to take the portion that's yours to keep out of your account so in essence you don't even see it okay the money comes in and immediately the money to build wealth goes out okay and if you're getting paid twice a month so then that should happen twice a month and these days you can set up these

[11:00] kinds of of systems they're very easy to do you're if you you hopefully you have a a financial services person that you work with if not I encourage you to find one and and they can set it up for you and they can put it into um any lots of different kinds of Investments but probably it's going to go into some kind of mutual fund or exchange traded funds something like that where you can do a periodic investment and and it you just leave it there you just leave it there that's it now of course if there's some kind of real

[11:37] emergency some kind of you know medical problem or something like that all right well so then maybe you would have to dip into it but hopefully um excuse me you set up a separate rainy day account to take care of that okay and in fact if you're brand new to getting your finances in order um once you've paid off your debts the next thing you want to do is create a rainy day fund and then start Building Wealth those are kind of the first three steps okay so um to you can build up your rainy day fund the same way maybe initially you'll

[12:14] build up the rainy day fund to whatever it is a month's worth of income or two months worth of income that's typically what they would be and then once you've got that set aside just leave that account alone and then you start building up your wealth the main thing is a portion of what you earn is yours to keep doesn't go to your bill collectors it doesn't go for entertainment gravel it's there to build up and if you get yourself in that habit early then you can you can easily build up to a million dollars if you're starting out

[12:49] young you certainly can okay because you have enough time even if well I mean interest rates are rates of return are higher now but even if they were lower if even if you even if your average return is only uh three percent so Rule of 72 72 divided by three is uh 24. so you'll double your money in 24 years okay so if you start out now and in about 50 years so you'll you'll have doubled your money and doubled your money again right so you'll have

[13:24] quintupled your money so if over that time you know you you you set aside a couple hundred thousand dollars you could have close to a million dollars um by by the end of that time period okay even at a very low interest rate now mutual funds for example oftentimes will will you know have higher rates of return over time I mean they go up and down of course like any investment okay but you know historically um the returns have been have been pretty good so and and that's why the periodic investing is is important okay so again rule

[14:02] number one from the richest man in Babylon a portion of of what you make is yours to keep okay that's the first uh rule of discipline to develop in order to become rich okay so let's now let's take a look at the second concept this is in the I think for chapter four maybe and it says men of action are favored by the goddess of good luck oh here I'll hold it up here so you can see it men of action are favored by the goddess of good luck and by the way women of action are favored

[14:38] by the goddess of good luck right this was written in 1973 when it was standard practice to just use you know the male the male gender so that is one of the principles I think that has made the biggest difference in my life and that is given a choice between action and inaction I will almost always default to action okay because if I'm out there doing something

[15:13] I have an opportunity to get lucky okay and there there's a a saying about something that luck is um um preparation meaning inspiration or something like that there's all kinds of these these you know aphorisms around but the reality is if you want to get lucky you have to be out there doing stuff you can't get lucky sitting at home on the couch okay you you can I mean you even if even if getting lucky in your you know when you're from your

[15:49] perspective is buying a lottery ticket you got to go out and buy the ticket you know I don't think you can buy them on your computer these days maybe you can I'm not a lottery ticket guy but we have to be out there doing doing things meeting people coming coming in contact with opportunities looking at those opportunities evaluating them is this something I want to be involved in this is not something I want to be involved with right and the reality is good luck really comes from bad luck if you if you look at it that way okay now a lot of other people especially

[16:25] religious people I I they say I don't believe in luck everything comes from God okay right okay fine right so it's blessing there's there's good blessing and there's I guess not being blessed or something like that however you want to describe it okay but if you want fortuitous things to happen in your life you have to be out there taking the chance that things are going to go wrong that's just how life is okay so with Investments you have to be out there investing

[17:00] there's just no other way to put it and the reality in investing is as we talked about last week the higher the return generally speaking the riskier the investment that's one of the trade-offs we have to make as we look at Investments right so but if if we're not investing at all then for sure we're not going to get wealthy it's not going to happen okay you're not gonna you there's nothing no basis to get lucky on okay if you're not doing something so if you're not saving some money working hard at building a

[17:36] business working hard at your career putting some of that money aside or if you are gonna you know kind of go For Broke and and work on building that business that you can sell for a big pot of money you've you've got to be out there doing it every single day and what you can take off weekends or at least you know Saturday or Sunday depending on your uh you know your religious affiliation right but but that's that's what entice I I love how I love that expression obviously I don't believe in you know goddesses and that kind of stuff but but I do love the uh you know you have to tempt the goddess

[18:12] of good luck it's like come on come on look I'm out here I'm out of here every day goddess of good luck come on bring it to me I'm I'm I'm ready I'm waiting for it okay nowhere is that more evident than if sales is a part of your work right because sales is an iterative process okay for every 10 people you you contact only one's going to be a prospect and for every 10 Prospects probably only one of them is going to

[18:47] become a client or customer that's how it works okay however it doesn't necessarily work that okay let's see I've had nine P I contacted nine people they weren't interested this is the one that's going to be interested right you you can have uh 90 people not interested and then the next 10 will be interested or or something like that or or 45 are interested and then you get three or four that are in a row you know what I'm saying it's just on average that that seems to be how things work out about one in ten that's just it until you get to a point in your business where your business is is a lot of referral

[19:23] business where the people are coming to you in essence pre-qualified they already know they want what you do and that's when you really start to be able to build a business a sales practice right and that's that's where you want to get to but in the beginning that essentially one out of 100 people you contact will become a client or customer it's like wow one percent yeah one percent okay but the fact that you're out there every day building a reputation building a business helping people get done what they need to get done buy a house sell a

[20:00] house get Investments um get you know get insurance whatever it is that you're you're working on One You're Gonna that's it's being out there being active and eventually you'll start getting lucky getting lucky might look like you're you know sitting having a coffee one morning and you get a message from a a customer saying hey just want to let you know I was talking to my buddy you know Jim last night and he needs what you do and here's Jim's number please give him a call and and you know you basically your

[20:38] current client has already sold Jim so you called hi Jim this is uh Kevin um you know uh Mary uh I guess was talking to you last night I I understand that you you need to do something in the you know whatever in in the Investments business uh um you know how how can I help you um you know and and Jim will say oh yeah Mario and she gosh she thinks the world of you um you know I I um I I need to start you know a retirement account and Mary said that you could help me with that oh yeah absolutely a happy happy too so um you know when is it convenient for

[21:14] you to get together I've got some time tomorrow morning or the following day in the afternoon which which would be better for you oh gosh you know I'd like to get this done as soon as possible I can I can probably meet with you tomorrow morning okay terrific so um I think I've got uh nine and ten o'clock available which which one would be better for you uh well you know 10 o'clock would be better because that way I can you know finish my breakfast or whatever okay great so 10 o'clock um one please give me your address I'll you know I can come over to your house and and I'll you know bring my stuff and we can go over things and uh you know

[21:49] we'll we'll get you taken care of um you know easy day kind of thing okay great thanks a lot and you know and there you and there you go you're done right um and and you say wow that was lucky and it was luck but it was luck because you were out there you know metaphorically anyway pounding the pavement every day talking to people right so just before I started this broadcast I had a call with uh um he sounded pretty young I I'm guessing he was maybe early 30s I I think I don't know for sure his age

[22:24] um and he's in the financial services business he came across me on um uh LinkedIn I believe it was and you know he sent me a LinkedIn message saying hey you know here's what I do and I I see you know it looks like maybe we have some things in common um would you be interested in speaking um you know he's he's an army veteran and and my practice is anytime a veteran gets in touch with me I will I will have a phone call with them if I can help them out I will and um we had a nice conversation for I don't know 35 minutes or so got to know each other a little

[22:59] bit talked about what each of us does didn't find any immediate way that we could help each other um okay fine you know and and I I thought by the way he handled it just so beautifully I mean really really well done well spoken right attitude I mean he knows he's going to speak to you know on average 10 people like me before one of them is a prospect right and then he's going to speak to 10 Prospects and one of them is going to become one of his customers he knows that there's no reason there was no reason to pressure things and at the end of the call he said he said you know I'm

[23:34] not sure if I really see how we can help each other out right now and I said yeah I I don't either but I said you know feel free if if you know what my background is now and um if there's a question you have for me or or if there if you think there is some way I can help you make a connection for you somewhere by all means you know let me know happy to do it right and so who knows maybe uh you know a year from now um an opportunity will come up and he'll give me a call and say hey do you know you know someone who does this or blah blah blah blah oh yeah let me let me connect you with my friend you know such

[24:09] and such and and there you go right so that's what we mean about uh enticing the goddess of good luck it's it's just it really comes out being out there every day talking to people right now you may say well look I I I work for a company I'm you know I'm at my desk all day how am I going to meet uh uh other people well one of the things I would encourage you to do is to meet other people in your company meet as many people in your company as possible now if you work for a small company that you may be able to meet everybody you know within a month or two or something like that great okay but then what about

[24:45] lunch hour can you go I don't know to a restaurant nearby and and you know just just be a friendly open person talk to uh the waitress or the waiter um you know talk to the the bartender talk to you know the the bus the bus man or the busboy whatever I'm not sure what they're called today um one of the things I I I'm just going to digress here for a minute one of the things I do my best to work on is anytime I have an opportunity to connect

[25:20] with another person no matter who they are I I make an effort to do that so um for example across the house across the street for me they've been working on an addition now for I don't know how many months it seems like forever right and so there's always you know workmen showing up in the morning um you know to go work on on the construction and um I mean I I don't know who these guys are I don't really care they're here in the neighborhood and you know they should be made to feel welcome I I think right and so um if and oftentimes

[25:55] they're parking in front of my house I'll go out and get my newspaper yes I know I actually read a newspaper I I'm very very you know I'm old what can I tell you right and and they'll be out there like this morning I went to get my newspaper and the guy was out there getting whatever in his trunk or and uh you know I looked over to me and he looked at me and I said hey good morning he said oh good morning you know he's like smiling like wow somebody noticed me as well you know you're a human being right I mean that's all you know and and by the way sometimes um I'll say hello to someone and it'll turn into a conversation

[26:30] you never know um I remember when I was a a young a young guy out of college um there was no laundry room in the building I lived in and so I had to go to a laundromat and I used to meet all kinds of unusual people I'll say in the in the laundromat um I mean just really interesting sometimes you know um what they'd seen and what they thought and just you know for just open to talking to people you never know okay I mean I once got a project um to do some architecture work uh for a

[27:06] church up in San Francisco by talking to what amounted to a homeless guy like really yeah absolutely I was downtown LA I parked my car on the street where it was free because I couldn't afford to pay for parking back then and I was walking to the gym that I worked out at that a buddy of mine worked at and as I'm walking along this guy comes up to me and he starts he starts talking to me and he didn't ask me for money he just started talking to me but he's obviously a street person and he started saying and he asked me you know what I did I said well I'm a architecture school student and he's like oh how come

[27:42] Architects never do projects like you know ABC and d right and one of the projects He was talking about was this church that had burned down on Market Street in San Francisco and they wanted to rebuild and how they wanted to do it and I'm thinking to myself this sounds too real for to be you know frankly ravings of a street guy and so I had a friend up in San Francisco and I called him and I said hey have you heard of some church burning down um on uh lower Market I believe it was and any and at first he said no and then he said wait you know what I did I end

[28:20] up calling the pastor of the church and telling him this story about how I found out about him and he was so intrigued um he said you know if you can help me I would appreciate that and we so I took my buddy who worked at the gym and we jumped in his car and drove to San Francisco I stayed with my friend up there for a couple of days and we were actually able to help them out and we didn't design the project but we did some preliminary work for them that was useful to help them kind of get to the next stage right and you can say well that was really lucky right um and it was lucky because I was out

[28:55] there doing things listening to people talking to people letting people talk to me what did it what did it hurt me to let this you know this guy talk to me on my you know 15 20 minute walk to go to the gym it was either that or I mean this was before the days of you know you plug your earphones in and shut out the world so um so that's what I'm saying you know when when you when we talk about enticing the goddess of good luck we just we have you know it's the person who's out there doing things helping other people if we're helping other people you know here we'll we'll mix you

[29:31] know religious metaphors right it creates Karma right and so if we're helping other people somehow it seems to come back to us and maybe we can call that good luck we can call it uh you know the way the world works so whatever you Karma whatever you want to call it we can call it God uh I don't I don't I'm I'm agnostic on how you describe the phenomenon but let's acknowledge that that is the phenomenon okay and let's use it to our advantage Okay so principle number two uh again or principle number two that I'm

[30:06] highlighting from the richest man in Babylon men of action are favored by the goddess of good luck okay our people of action if you know if that sounds better to uh contemporary ears okay now the third principle that I'm going to talk about from the book and see it's so old that I can feel the uh the The Binding breakings that's why I'm not trying to fold it back too much you can see how yellow the pages are okay here's the last one where there where the determination is the way can be found okay where the determination is the way can be found

[30:45] right and and this too I think has has had a profound impact not just on my professional and business life but on my life in general I I do believe that we're if we're really determined we are much more likely to succeed and then in fact determination is a large part of what will drive our success okay without determination when we hit a roadblock we're gonna stop

[31:21] okay but if we're determined when we come to that roadblock okay we may try and punch through it several times I can't get through it okay well can we go around it can we go over it can we go under it and dig under it right or if we're a little bit patient will the roadblock go away like you know tone arms on you know on a railroad crossing or something like oh it was just a temporary roadblock and the conditions that necessitated it are now gone the gate opens up and you can just walk on through right so let me say that

[31:58] in my experience determination doesn't mean continuing to batter our head against a brick wall trying to get the wall to break that that's that stubbornness okay and and by the way uh the way I found the house is through banging my head against too many brick walls that may explain you know some of the some of the brain damage that you uh you see you know obvious in in what and what I say and do at times but when when we have determination

[32:35] we can see our objective we can see where we want to go and and then we can calculate best how to get there so sometimes we'll think well shortest distance between two points is a straight line so I'm just going to go like that except for sometimes that's not the shortest distance as I understand it not even in physics sometimes it's at the shortest distance sometimes the shortest distance will be to go like this because there's a big blockage here and so if I go here and bang my head for a while trying to get through it and I can't

[33:12] then I have to back off to get perspective again and realize I've got to go like this so sometimes it's better to get the perspective first so that the determination could be put to good use or to most effective use right most productive use so part of determination is knowing when to press forward and when to be patient okay and and I I honestly didn't know this as a young man hey patience was was not my strong suit as a young guy it

[33:47] still isn't my strongest suit uh although I think I've I've done better on it um maybe you have the same challenge okay um the main thing is that first of all we have clarity about where we want to go okay it's very different I'm sorry it's very difficult to be determined if we don't know where we want to go okay I'm gonna get there I have no idea where it is okay

[34:23] well so that's a problem right so that's why we want to have a life plan we want to have conditions of set are we yeah we want to have um um a purpose and a mission we want to have conditions of satisfaction okay that's for me this is how I know where I want to go this is how this is what gives me the ability to be determined because I have a clear picture of who I want to be oops who I want to be what I want to do in life and how I'll know

[35:00] when I'm doing it okay purpose mission conditions of satisfaction and and uh by the way I've done a show on on this process so if you if you go to my YouTube channel you can I have there are other shows that talk about you know how do you get this together um and and by the way I I did not have this Clarity when I was in my you know 20s and and 30s well I I think I started developing this in my in my late 30s I think that's I mean I wish I had known how much it would have helped me earlier in my life

[35:36] okay I was on the cusp of you know a a society where what's what success was and how you got it was very very set okay in my day you went to college period it's not like not like you chose no Devin you're going to college that I I there was really no choice okay nowadays we have a lot it's it's it's more difficult I've talked about this many times the the rails are virtually non-existent so first of all

[36:12] what is success that's a question each of us has to answer for ourselves okay and then how do we get there again we've got to figure out that path that's why I think these kinds of principles are so important because they've worked throughout time throughout history and and and that means that even though social conditions are different today than they were half a century ago these principles will still work okay and

[36:48] um this this this last principle we've been talking about um determination determination has always been important okay you can read about um shoot Alexander the Great okay um conquered most of the known world as a young man I think he was in his 30s when at that point right he was able to do that in large part because he was determined to do it okay and and this is why by the way I

[37:23] think it's so important to read about you know to read classic books or what what what are called the great books and to read um about um you know the great people of History much of what they faced is was is not so different than what we face today uh context may be different they didn't have cell phones they didn't have cars maybe you know all that kind of stuff the technology was different okay but the human aspects of Life were very much the same okay and the and the qualities the

[37:59] values that we need to develop in order to be successful haven't really changed over the Millennia okay and and and determination is certainly one of them okay I'm I'm gonna kind of go off on not really a tangent but something you you know I'm I think most of you know I'm a rabbi right so I'm look look at Jesus okay one of the most successful people of all time roughly 2 000 years ago there was

[38:34] no such thing as a Christian okay and now today like they said roughly 2 000 years later there's I believe a billion Roman Catholics in the world um I think roughly 700 million [Music] um um Protestants in in the world so due to one man 20 roughly 20 of the world population or maybe maybe it's closer to 25 of the world's population

[39:09] subscribe to his way of living a life uh on on in some way I mean and it's largely because he was determined to have an impact okay setting the theology the Son of God and that sort of thing aside and and I'm not putting down anybody's theology I'm just saying he he was a very determined individual right and and and and look what he was has been able to do um as as his legacy is is is tremendous it's absolutely tremendous you could say

[39:44] the same thing about Moses here it is Moses uh lived roughly four thousand years ago and the remnant of his people is still around there's still Jews around right aren't too many other groups uh that are still around from the time of Moses right he was determined to serve God in the way that he thought God wanted to be served okay now when obviously in this case we're not talking about you know business in the sense of starting a business but we are talking about these were these these were their vocations

[40:20] for all intents and purposes to preach the word of God and look at the impact they had and it was in part at least because they were so determined so committed okay and we be that committed to our own success however it you define it okay and when I use the term success I do not mean solely monetary success okay notwithstanding that we're talking the show is called people making money if if money is the only measure of your

[40:55] success I encourage you to rethink that measure hey most well most I don't know many many maybe most people who set money as the sole measure of their success oftentimes fine when they've met those financial goals their lives resonate Hollow okay because they don't have relationships close relationships in their lives they don't there's there they have no way to

[41:30] um and enjoy the what their what their wealth could bring them and I say bring not by okay because you know there's the old saying money doesn't buy happiness well I mean it can buy a lot of distractions so you don't know you're unhappy but there there comes a reckoning point for most people right this is the point of A Christmas Carol right the whole story of Scrooge and the ghosts and and how Scrooge devoted his life to making money and then he he learns in that fateful Christmas Eve night

[42:05] that a life spent pursuing the solely pers a life spent only Building Wealth is really not a life worth living okay now you may disagree with me and and that's fine I'm I'm just giving food for thought right and and that's why by the way in this three pillars of attainment I talk about these nine Realms because for me to be successful I have to have success in all these Realms all nine okay to me that's a a a worth a life worth living a

[42:43] balanced life a life of helping people and and a life of of knowing who I am and and what will make me uh feel satisfied so that you know when my time comes I can reflect back and say okay so I you know I've I feel like I I accomplished worthwhile things during my life to me in the end that that is my definition of success to accomplish worthwhile things in life now I hope as a byproduct of that I do well financially

[43:19] um and and that has generally been the case um so you know I'm grateful for that absolutely um but to have to have gained wealth by exploiting people for me uh uh uh that is not something I want a part of okay so to go back to I kind of digressed a little bit I want to go back to the issue of determination and that is to be determined we have to have a clear picture of where we're going

[43:54] and oftentimes we need to get perspective on it that's why I step back right um to get perspective on where it is we want to go to get that Long View sometimes we can get so close up to something it's hard to really see what it's really all about it's it's that was probably frightening right to see me that that close up I'm sorry you know don't mean to frighten you but I can appreciate your work so we need we need to sometimes look close sometimes step back sometimes move around sometimes go over under what I

[44:29] was saying before how we exercise that determination is as important as that we are determined okay so I want to review these these three principles again just to help them stick with us so principle number one a part of all you earn is yours to keep now like I said for me that that's ten percent although in the early days I think I did start out at five percent until I got comfortable with that and got in the habit of that and then I

[45:04] built up I may have even done an intermediate step of like seven and a half percent and then built up to ten percent okay but whatever you decide to do get in the habit of making of paying yourself first and I don't when I say paying yourself I don't mean paying your salary first I mean paying your fund to build wealth you're paying your fund to become rich pay that first just automatically have it deducted from your income and let it build up Prince that's principle number one from the richest man in Babylon principle number two men of action are

[45:41] favored by the goddess of good luck be out there be active meet people talk to people um You probably aren't going to believe this I'm very shy I'm sometimes painfully shy that's why over the years I have worked very hard to engage with people whenever I have the opportunity to do so so when I'm out exercising walking and I walk by someone

[46:16] I look at them sometimes all nod my head I'll give them a salute sometimes I'll say hello kind of depends on the context sometimes I just can't I just can't engage them I'm I'm I don't know you know emotionally overwhelmed or whatever it is I just I have to kind of close in on myself um or because I'm introvert it takes a lot of energy for me to be outgoing so sometimes I need to husband my energy and so I I can't be but as often as I can I'm engaging with other people and what I do find is in the vast majority of interactions I get something positive

[46:52] back even if it's the person just smiling at me and it can make your whole day if you're having a tough day you know and you're feeling really lousy I don't know bad day at work or whatever had a fight with your spouse or who know you know kids are you know a problem or whatever I mean you're walking down the street on the way to lunch or something you see someone's like good afternoon many many people will well first of all you'll get a little bit of a surprise like you're talking to a stranger didn't your mother not tell you not to talk to strangers and then they'll realize you're just being friendly and they'll be like and you'll get a smile oh oh or good afternoon you know that's sometimes

[47:28] that's all it takes but if you do that often enough and again get in the habit of doing it that will that will bring good luck your way okay get involved with things okay get involved with organizations by the way okay and then the last principle is where the determination is the way can be found so once you're once you have a Clear Vision build your determination to get there don't let obstacles stop you look for

[48:05] ways around them over them under them through them sometimes through them will be the way okay sometimes being patient will cause the obstacle to go away okay just by your patience that's one of the tough things in life there's no sure route we we have to examine the situation and make judgment calls okay all right so those are the three principles I have from you from the richest man in Babylon I cannot um you know recommend this book highly enough if you're interested in financial

[48:40] success this is you know the Bible in in many ways and in fact uh some somewhere where does it say oh ranks ranks with the message to Garcia Franklin's autobiography and the magic story among the most important business preachments of modern times a guy by the name of Percy H Whiting vice president Dale Carnegie Institute so Dale Carnegie Institute is one of the foremost trainers on how to uh how to create relationships okay uh Dale Carnegie wrote a famous book How to Win Friends

[49:15] and Influence People tremendously tremendously impactful in what he did so that one of one of his Executives endorses this book I think is is very very meaningful so uh so again I I I recommend the book to you the richest man in Babylon the link will be in the show notes I'm not recommending the book because I can get you know a 10 cent affiliate fee or whatever it is I assure you um I I I've had this book for well since 1973 right so oh for 50 years I've had the book wow because I didn't realize that when I chose it to talk about today

[49:52] um but but it's kind of the you know 50th anniversary of my adhering to these these principles and and there's many more in the book that that you can work into your own path or your own methodology for attaining Success so I encourage you to do that all right we're uh we're going to be a little bit short of an hour here today but I think that's okay um as Walt Disney used to say you need to make the movie The length it needs to be not the length of that the movie theater owners wanted to be um and and I recommend to you dumbo who fits that it's one of the very it's a very short full-length movie and it is

[50:28] exactly the right length if they had tried to make it the length of a regular uh feature movie uh would not have improved it in fact it would have made it worse so so that's what I've got for you today uh just a couple reminders again for the way to wow show people making money we are here every Wednesday 12 30 p.m Pacific Time 3 30 p.m eastern time and an hour in for Central and uh Mountain Time on Tuesdays I have a show called um the way to wow business lessons from the military

[51:03] and this is a half hour show it's at 10 30 a.m Pacific Time 1 30 p.m eastern time and also again you know an hour in for each of the mountain in Central Time and in that we talk about business Doctrine business history great military leaders and how we can use the doctrine and wisdom that comes from the military to build a business and build our professional success so for the last two weeks we've talked about uh fundamentals of Marine Corps War

[51:40] fighting Doctrine and how we can adapt those to use for success in our business so we've we've been through uh the first four of eight principles so I invite you to go to my YouTube channel check those out and we will be continuing for the next two weeks to wrap up Those portions and then I already uh came across uh something that I think will be a terrific subject for shows after that again related to military Doctrine and and it's it's kind of a way I I I have

[52:16] felt for quite a long time I'm I was very fortunate to be in the military at a time when my fellow citizens were so support have been are so supportive of the military and and the resources both Financial as well as emotional that they give to the military I feel like I want to pay pay you back for that a little bit and so this is my way of doing so by exposing you to material that I learned while I was in the Navy that I think is is very applicable to to us here in civilian life in terms of building our

[52:52] professional success so I invite you on Tuesdays 10 30 a.m um Pacific time uh 1 30 p.m Central Time half an hour join me then for uh business lessons from the military and so that's what I've got for you today thank you so much for joining me I appreciate it and that just leads me to say hopefully I will see you next week and to my dear friend Marie who made such a tremendous difference in my life darling you are my bell so enjoy the

[53:28] rest of your afternoon and we'll see you next week