7 Years To 7 Figures Into video August 30, 2010, 02:10 PM

If You're Not Sure Which Skill To Master, Try This One First

Of all the skills you can have - the ability to speak like Winston Churchill, to paint like Rembrandt, to calculate like Albert Einstein - none will help you achieve wealth as well as knowing how to sell things.

So if you're not sure which financially valued skill to target, I recommend becoming an expert in the kind of sales that make your company profitable. And I'm going to give you a mini-course in selling right now to help you decide if this is for you.

Every private enterprise - school, restaurant, law office, hospital, building supplier, hardware store, and entertainment complex - survives and prospers by virtue of its commercial activity.

In my own life, this lesson was hard to learn. Coming from a non-business background, I looked at the commercial world from the outside in. An art gallery, to me, was a place where intelligent people gathered to talk about the latest trends and connect with like-minded art lovers. When a friend told me of her desire to own a gallery, that's the way I saw it. Until she actually bought one. The reality was very different.

A successful local dealer she knew told her in passing one day the he was planning on retiring in a few years. My friend immediately suggested that he allow her to buy into his business. He declined at first, but they kept talking. A month later, they had a deal. She paid him a sizable chunk of cash for 50 percent interest in his thriving business. She was entitled to acquire the remaining shares over a three-year period, during which time he'd teach her what he knew and phase himself out.

The first thing he had her do was invite every friend and family member within 100 miles to come to a new opening of the gallery.

"When we get them in the door," he explained, "we'll get to work on them."

My friend had no interest of "getting to work" on her friends and family members. But he was adamant. "These are prime prospects," he told her. "They like to admire you. And they know you collect art. The seed has already been planted!"

She didn't know exactly what he meant, and she didn't feel good about it. Nevertheless, she dutifully sent out the invitations. When opening night came, she followed him around as he worked the room. She was shocked and embarrassed by how hard he was selling.

The evening was a disappointment for both of them. For him, because he didn't sell nearly as much art as he felt he should have. For her, because she suddenly realized that the dream she'd bought into was, in fact, a business based on hard-core selling.

She shouldn't have been that naive. After all, having been in the marketing business for years, she knew a lot about how to make a sale. But she never had mastered the skill of selling through the written word. She never actually saw her prospects face-to-face. Now she was involved in this wonderful world of art, but she discovered that it survived on selling, too. A very direct, person-to-person kind of selling - a skill she hadn't learned at all and had no desire to learn, especially at the expense of her friends and family.

A month later, she bought herself out of his business. It was a very expensive lesson. But it taught her (and me) a great deal about business and life that has been enormously helpful to me since then.

For example:

The reason this art dealer was so successful (he was making a very high income even during periods when other art dealers were going out of business) was because he was an expert in selling art. His knowledge of art history was limited. He wasn't ignorant, by any means. He knew the important, inside stuff - what type of paintings a particular artist was admired for, what periods of production were considered the most valuable, and so on. But his main skills were in (1) getting people to come into his shop and then (2) getting those who bought to keep buying, year after year.

I began to see that virtually every private enterprise functions that way. To keep doing what you want to do (and make a profit from it), you have to (1) attract customers at a reasonable cost and (2) convert them into repeat buyers.

Let's call the first task the front-end sale and the second task the back-end sale. In the years that have passed since, I've learned to look at virtually every moneymaking enterprise in terms of these two selling skills.

This perspective has allowed me to quickly understand how many businesses operate, even ones of which I have only outside knowledge. It's no longer a mystery to me why, for example, so many restaurants and small hotels go out of business, why people in the travel and leisure business make so little money, why you shouldn't even try (as I explained to a prospect the other day) to make a business out of a llama farm - and why most good small businesses fail when they attempt to get bigger.

This fundamental perspective on sales has allowed me to provide advice to all sorts of businesses in almost every conceivable industry. I can see now how every successful start-up business is one that has quickly and correctly answered two very simple questions:

1. What is the most cost-effective way of attracting customers?
2. What is the best way to keep those customers buying?

If you can learn to see your business that way and can one day discover the correct answer to these two questions, you will quickly become recognized as an invaluable employee. That will happen because you understand your business from inside out. You will know it better than 90 percent of your fellow workers.

When problems arise - no matter what they are - the solutions must address one or both of two objectives:

1. Lowering the cost of acquiring new customers
2. Increasing the lifetime value of each existing customer

Even the stickiest problems in business - which are always people problems - can be analyzed effectively by considering possible outcomes against these two objectives.

[Ed. Note: If you're not happy with your financial situation, you're in the perfect position to change it for the better – right now. Ray has just released a special video that covers an online business opportunity that you can use to start growing your wealth. To watch this short video, click the following link: http://www.raybuckner.com]

Why Profit Generators Make A Lot More Money

Basically, there are three kinds of jobs in the business world: technical, administrative, and profit-generating.

• Technical jobs include most positions in information technology and engineering, and some positions in legal, financial, and accounting fields.
• Administrative jobs include most positions in corporate management, product fulfillment, operations, and customer service, as well as some positions in finance and accounting.
• Profit-generating jobs are those that are directly involved in producing profits for the company. Profit generators include marketers, salespeople, copywriters, people who create new products, and the people who manage all of these employees. In most companies, the leading profit generator is the CEO, because the CEO's main job is to deliver a bottom line.

Administrative workers, on the average, are the poorest-paid group. Generalists by training, they compete against a large pool of other generalists in jobs that require no special skills or talents. If you are an administrator,and a very good one, you can expect to see your income rise as your performance improves. But more likely than not, it will be at the 4 percent or 6 percent level - probably not enough to meet your medium-term (7-to-15-year) wealth-builder goal.

Technical workers are usually better paid than their administrative counterparts. This is especially true at the beginning of their careers, at which point even an entry-level position requires a high degree of specialized knowledge. Computer engineers,information technology people, and certified public accountants (CPAs) typically start at higher salaries than do fulfillment managers and customer service clerks, but the difference tends to diminish over time. Top engineers often make more than operational vice presidents, but not much more.

Profit generators are usually the highest-paid employees. More important, they have the greatest potential for income growth.

If you work for a small or medium-sized company and fall into one of the first two job categories, you'll reach the $130,000 level only by rising to the top of your division - and then only if the business you work for is profitable and growing. With larger companies, you might achieve a salary of more than $130,000 as a technical specialist, or a manager of technicians and administrators.

But even if you can hit that kind of number, your upside potential will be limited. That's because regardless of how good you are at what you do, what you are doing is usually seen as a necessary expense, not a part of the secret process of making money.

I'll have much more to say about this later. For now, you have to ask yourself a simple question:"If I work harder and better at what I am doing now, are the chances good that I can reach at least the $130,000 income level in the next two to three years?"

If the answer is yes, fine. If the answer is no, you must be prepared to make some radical changes.

So, let's talk about that now: how to develop the skills and convert your job into one that merits the $130,000-plus level of compensation.

Put Yourself into Your Company's Cash Flow

If you merely do a good job in a technical or administrative position, you can expect only modest pay increases. Become very good, and you'll get relatively very good raises. But if your objective is to skyrocket your salary, you will have to become a key profit generator. It's as simple as that.

How big of a contribution must you make to the company?

A good rule of thumb is this: If you want to get a raise that's $1,000 more than ordinary,make sure you've been a major contributor to an idea that will generate at least $10,000 to $20,000 in additional net profits for your company.

This is an absolute minimum. For larger companies your impact will have to be much more than that - 20 to 50 times.

If you want to increase your current income by, say, $25,000, you are going to have to find a way to increase business profits by $250,000 or more. And your idea can't be a one-time deal. The $250,000 extra your work has to contribute must be generated again and again in the future.

To maintain a much-higher-than-average salary, you need to have a very substantial effect on your company's growth in income.

This rule of thumb is true for most growing companies. It may not be true for a business that is large and static. Large businesses, as a rule, offer stability of employment and predictability of income in place of high salary curves. It stands to reason if you think about it. Big companies attract smart, hardworking but sometimes conservative people. There is sometimes more good talent than is needed.

In general, you'll have the best chance of radically increasing your income if you work for a business that has

• Significant sales (in the millions or, preferably, tens of millions of dollars)
• Reasonable profits (what 'reasonable" means depends on the industry)
• A recent history of growth (both sales and profits)
• A vision of further growth

And as I suggested, a small number of employees (so your contributions will stand out).

If the business that you are working for meets none or few of these criteria, start looking elsewhere. Unless you can single-handedly turn such a business around, there won't be enough financial resources available to meet your financial objectives.

Your ideal situation would be to position yourself as an invaluable profit producer in a small, fast-growing, and highly profitable company. If you can do that, great. If not, don't worry. There are plenty of other ways to dramatically boost your income.$

[Ed. Note: If you're not happy with your financial situation, you're in the perfect position to change it for the better – right now. Ray has just released a special video that covers an online business opportunity that you can use to start growing your wealth. To watch this short video, click the following link: http://www.raybuckner.com]

Radically Increase Your Personal Income

Why Ordinary Pay Raises Will Make You Poorer Instead Of Richer

Most people go through their lives working for businesses they care nothing about, dealing with problems they'd rather not face, and getting paid wages they'd very much like to change.

They dream of a better life and may envy those who make more money, but they are stumped when it comes to figuring out what to do about it. If career work is a path, theirs has a very modes tilt upward. Yes, they will get raises - but how many and how much?

In a survey of 1,276 companies nationwide, Hewitt Associates, a global human resources  outsourcing and consulting firm, found that average salary increases for 2003 were 3.4 percent - the lowest number ever recorded in Hewitt's 27 years of gathering and analyzing this kind of data. With the current state of our economy, you can bet that number is even lower for the past couple of years.

In fact, the trend has been downward since the survey began. In the beginning, average raises were about 6 percent. Then, during the 1980's, they dropped to about 4 percent to 4.25 percent and stayed there through 2001. The dropped to 3.7 percent in 2002 - before hitting record lows in 2003.

It's highly unlikely that you'll get rich on that kind of wage increase. That's especially true if you consider the effects of inflation. While wages have risen over the past decades, so has the cost of living. Some studies show that net income (after adjusting for inflation) has not increased since the early 1980s.

And the trend is going the wrong way. Between 2000 and 2002, for example, pretax median household income rose 0.6 percent to $42,409. But when adjusted for inflation, that gain became a 3.3 percent decline.

The dismal truth is that working people in America have been getting poorer, not richer, despite higher nominative wages.

To beat this dismal trend, you need to earn above-average pay increases. That, I'm happy to tell you, can be easily accomplished. Remember, these depressing statistics are measurements of the average. They include data on some workers who get no raises, many whose raises track inflation, and only a few employees who do better than that.

You want to get yourself into the third category. In fact, your goal should be to radically increase your income. How do you do that?

Although it may seem hard to believe, most businesses are more than willing to give you above-average increases. But they will do so willingly only if you give them above-average work.

I'm not suggesting that employers are benevolent. Some are and some are not. But healthy businesses are profit-oriented. And when they find employees who can help them increase profits, they are usually willing to reward them by returning to them a small portion of what they helped generate.

This has always been the case - especially with small and growing businesses. Today it's becoming more commonplace among larger companies, as they move toward performance-based pay (determining bonuses or other compensation on how well employees, teams, and the company do), to boost profits.

The Secret To Getting Above-Average Raises

To earn more - and enjoy better-than-average pay increases - there are two things you must do.

First, you must become a better employee. And second, you must make sure that everyone who matters knows you are better.

To earn radically more than you do now, you must make yourself a radically better worker. I'll explain how you can do that a little later. For the moment, though, let's set our sights on more modest goals.

Make Sure The Right People Know How Good You Are

Becoming a more valuable employee is the first and most important way to boost your income, but it's not enough. Corporate culture being what it is (in most places), you must also advertise your value.

The secret to successful self-promotion in a business environment is threefold:

1. Promote only what is true.
2. Give some credit to others, even if it hasn't been earned.
3. Be persistently self-effacing. Or so it should seem

If you don't promote yourself, you are leaving the fate of your salary in the hands of chance and circumstance. But while you want to make sure that the people in power hear of your accomplishments, you also don't want to think of you as an ambitious blowhard.

Put It In Writing

A good course of action is to get into the habit of writing regular reports on all the important projects you are involved in. Focus the report on the business, not you. Make it brief - one page is enough. Praise everyone involved. Play down your own role. But make sure the subtext is clear: Here is yet another good thing you have bought to the table.

There is a good business purpose for writing such memos. Your boss (and maybe even your boss's boss) is interested in these projects. He or she doesn't want to know the details. And he or she especially doesn't want to know about all the hassles. But your boss does want to be kept informed with very brief updates on where each project is, what has been done, and what is left to do.

When you or your team is faced with an important problem or challenge, you can write a report on that, too.
Again, make sure it is short and sweet. Again, give credit where it's due. Most important, never present a problem without also presenting at least three possible solutions. If you do, you'll get a reputation for being a good thinker.

[Ed. Note: Ready to step up to the plate and start your own Internet business? If so, online marketing expert Ray Buckner and his team of friendly experts are standing by to help you. Start with nothing – no product, no marketing skills, no technical know-how – and build your own online business. Check out this FREE video presentation! No experience required.]

The Eight Habits Of Highly Successful Wealth Builders

There is no one way to become rich. But there are a number of habits that some people develop that give them an almost supernatural ability to earn money and build wealth.

I'd say these people have the following characteristics in common:

1. They work hard.
2. They are good at what they do.
3. They have multiple streams of income.
4. They live in (relatively) inexpensive homes.
5. They are moderate in their spending.
6. They are extraordinary in their saving.
7. They pay themselves first.
8. They count their money.

This is not everything you'll need to know about wealth building. I will discuss other important secrets in future posts. For the moment, though, we are talking about developing wealthy habits. These eight are my recommendations.

1. Wealthy People Work Hard

The average multimillionaire works an average of 59 hours a week. And many of those hours are challenging. If you follow the advice in this blog about transforming the way you work, the job you do, and the way you think about work, those 59 hours will fly by.
And after you've hit your first million or two, you can kick back and work less...if you want to. Buy you may not want to!

2. Wealthy People Are Good At What They Do

Some people get lucky and stumble into riches. But master wealth builders - people who can create wealth easily and repeatedly - don't rely on luck. They are good at what they do.

Being good at what they do gives them confidence and poise. In discussing business or money, they are relaxed but focused. Intolerant of fakers, they move quickly when opportunity knocks.

Natural wealth builders have the confidence to know that they know. They've done it and they can do it again.

3. Wealthy People Have Multiple Streams Of Income

Natural moneymakers make most of their money by practicing a single skill within the context of a single industry. Don't be fooled by financial gurus who tell you otherwise. But they eventually develop many streams of income. And I'm going to argue that you should do the same thing.

To get your financial fortune started, you have to radically boost your income. And doing that, as I'll explain, requires doing one thing extraordinarily well.

Although you never know what will happen with any individual income source, if you get enough of them started, one will turn into a river.

4. Wealthy People Live In (Relatively) Inexpensive Homes

How much do you think the typical American worth $6.8 million typically pays for a house?

I put this question to my mastermind group. Their guess was between $2 million and $3 million. Being older and wiser, my guess was closer to the truth. I figured the number was closer to $1 million.

But then we checked the IRS records. And the answer was an astonishing $545,000. That's not a lot of money for someone who's worth almost $7 million. So what's going on here? Why would a guy (or gal) who's worth $1.4 million live in a $220,000 house? Does he/she know something that you should find out about?

Actually, he knows two things:

1. The cost of your house determines the cost of your lifestyle. Consider this: Property taxes on a $500,000 house are about $4,000 to $5,000 more per year than on a $250,000 house. Utility expenses are also proportionately greater. If you live in a more expensive house, you'll pay a lot more for maintenance costs. And it's not just because there is more house to keep. When many contractors see that you live in a nice house in a fancy neighborhood, their fees shoot up. They figure, "He can afford it. I need it. So why not?"                                                                                                     But taxes, utilities, and maintenance form just the tip of the expense-rising iceberg. The major cost of owning an expensive house is beneath the surface. The number one reason expensive homes cost so much (much more than you'd think) is because they are inexorably attached to a more expensive lifestyle.
2. Home-spending decisions are not - or should not be - primarily about return on investment. In buying, fixing up, and furnishing your home, you will spend a good deal of money on things that will have a lot of emotional value but little financial worth.

5. Wealthy People Are Moderate In Spending

Marcio, one of my best friends, is living the American dream. He came to this country from Brazil, seeking opportunity, and found it through several businesses. "The problem with making more money in America," he told me, "is that every time you make an extra dollar you spend two."

How true. Master wealth builders understand a secret that it took me years to learn: You have to keep your spending down while your income increases.

Let's take a look at Mike Tyson. During the 20-year span of his career, Mike Tyson's income exceeded $400 million. Yet in 2004, before his 39th birthday,this amazing moneymaker was $38 million in debt. By every recognized standard of accounting, he is poor. Extremely poor.

But he doesn't think so. And that's part of the reason he got poor in the first place. The faster the money came in, the faster  it went out.

The purpose of this is not to shake a finger at Mike Tyson, but to alert you to the dangerous temptation to spend more when you make more.

6. Wealthy People Are Extraordinary At Saving

The rich save more than the average person. Relatively speaking, that is. I don't mean they save more because they have more money to save. I mean they save more in general, because they have a saver's mind-set.

According to Thomas Stanley, author of The Millionaire Next Door, the average millionaire is much more frugal than you or I would have believed. For example, the average millionaire

• Drives an older car
• Buys inexpensive presents
• Eats at home and seldom dines out
• Takes a vacation every other year
• Wears clothes until they fray and resoles shoes when they wear thin

To develop a saver's mind-set - a wealth builder's mind-set - you must change the way you feel about spending. You must teach yourself to feel the truth: that every time you buy a depreciating asset, you become poorer.

There are so many ways to save money. You can spend less on just about anything without giving up either the pleasure you take in buying or the quality you get from purchases.

Don't worry - I'm not going to turn you into a miser. The purpose of spending less is to have more. You'll have your cake and eat it too. You'll spend less, waste less, save more, and have plenty left over to enjoy life.

7. Wealthy People Pay Themselves First

Many financial advisers recommend sticking to a budget. By categorizing expenses and limiting spending, they argue, you can have enough left over every month to save money and grow rich.

The trouble is that budgeting almost never works.

Budgeting is like dieting: It's enormously sensible but almost never effective.

The problem is that when you budget, you pay everyone else first. So at the end of the month, you have nothing left to put in the bank. You promise yourself you'll do better next time, but you never do. There are always unexpected bills to pay, unanticipated sales to take advantage of, and that impossible-to-figure-out $200 or $300 that seems to fall through the cracks.

Budgeting doesn't work. But there's something that does: putting some predetermined percentage of your income into a savings account each month before you pay any of your bills.

You can put yourself ahead of the government by setting up a pre-tax retirement account. Among the best known are IRAs, SEPs, 401(k)s, and 403 (b)s.

8. Wealthy People Count Their Money

I believe that most successful moneymakers regularly count their money. I don't mean that they literally count bills. Rather, they regularly asses their fortunes.

I believe this is true especially in the early stages, when they are just beginning to grow their wealth. As their net worth grows and they feel more comfortable with their wealth and more confident of their income, they count less.

When they get superwealthy - Warren Buffet wealthy - they don't have to count their money. Fortune magazine and countless other entities do it for them. But on their way up, they count. And that's what I recommend you do.

Specifically, I suggest that you do a personal balance sheet every month. Create a spreadsheet that lists all your assets and all your debits. Include all valuable possessions, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, gold, real estate (aside from your home), and so forth. Accurately estimate the value of everything. If there is a question about how much something is worth, choose the lesser number. List all your indebtedness, too. And be completely candid.

Just going through the process will train your mind (and heart) to understand financial wealth is financial net worth. After you've done this for six or seven months in a row, it will become automatic.

And while you are doing that monthly spreadsheet, remind yourself of the saving goals you've made - that you will save more money, in both absolute and relative terms, with each passing year.

You'll be amazed at how much this simple commitment can affect the way you think and even the way you act. I remember how it changed me!$

[Ed. Note: If you're not happy with your financial situation, you're in the perfect position to change it for the better – right now. Ray has just released a special video that covers an online business opportunity that you can use to start growing your wealth. To watch this short video, click the following link: http://www.raybuckner.com]

Just Do It!

If you want to become a world-class tennis player and had Andre Agassi at your disposal as a personal coach and mentor, would you spend your time with him finding out what runs through his head during matches? Or would you find a way to emulate his serve, his movements, and his swings?

In martial arts, my teacher had a rule:

       Don't think about what you learned today. Don't go home and run it through your mind. Don't take  
       notes. Don't look at books. Just practice the movements I teach you and, sooner or later, your body
       will know them, even if your mind is somewhere else.

That's the ultimate objective of learning, isn't it? To acquire knowledge so deep that it becomes subconscious...and automatic?

In Zen in the Art of Archery (Vintage, 1999), Eugen Herrigel describes it this way:

     The archer ceases to be conscious of himself as the one who is engaged in hitting the bull's-eye
     which confronts him. This state of unconscious is realized only when, completely empty and rid
     of the self, he becomes one with the perfecting of his technical skill.

Practice Makes Perfect

The idea is this: If you want to master the art of wealth-building - so you can become financially independent and create wealth automatically whenever and wherever you want to - you need to learn wealth building the way any master learns his art: by repeating, as closely as possible, the actions of successful wealth builders.

And this leads to an important paradox: If you want to master a skill as quickly as possible, practice slowly.

The faster you perform a task, the more likely it is that you will make a mistake - unless, that is, you have cut only one path for it. A perfect one. Likewise, when you are performing a task under stress, it is easy to bungle it.

The fundamental rule is this: Slow down...until you can practice the skill with perfect technique. Continue practicing perfectly and you will find that your speed will gradually increase without any effort on your part. Eventually, you will do it quickly and perfectly.

You will find that you can apply this rule to almost any skill and achieve the same good results. In your efforts to train yourself to become a wealth builder, you should keep this secret in mind. Becoming a master at wealth building is like becoming masterful at guitar playing or jujitsu. Each requires knowledge and experience. Each involves learning skills. Each of these skills may be complex, but if you break them down into their basic elements - and practice each one slowly and perfectly - you will master them.$

[Ed. Note: If you're not happy with your financial situation, you're in the perfect position to change it for the better – right now. Ray has just released a special video that covers an online business opportunity that you can use to start growing your wealth. To watch this short video, click the following link: http://www.raybuckner.com]

Develop Wealthy Habits

"Think and grow rich." How many times have you heard that before?

It's the title of one of the most popular wealth-building books ever written. And it's the idea behind so many success books, courses, and seminars that people think of it as a truism. But is it true? Can you really think yourself to riches?

In The Power of Positive Thinking (Ballantine Books, 1996), Norman Vincent Peale says:
   
Too many people are defeated by the everyday problems of life. They go struggling, perhaps even whining, through their days with a sense of dull resentment at what they consider the "bad breaks" life has given them. In a sense, there may be such a thing as "the breaks" in this life, but there is also a spirit and method by which we can control and even determine those breaks. It is a pity that people should let themselves be defeated by problems, cares, and difficulties of human existence, and it is also quite unnecessary...By learning to cast (obstacles) from your mind, by refusing to become mentally subservient to them, and by channeling spiritual power through your thoughts, you can rise above obstacles which ordinarily might defeat you.

The opening chapter of Napoleon Hill's The Law of Success (Wilshire Book Company, 2000) expresses the same sentiment:

Success is very largely a matter of adjusting one's self to the ever-varying and changing environments of life, in a spirit of harmony and poise. Harmony is based upon an understanding of the forces constituting one's environment. The most successful men and women on earth have had to correct certain weak spots in their personalities before they began to succeed.

As someone who has always been interested in the potential of the mind, I find this sort of idea appealing. If, indeed, I could think myself rich, what else could I do with my mental machinery? Maybe I could think myself cured of this chest cold?  (And, yes, there's a large field of healing based on just such a notion.) If I can use thoughts to get healthier, why not to get smarter, too?

It's Not About Thinking...It's About Doing

But if getting rich and successful were simply a matter of replacing negative thoughts and feeling with positive ones, why are so many of the richest, most successful people miserable, grouchy, and gloomy?

Not all the time. And not in all circumstances. But as a general rule, it seems to me that most of the people out there making the big bucks are more driven than dreamy, more testy than tranquil, and more hard-pushing than easygoing.

Don't you agree?

Think about the really positive, really happy people you know. Are they the industry captains? Are they the million-dollar earners?

I'm not knocking positive thinking. And I'm certainly not saying that having a good mental outlook is detrimental to growing rich. What I'm arguing is that there is no statistical evidence that equates positive thoughts with rising net worth. In fact, the little data that we have on the subject suggests a different story:

• 
  
  It is how you act, not what you think, that will determine your success.
• 
  
  It is how you think, not what you do, that will determine your happiness.

Here's my point. I don't believe that the secret to becoming wealthy is to fill your head with positive thoughts. Based on personal observations and studies I've read, it's my belief that the secret to growing rich is to follow certain behavior patterns. To do what wealth-builders do - and not waste any time getting your mind fixed before-hand.

In the course of this blog, I'm going to try to put certain ideas into your head, change some others that you might now have, and buttress my own ideas with all sorts of facts, numbers, anecdotes, and data.

But I don't believe you have to adopt or change a single thought to become wealthy. Keep the thoughts you have. No problem. However, if you want to convert the lessons from this blog into a higher level of wealth for yourself, you must follow the specific behaviors I'm recommending.$

[Ed. note: In his latest training series, Ray reveals simple ways to start a business... find a retirement career...make extra money in your spare time... and more. These are the routes to wealth the rich employ. Click here to learn more about them.]

Reach Your Goals Faster: Eight Secrets For Turning Wasted Time Into Productive Time

Now your challenge is to find more free time - the time you need to accomplish your goals. By "free time" I mean wasted time. The 5 minutes here and 10 minutes there that slip by unnoticed, but swallow up hours of your life every day.

Here are eight productivity secrets that can save you a good two hours each day that you can put toward achieving your dream of financial independence.

Productivity Secret No. 1: Streamline Your E-mail

E-mail has become a way of life for most of us - especially in business - but it doesn't have to take a huge bite out of your work life. With just a few changes in the way you manage e-mail, you'll save yourself one or two hours every day that you can apply to constructive goals.

Here are a few ideas to help you streamline the process.

• Keep your e-mail messages short and to the point - and ask the people who e-mail you to do the same. Very few messages need to be more than a screen-page long - and those that pose a problem should always be presented with multiple-choice solutions.
• If you find that you need more than one screen page to say what you have to say, the subject is probably too involved to be handled effectively through e-mail. You need to do it over the phone or face-to-face instead.

Productivity Secret No. 2: Attack Similar Tasks in Blocks

Whether you have to answer 25 e-mails, make nine phone calls, or write three memos, you'll easily save yourself an hour a day just by lumping like tasks together and blocking out time in your schedule to tackle them all at once.

Assembling common tasks makes you much more efficient. So group them into one category on your daily to-do list and allot them a specific time on your schedule.

And while you're at it, block out some time for yourself as well. Full schedules without relaxation lead to burnout. You need to give yourself a few 5-minute, 10-minute, and 15-minute blocks of "me" time each day.

Productivity Secret No. 3: Take Control of Your Schedule with This Simple Device

Do you start your day with the best of intentions - organise your schedule, block out your time, highlight important goals, and vow to stick to it today - only to find your good intentions shot to hell by noon?

It's hard to keep track of the time. You bury yourself in work and the next time you look up, three hours have passed and you don't have half the things done you'd planned.

I've solved that problem with an electric egg timer. It looks like the conventional, windup kind but runs on batteries. When I begin a project, I allot a certain amount of time. When that time expires, the timer signals me with an ascending scale of louder and louder beeps.

Another way your timer can help you control your schedule is when someone comes into your office and says, "I have a quick question. Got a minute?" Say "sure," and set your egg timer for a minute.

Productivity Secret No. 4: Get Company Meetings under Control

I believe wholeheartedly in limiting company meetings. Too much time gets wasted in daily meetings that stretch on for an hour and two hours without accomplishing anything of significant value for anyone there.

Whether or not you're leading the meeting, you should always have a plan before attending. Your plan should include a specific personal agenda (e.g., "I will leave the meeting with an agreement from Jeff on the new product") as well as ideas about how to attain that goal (e.g., "I'll make him a quick, logical argument - and if he doesn't go for that, I'll remind him of the favor he owes me").

Obviously, you can't just stop having meetings altogether. You can, however, reduce both the number held each week and the time they take. That leaves an extra hour or more of productive work to advance your company's objectives as well as your own career and personal goals.

Productivity Secret No. 5: Limit Memos to One Page

Another way you can streamline your day is by changing the way you write simple business documents. Writing a memo can take 30 minutes or more. But you can cut that time in half and double the power and clarity of your message simply by shortening the length and stating your primary point earlier.

Stating your main point early lets your readers know exactly what you are talking about and why they should keep reading. If your thesis is strong (i.e., the idea is useful to them), it will appeal to your readers right away and motivate them to read with attention the rest of what you have to say.

Productivity Secret No. 6: Learn to Delegate

It's not easy to delegate responsibility when you know no one else can do the job the way you want it done, when you want it done, and how you want it done. You're the go-to person, the one who can answer questions, explain things, get problems solved. This is a good and a bad thing. Good because it gives you power. Good because it advances your goals. Bad because it can overwhelm you if you are not careful.

Unless you are the only person in your business, reluctance to share the workload will cripple your company. It is foolhardy to think you can do everything yourself. Beyond driving yourself crazy, you will collapse from exhaustion and your business will collapse along with you.

Productivity Secret No. 7: Hire Great People

It's not easy to hire/recruit good people, but it's well worth the time and effort that it takes. Here are the four most important things I've learned about how to do it:

1. Make the commitment. Anything worth doing is worth doing well. You can't expect to hire/recruit great people if you spend just a few hours working on it.
2. Look for the right things. Intelligence is important, but I'd put it third on my list of things to look for . I agree with Jeffrey J. Fox in his book How to Become a Great Boss (Hyperion, 2002) that the two most important things to look for are attitude and aptitude.
3. Flee flaws. Generally speaking, you'll see candidates at their best when you interview them. If you notice something that seems wrong, don't ignore it - especially if it concerns qualities that are important for the job.
4. Don't worry too much about specific experience. Of all the qualities that are important to look for in finding a great employee, specific experience is not very high on the my list. Yes, it's good to know that the person you hire can do the technical work from day one - but on day 7 or day 14, you'll wish you had opted for the better, though perhaps untried and unproven prospect.

Productivity Secret No. 8: Fire Bad Employees

When you want to save a hammock of endangered hardwoods, you start by chopping down a lot of trees. You must get rid of the younger, faster-growing trees that threaten the good wood in order to let the sun come in and give the really valuable growth a chance to develop. That is how it works in nature. And I have found that the nature of a business is not too much different.$

[Ed. Note. Ray Buckner is dedicated to helping you take control of your financial future with a web-based business that you can operate from anywhere in the world – including a coffee shop, your kitchen table, or anywhere around the world where there is Internet access. Discover how you can achieve the American Dream and your financial independence here. You’ve never seen anything like this before.]

Daily Planning: Getting The Most From Every Minute

There is no better time to collect your thoughts, review your goals, examine your current responsibilities, and plan your day than early in the morning when the office or house is still. Here's the early morning routine that works best for me:

Get Your Inputs (5 to 10 minutes)

I start the day by scanning my daily task list, which I have written the night before. If for some reason I haven't prepared a task list, I do it then, based on my weekly list of objectives. I then scan my e-mail, not responding to anything but noting responses that will need to be made and putting some of them down on my daily task list. I do the same with the in-box that sits on my desk. Finally, I retrieve any phone messages and if one of them requires action, make note of it on my daily task list.

I make it a point to not do any work now (send out a quick e-mail response or return phone messages) because I know if I do I'll get caught up in a lot of small stuff that will bog me down and drain my energy. Instead, I devote this input time to polishing off my daily task list. As soon as that's done, I move on to the next step.

Sort and Prioritize (5 to 10 minutes)

Now comes the fun part. Assuming my daily to-do list has already been completed, I indicate for each task the approximate amount of time I expect it will take to complete it. I always try to be realistic in my estimations of time required. Over the years, I've trained myself to be very conservative.

As a general rule, I break up tasks into 15-, 30-, 45-minute, and 1-hour increments. But every once and a while (such as right now, while I'm writing this blog), I allow myself 2 to 2 1/2 hours for a single task.

I generally like to prioritize my tasks in terms of their importance and urgency. This idea is based on the quadrant developed by Steven Covey in his popular 7 Habits books. He identifies tasks as being either (1) Important and Urgent, (2) Important but not Urgent, (3) Unimportant but Urgent, or (4) Unimportant and not Urgent.

If we work with this idea, your daily schedule should be focused mainly on (1) and (2) tasks, because these require immediate attention or will advance you toward your ultimate goals. Your schedule should contain a diminishing number of (3) tasks (since they indicate that you are not in control of your schedule), and no (4) tasks at all.

Another way to set priorities is to think in terms of the old 80/20 rule. As applied to productivity, the rule says that 80 percent of the things you do every day contribute to only 20 percent of the progress you make. But that means 20 percent of what you do is responsible for 80 percent of your success. For our purposes, the way to use the 80/20 rule is to scan the tasks on your to-do list and highlight the 20 percent (the 2 out of 10 or 4 out of 20) that will make a giant difference in your life. If you are thinking right, the tasks you highlight will be the ones that support your life goals.

Start With Something Really Important (15 to 60 minutes)

The third and most important part of my get-into-the-office-early time is devoted to accomplishing one Important-but-not-Urgent task.

I like to start out the day with a nonurgent task because these are usually the tasks that make the biggest, long-term differences in your life - and because they are not urgent, tend to be overlooked. In terms of wealth building, your Important-but-not-Urgent tasks might include

• Learning or improving a financially valuable skill
• Expanding your support network
• Pushing forward a major project that has stalled
• Writing a memo that will advance your career
• Brainstorming a new project

Doing an important task right off the bat gives me an immediate sense of accomplishment that fills me with energy fuels my work for the rest of the day.

This is one of the reasons I don't allow myself to solve or even answer any of the problems I run into during my early-morning review of e-mails and my in-box. I understand the productivity concept of not looking at anything twice, but my early morning hours are just too important to spend on anything other than organizing, prioritizing, and attacking my Important-but-not-Urgent tasks.

I answer e-mails only once or twice a day, but not first thing. If I do that, I find myself quickly sucked into issues and situations that (1) aren't important, (2) can often be handled just as well by someone else, (3) don't advance my long-term goals, and (4) sap me of mental and emotional energy that could be put to better use elsewhere.$

[Ed. Note: If you're not happy with your financial situation, you're in the perfect position to change it for the better – right now. Ray has just released a special video that covers an online business system that you can use to start growing your wealth. To watch this short video, click the following link: http://www.raybuckner.com]

Your Wealth-Building Plan For The Next 12 Months

Most people don't marry into money or fall into an unexpected inheritance. Wealth usually arrives bit by bit as the result of carefully setting long-term, medium-term, and short-term goals and planning out what you need to do every month, week, and day to achieve them.

You've set your lifetime, medium-term, and yearly goals. You've made a commitment to "rise early and catch the golden worm" each morning. Good so far

Now let me show you how to break down your goals for this year into concrete, achievable steps for this month, this week, and this very day. Since financial independence is one of your primary goals, let's take a look at how you might create and prioritize your objectives in terms of some of the wealth-building techniques I'll be teaching you later in this blog.

I'm going to assume that your lifetime wealth-building goal is to be financially independent. But since I don't know what you've established for yourself in terms of your medium-term wealth goals, let's go with a hypothetical scenario.

So let's assume that your medium-term goal is to have $120,000 a year in pretax passive income and that your target for achieving that goal is seven years.

There are many ways to get to that $120,000 number. Let's say you're planning to do it this way:

Medium-Term (Seven-Year) Goal: $120,000 per Year In Pretax Passive Income

• Own, free and clear, $300,000 worth of rental real estate, yielding $45,000 a year
• Own $200,000 in bonds, yielding (pretax) $15,000 a year
• Have $200,000 in stocks, averaging $25,000 a year
• Own equity in a business distributing $35,000 a year

Now what? Now you have to figure out what you have to achieve this year in order to reach those seven-year goals. Your one-year goal might look something like this:

One-Year Goal

• Buy $60,000 worth of real estate at 20 percent down
• Buy $10,000 worth of bonds
• Buy $8,000 worth of stocks
• Get a business started

Setting Monthly, Weekly, And Daily Objectives

The next step is to break your yearly goals down into manageable, bite-sized monthly objectives.

One of the yearly objectives in our example is to get a business started. So you would break that down into 12 monthly goals - what you need to do each month to get your business up and running, from doing the initial research to the grand opening.

Then you break each of those 12 monthly goals into 4 weekly goals. For instance, if your first monthly goal in getting a new business started is to identify a good business opportunity, perhaps each of your 4 weekly goals will be to research at least 10 possibilities.

Finally, you work your way down to the action you will take each day to fulfill your weekly objective. If you have made a commitment to research 10 business opportunities each week, that means one of the top priorities on your daily to-do list will be to research two possibilities.

Expect to spend one full day planning out your year. Once a month, you'll sit down for two or three hours to map out your goals for the next four weeks. Once a week, you'll spend one hour establishing your goals for the next seven days. And you'll spend about 10 or 15 minutes each morning organizing your day.

I know that sounds like a lot, but taken all together you're really spending no more than three days a year to map out your strategy for achieving financial independence in the next 7 to 15 years.

This is how I establish my goals, focus my objectives, and set daily tasks. It's not, by any means,an entirely original system. It's a patchwork of systems that have been developed by others and added by me. But there is something about this particular system that seems to work.

It works so well, in fact, that I encourage everyone who works with me in my primary business to use it. Those who do find that it works very well. I think you will, too.$

[Ed. Note: If you're not happy with your financial situation, you're in the perfect position to change it for the better – right now. Ray has just released a special video that covers an online business system that you can use to start growing your wealth. To watch this short video, click the following link: http://www.raybuckner.com]

How Much Can You Accomplish In The Next Year?

You are making good progress. You have a vision of what you must do in the next 7 years - and you are probably feeling pretty excited about it. Use this energy to break your goals down even further by setting 1-year objectives.

This is something many people do at the beginning of every new year. But you are not going to wait for January 1 to roll around. You understand the deathly danger of procrastination. You've already felt the power of taking action. So you take the next critically important step now.

Yearly goals should be specific and, if possible, measurable. A simple one-year plan might look like this:

My Wealth-Building Goals for the Year

• Get a $10,000 raise.
• Take a course in direct marketing.
• Start my own plumbing supply Internet business.
• Make friends with 12 powerful people in the plumbing industry.

My Health Goals for the Year

• Bench Press 250 pounds.
• Run six miles in 40 minutes.
• Get my HDL cholesterol to 80 or above.
• Master the lotus position.

My Personal Relationship Goals for the Year

• Host a monthly dinner party with friends.
• Raise $5,000 for my favorite charity.
• Repair my relationship with Aunt Pollie.
• Develop the habit of remembering people's names.

My Personal Growth and Development Goals for the Year

• Become a competent judge of good wine.
• Read 12 new books about science.
• Add 50 new stamps to my stamp collection.
• Learn to play something on the guitar.

A little later in this blog, I'll show you how to break down your yearly goals into monthly, weekly, and daily objectives. (The focus will be on your wealth-building objectives, your lifetime goal of enjoying financial independence.) Plus, I'll share with you some techniques I've developed that will give you an 80 percent or better chance of actually accomplishing the goals you set for yourself.$

Getting Yourself Ready By Setting Goals

This blog is about wealth, but we are going to broaden the scope for a while and talk about what you want out of life generally. Do you have goals for your family? Social or charitable goals? Do you have personal, non-financial objectives? Do you daydream about becoming an actor, athlete, or magician? Would you like to work with children in your spare time? Or help the disabled?

If you have no goals other than becoming wealthy, your chances of success will be great - but the likelihood that you'll be dissatisfied will be great too. There is no greater financial cliche than the poor man who builds a fortune only to discover that he lost everything that was important to him.

I am not going to let that happen to you. You are going to become wealthy and wise and happy and healthy, too!

You begin the process by determining your core values.

What Do You Hope People Will Say About You At Your Funeral?

Imagine being at your funeral. You are hiding up in the balcony. You can see your coffin. Standing behind the coffin are four people:

• 
  
  Someone from your family or a close friend
• 
  
  Someone you work with
• 
  
  Someone whom you admire
• 
  
  Someone who didn't know you

What do you hope each one of them would say about you? Go ahead. Write it down. Your wish list might include statements like these:

• "He always made me feel important, even when I felt like I had nothing to give."
• "He was the best father I could have ever hoped for. He taught me to be strong and independent and he showed me that I could be brave and loving at the same time."
• "She was a brilliant writer. For someone who spent so much of her life in the business world, I was astonished at how well written her stories were."
• "I would still be working as a security guard if it were not for him. To think of what I've become. I know how much of that I owe to his help and care."

These are the things that are really important to you - your personal core values. (And I'm guessing that "He was really rich" is not something that you'd put on this list.)

Now, let's apply what you just learned about yourself to your next task...

Translate Your Core Values Into Four Lifetime Goals

If you invited all the right people to your imaginary funeral, you can now figure out what your core values are in every important aspect of your life.

Your core values might look like this:

• "As a worker, I want to be considered creative and helpful."
• "As a parent, I want to be thought of as supportive and kind."
• "As an individual, I want to be thought of as smart and interesting."

You are now going to publish this list. The point of making it is to help you know yourself in a way that matters. Which brings us to your next task: converting your core values to life goals. If you've done your work well so far - if you truly do know yourself - this will be surprisingly easy.

How many life goals should you have? Four is a good, achievable number. One of them, of course, will be to build wealth - not to accumulate money but because of what money can help you accomplish in terms of your core values. As I said in Step 1, it gives you the ability to help other people, provide for your family, pursue your intellectual and artistic interests, and become an inspiration to members of your community.

What about your other three life goals? That's up to you. But I would recommend coming up with one that has something to do with your health, one that is concerned with your personal relationships, and one that targets your growth and development.

Do that now - and put it in writing. Your list of four goals might look something like this:

1. My long-term wealth-building goal: To be financially independent. To be able to do whatever I want without worrying about money.
2. My long-term health goal: To be active, fully functioning, and pain free till age 90.
3. My long-term personal-relationship goal: To be remembered as a great dad, loving spouse, loyal friend, and charitable soul.
4. My long-term personal growth and develop0ment goal: To be a successful novelist, filmmaker, and linguist.

Lifetime goals have the advantage of being long term and thus far away. Being so distant, it's possible to imagine yourself accomplishing practically anything. That's why, if you really want to achieve your goals, you need to work with a very specific medium-term time frame. I've defined medium term as 7 to 15 years. But you should narrow it down to an exact number.

There are no absolute rules when it comes to this type of goal setting. You want your goals to be ambitious, but you also want them to be achievable. Spend some time now studying your list of lifetime goals, and figure out (and write down) specific medium-term goals for each one.$

Plan To Become Wealthy

You are about to change your financial future.

You've thought about change before, but never before have you had the feeling that you're ready for it now.

You recognize that if you don't change now, the odds will begin to turn against you. With each passing hour, day, and week, your chances of changing the direction of your life from one of financial struggling to freedom will diminish.

Take a look around you. Think about your family, friends, and colleagues. They want what you want - higher income, less stress, more fun, and enough money in the bank to quit working so hard and enjoy life.

You and they have the same basic wants, but the chances that they will achieve their dreams are small...and getting smaller every day. That is not true in your case. The difference: You've made a commitment to change.

But committing to change and changing are two different things. Unless you take action now, a year or two will pass by and you'll find yourself thinking, "What happened to that promise I made to myself? Why didn't I do it? How come I'm at the very same place, financially, that I was back then?"

Why It's So Important To Seize The Day

Let me tell you a story...

At an AWAI seminar, the publisher of a natural health newsletter business asked the participants if they wanted a shot at writing a professional promotion. Eight students raised their hands.

This was their big chance. All they had to do was follow up after the conference and they'd be on their way. Their long-held dreams of becoming professional freelance writers would become reality.

Here's what happened, according to the publisher:

"They were all very eager to get started. I expected a rush of emails and packages with everything they had ever written, including grocery lists and letters to their mothers...but...only one person has ever contacted me."

Eight people had this gold-plated opportunity to realize their dreams, yet only one actually did anything about it.

It seems astounding when you think about it. (And,by the way, the one student who did reply is now making more than $100,000 per year as a full-time freelance writer.)

Don't make that mistake yourself.

The Time To Start Is Right Now

I spend a good deal of my time mentoring people. Over the years, I've developed a pretty good sense of whether those I coach will succeed.

One thing I look for - probably the most important thing - is their time frame.

I know from experience that virtually everyone who puts off change will not make it. When I hear someone say "I'm going to start after Christmas" or "next month" or "on Tuesday," I think, "Like hell you are."

For when it comes to change, the sure sign of failure is procrastination.

Even setting a starting date of tomorrow is a bad sign. People who really, truly want to create a real and permanent change in their lives want to start now. That's how I feel every time I get on a new project, start a new business, or kick off a new exercise program. I know I've become tired with the status quo. I've figured out a way to make things better. That newness excites me.Why should I put it of?

When I catch myself saying that I'll begin at some later point in time, I know I'm in trouble.

Think about your own experience. Think about how many times did you put off starting until some convenient point in the future? And when you did, how many times did you fail?

So, are you ready to begin building wealth now? Right now?

Good.$

[Ed. Note: If you're not happy with your financial situation, you're in the perfect position to change it for the better – right now. Ray has just released a special video that covers an online business system that you can use to start growing your wealth. To watch this short video, click the following link: http://www.raybuckner.com]

How Much Of Your Income Should You Be Saving?

You want to save as much as you can without that miserable penny-pinching feeling. Said differently, you want to save as much as you can while still "living rich".

For most people, "living rich" means spending more than they make. Studies show that the more people make, the more they spend.

All those mortgages, credit cards, car loans, and other debts really add up fast. In fact, according to USA Today, the average American household had personal debt in the range of $84,454 in 2003.

Smart savers (i.e., wealth builders) understand that they don't have to spend a whole lot to live well. They know that the best things in life really are free - requiring nothing more than an investment of time and love. And the next best things - the material things that make life good - can be purchased wisely and enjoyed forever.

Smart savers know that you don't have to crank up the spending as your income increases. On the contrary, the percentage of their income that is saved increases as their income increases.

Many financial planners recommend a savings rate of 10 percent of your net (after-tax) income. My recommendation is 15 percent of your gross (pre-tax) income. That's an aggressive saving plan - but if you incorporate my ideas for living rich into your budgeting, it can be done.

The average college graduate makes $35,000 these days. Fifteen percent of that is $5,250. At the other end of the age spectrum, the average baby boomer makes $57,700. Fifteen percent of that is $8,655. Either way, that's a lot of money to sock away every year.

If you have your own business (either a full-time business or something that you do on weekends) and invest in real estate, you will be able to realize significant tax savings, even at the $35,000 income level. As a ballpark figure, I believe you should be able to reduce your taxes - state, local, and federal - to no more than $5,000 a year. That would leave you with $30,000 to live on.

Smart savers with that kind of modest income would leverage up their lifestyles by sharing living quarters with one or more people. Having your own room in a three-or four-bedroom house is generally cheaper than having a one-bedroom  house or apartment of you own. A $10,000 allocation toward the rent/mortgage and utilities would leave you about $15,000 a year (or $1,250 a month) to spend on food, clothing, and fun. By shopping wisely (vintage stores instead of The Gap; natural foods instead of manufactured crap; homemade meals instead of restaurant dates), you could live very well - even richly - on $1,250 a month.

In future blogs, I will suggest many ways to boost your income to $150,000 in three years or less. Also, I will provide specific examples of people who have done that...and better.

With an income of $150,000 a year, you can expect to be paying about 25 percent of that - or $37,500 - in taxes. The rest ($112,500) would be available for housing, "living rich," and savings.

Assuming you paid $36,000 for housing and associated costs, and then tripled your living-rich expenses to $30,000 a year ($2,500 a month), you'd have $46,000 for savings. That represents a savings rate of 40 percent. Split your housing costs with a roommate, and you'll be able to save 55 percent of your income!

Saving half of your gross income may seem insane, but it's entirely possible. And it can be done without pinching pennies. I have never denied myself anything I wanted. I have, however, learned how to make thoughtful buying decisions. By investing in products and services that truly add value to my life, that enrich my life in meaningful ways, I have started saving at least 50 percent of my gross income.

If you would like to maximize your wealth-building progress (i.e., accelerate the pace at which you acquire wealth), I recommend that you set for yourself the following rate-of-income savings targets:

• If you are making less than $30,000 a year:       15%
• More than $30,000 but less than $50,000:        20%
• More than $50,000 but less than $150,000:      25%
• More than $150,000 but less than $300,000:    30%
• More than $300,000 but less than $500,000:    35%

In the introduction to this blog, I said that getting wealthy has three components:

1. How long you invest
2. How much you invest
3. What rate of return you get on your investments

With our Seven Years to Seven Figures time limit, you have to commit yourself to both investing more every year and getting a higher ROI.

As you follow this blog, I'll teach you how to do it. I'll tell you exactly how to approach different types of investments...from real estate to stocks to your very own business.

I'll teach you about valuable income-accelerating techniques that will make it possible for you to invest a bigger chunk every year.

For now, just get some numbers in your head.

If you have a lot of money to invest right now, think in terms of 20 percent, 15 percent, or even 10 percent returns. (This means you'll be able to do most of your investing in the stock market.)

If you don't have a lot to invest, your ROI numbers will need to be higher. To get 25 percent to 35 percent, you can expect to be investing in a mixture of real estate and stocks. To get 40 percent, 45 percent, or 50 percent, you'll need to invest in real estate, stocks and small businesses. And if your situation requires you to be generating extremely high returns - 50 percent or more - to reach your wealth goal...the only way you'll be able to do it is by starting your own business.

The people I have studied have all invested in real estate or stocks. But they have all made huge amounts of money through the various businesses they've started or helped run.

With a combination of stocks, real estate, and business savvy, you can follow in their footsteps.

And just think. You are now on your way to achieving a seven-figure net worth within the next seven years!$

[Ed. Note: If you're not happy with your financial situation, you're in the perfect position to change it for the better – right now. Ray has just released a special video that covers an online business system that you can use to start growing your wealth. To watch this short video, click the following link: http://www.raybuckner.com]