How To Educate Yourself For Success – And Get Wealthy The Smart Way

““No matter what a man’s vocation or avocation may be, the nature of his progress through life is largely dependent on his ability to sell.”” – Frederick W. Nichol

It's no secret that countless studies show that better-educated people make more money. The question is, how you can YOU become richer by making yourself better educated?

Actually, this is a big topic, one that would take hours and hours to properly cover. I’'m not going to do that here, but I can give you the short and succinct version. And then we can go into it in a little more depth at some other time.

Let’'s start with this observation: Virtually all high-income individuals have two benefits. First, they are in positions of authority. (Think politicians and company presidents.) And second, they have a relatively high degree of knowledge about something valuable (as do, for example, lawyers, doctors, and engineers).

If you can get yourself into a position in which you have BOTH knowledge and authority, you can make a lotta, lotta money.

OK, So You Forgot To Get A Medical Degree . . . What Do You Do Now?

Here’'s what I would do: I would figure out what line of work I’'d like to be in and then become an expert at some aspect of it that would make me a lot of money.

What business or profession could that be in your case? Well, if you are already committed to a career, and you like it well enough, you could stick with that. If, on the other hand, you hate your work and everything about it, and everyone connected with it, you should look for greener pastures.

But for the moment, let’s say you work as a bookkeeper for a new-car dealership and are not satisfied with your $40,000 salary. You could dream of owning the business, but that’'s not likely to happen any time soon. You need money to own a car dealership. Money you don’'t have right now. For the immediate future, you have to set your sights on something that is attainable. So, look around. Aside from the owner, who else is making good money? Well, the sales manager is bringing down a steady $90,000 a year. That’'s not bad. And then there’'s Joe, the No.1 salesman, who is making even more than that.

You check it out and discover that you can’'t be the sales manager because the company has a firm policy of hiring only MBAs for that job. So that leaves you one option: becoming a salesman and going on to claim Joe’'s spot as Numero Uno Salespro.

You could tell yourself, “Forget about it! I am not a natural, and God only knows it takes a natural schmoozer to sell cars.”

But if you are smart, you will recognize that selling cars, like almost everything else in life, is a process that involves no magic, just specific actions –each of which can be studied and then learned.

Let’s say you become friendly with Joe and eventually gain his trust. You take him out for a drink one evening and get him to open up and reveal his secrets . . . the things he does to consistently outperform (and outearn) every other salesperson.

Learn To Sell Anything

I’m not an expert at selling cars, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the conversation went something like this:

Joe: “If I’'m selling to a couple, I always shake hands with the man first. That way, he feels important. Something he needs to feel to make the decision I want him to make.”

You: “That’'s neat, Joe. What else?”

Joe (smiling): “One thing I never do is say, right off, how much a car costs. If, before I’'m ready to close, a customer pops the ugly question, this is what I say: ‘Let me ask you something, Mr. So-and-So, how important is it to you to drive a car that is safe and comfortable for your family?’”

And then Joe would tell you a few more “things” he always does. Now, these “things” individually may not amount to all that much. But put together in a single presentation, they add up to this: how Joe manages to be the company’s No.1 salesperson month after month after month.

Since that – becoming as good as Joe – is your goal, these specific “things” he does are the secrets you need to learn. None of these secrets is magic. They are merely specific, “educated” actions that can be learned.

The great salesman, you now understand, is not somebody with supernatural powers but an ordinary person with specific, valuable knowledge.

The same is true of any moneymaking profession. People who actively earn high incomes do specific things that result in some desired outcome: a sold car or a perfectly designed microchip, for example.

Most people who aren’'t financially successful don’'t understand this. They feel they are adequately educated and blame their poor circumstances on factors that are either unrelated or only marginally related to their lack of success. They say their bosses don’'t like them. They claim to be victims of racism, gender bias, or prejudice. They say they are not understood. Or not properly appreciated.

If you find yourself talking that way, do yourself a favor. Button it up. Stop complaining. Dale Carnegie said the three worst things you can do are criticize, condemn, and complain. He was talking about how to win friends and influence people, but this is wisdom that can be applied equally to financial success.

Gripe Elsewhere. This Is Moneyville.

Stop complaining about your circumstances and start doing something positive. Say goodbye to the comfort of blaming others for your own shortcomings and say hello to the knowledge you need to succeed.

If you start today by identifying a specific, high-paying job that you want to do, you will have taken the first big step. Figure out what you want to do and then promise yourself that you will become an expert at it, even though you have no immediate prospects of doing it.

Starting tomorrow, learn something about that job. Find out what it takes in terms of hours and days. Find out what it typically pays and when it pays more and why. Ask about the daily routine, the common problems, the biggest challenges, and the best rewards. Ask. Observe. Read.

Keep it up, day after day, until you start to feel as if you understand the job. Then accelerate the process. Approach those, perhaps from other companies, who do the same job. Tell them what you know and ask their opinions. Admit your ambitions to them. You’'ll be surprised at how much they’'ll tell you.

As you become more and more of an expert, it will start to show. Even if you don’'t intend it to. You will be more informed. More confident. You will speak with greater authority and more clarity. People will begin to treat you differently. They will gradually come to regard you as a person who deserves their respect. You may find them asking you questions, seeking your advice. You will notice that your boss and other “superiors” will look at you and talk to you differently.

Ultimately, you will no longer feel ignored or unappreciated. Then, one day, the opportunity will assert itself. A job will open up. And you will be called in to fill it. Why? Because the word will already be out. You will have already demonstrated that you are “perfect” for the job, and so the decision to hire you will be an easy one.

In the case at hand, you will be hired as a car salesman because you know the cars– and you know their prices, and you know the selling protocols and procedures, the company requirements, the legal requirements, and so on.

Your next goal will be to outsell every other salesman. And you will do that by, again, studying the specific actions of the best salesmen and then learning those specific actions until you know them completely. That will give you the confidence to use them. And in using them, you will get the reward of seeing them work and this will give you the motivation to continue.

Before you know it, you will be at the top of the heap, earning the kind of money you are right now only dreaming about. And then you can start making promises to yourself. First to make a hundred grand. Then a million. Then 10 million. After that? Anything is possible.$

[Do you know how Facebook and Google became the most powerful companies in the world?

It’s NOT helping you share pics of last night’s dinner...
It’s NOT searching for drunken cat videos…

And it’s DEFINITELY NOT about free Gmail accounts.
 

The simple truth is Facebook and Google SELL TRAFFIC.

They SELL TRAFFIC to business owners, and that advertising revenue alone has turned them into billion dollar companies.
 

Traffic is the most valuable commodity on the Internet, and that will never change.
 

This is why using the Traffic Authority business system is the ultimate way to make extra income in your business…

Click here to watch the video and start your own premium traffic business today!]

Financial Independence: What Is It? Why Should You Want It?

“True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.”– Franklin D. Roosevelt

Twice a year, on January 1 and July 1, I review and revise my goals. When I think about Seven Years to Seven Figures — an important part of my life — I think about you and what I want for you this coming year. Here is what I came up with … You should be able to enjoy your life — whatever life you choose — without having a shroud of money-related problems over you at all times.

You should be able to quit your job if and when you want and start doing whatever it is you’ve been dreaming of doing.

You should feel confident that if something unexpected happens — an accident or illness in the family — you can take care of it.

I don’t want you to be rich, unless you want to be rich. I want you to have choices. That’s what financial independence means. Being able to choose or change your paths in life. Not being dependent on someone you don’t trust or don’t like. Having the power to take care of yourself and your loved ones. It doesn’t take a million dollars to do that. All it takes is a passive income that’s large enough to pay for your basic bills — housing, food, utilities, education, and entertainment.

Passive income — that’s the key. Passive income means income that you don’t have to spend 40 hours a week generating. It’s the income you get from your stocks, bonds, real estate, or a share in an income-producing business.

The traditional path to financial independence went something like this: Get a job with a good (preferably large) business and work hard for 40 years. Then retire on your pension and savings. You can still do that today, but it’s difficult. For one thing, there are very few businesses — large or small — that can offer you secure lifetime employment. For another thing, the cost of living is going up faster than average wage increases. Most people in the world who are strictly employees have been getting poorer, not richer, these past 20 years.

To become financially independent today, you are better off developing some kind of second income. That may be part-time consulting. Or a financially valuable skill that you can practice on the weekends, such as copywriting, resume writing, or graphic design. Or a side business like direct marketing. 

The idea is to add a second income to the income you currently have and to invest that second income in something safe and reliable that will give you passive income.

My recommendations for safe and reliable sources of passive income are bonds and real estate. The advantage of real estate is that you can generally get a much higher yield (ROI) from it than you can from bonds.

Your initial goal — in terms of becoming financially independent — is to generate passive income equal to the income you have now. If, for example, you are currently making (after taxes) $40,000 a year and that $40,000 is enough to cover your basic needs (as outlined above), your goal should be an after-tax passive income of $40,000.

To generate that much with bonds, you’d need about $800,000 in savings. To make that much with real estate, you’d need to have between $300,000 and $400,000 invested in income-producing properties. (Now you can see why I like real estate — even though it requires more work than holding bonds.)

Saving that amount of money may seem very difficult right now. But many of the people who have taken my advice about developing a side income were able to become financially independent much sooner than they expected. (All hit the mark in less than six years.)

Surprise Bonus: Once you’ve achieved financial independence, you can (and probably should) quit your job — even if you are years and years away from retirement age. The reason is that getting from financial independence to wealth is just a matter of doing more of the same thing. Not necessarily putting in a ton of extra hours but just doing more of what you like to do.

You should be able to enjoy the freedom of financial independence too. Every day in every message, I make sure that there is at least one bit of advice that will help you achieve that goal.

And every day I try to say something — or publish something that someone else has said — that will inspire you to get, and stay, on your own path to financial independence. No one cares as much about your financial future as you do. Use Seven Years to Seven Figures to help you and you’ll have helped me achieve my No. 1 SY2SF goal.$

[Do you know how Facebook and Google became the most powerful companies in the world?

It’s NOT helping you share pics of last night’s dinner...
It’s NOT searching for drunken cat videos…

And it’s DEFINITELY NOT about free Gmail accounts.
 

The simple truth is Facebook and Google SELL TRAFFIC.

They SELL TRAFFIC to business owners, and that advertising revenue alone has turned them into billion dollar companies.
 

Traffic is the most valuable commodity on the Internet, and that will never change.
 

This is why using the Traffic Authority business system is the ultimate way to make extra income in your business…

Click here to watch the video and start your own premium traffic business today!]

Seven Years to Seven Figures: Donald Trump on Negotiating

Here are Donald Trump's best tips on how to be a great negotiator:

• Consider what the other side wants.

Trump tells the story of how he acquired the tallest building in southern Manhattan, 40 Wall Street, for $1 million plus the liens. He did so because  he spoke to the owners personally, not through an agent, and found out what they wanted — in this case, to get out of real estate.

• Be reasonable and flexible.

This might not seem like the kind of tactic you’d expect from Donald Trump, but he makes the point that unless you are willing to be open-minded when it comes to deals, to think long-term and not worry so much about the small things, you may miss out on some big opportunities.

• Trust your instincts.

Against all expert advice to the contrary, Trump had a gut feeling that he could turn 40 Wall Street into the premier office location in that part of town. He ignored his advisers and made it happen.

• Know exactly what you want and keep it to yourself.

“If you’re careful about what you reveal,” Trump says, “you’ll have more flexibility as you gather more information about he contours of the deal.”

• Make sure both sides come out winning.

There was an HBO movie about Atlantic City in which Trump and Steve Wynn (the Las Vegas casino developer) are portrayed as belligerent opponents in Trump’s successful acquisition of Trump Marina for $320 million. “That is highly inaccurate,” Trump says. “The bidding contest was friendly and, though Wynn lost out in the end, the publicity helped him enormously in his eventual conquest and development of Las Vegas.”

• Let your guard down — but only on purpose.

It’s a good idea to make seemingly random, calculated off-hand comments. Sometimes, they provoke responses that are helpful in figuring out the other person’s interests and intentions.

• Be patient.

Most successful entrepreneurs like to move quickly — but there are some deals that require time. Trump says he’s learned to be patient and it’s paid off. “I’ve spent from five minutes to 15 years waiting for a deal,” he says.

Regardless of whether you like Donald Trump, he’s shown resilience and tenacity at the highest levels of business entrepreneurship. It’s worthwhile to emulate his best ideas.$

[Do you know how Facebook and Google became the most powerful companies in the world?

It’s NOT helping you share pics of last night’s dinner...
It’s NOT searching for drunken cat videos…

And it’s DEFINITELY NOT about free Gmail accounts.
 

The simple truth is Facebook and Google SELL TRAFFIC.

They SELL TRAFFIC to business owners, and that advertising revenue alone has turned them into billion dollar companies.
 

Traffic is the most valuable commodity on the Internet, and that will never change.
 

This is why using the Traffic Authority business system is the ultimate way to make extra income in your business…

Click here to watch the video and start your own premium traffic business today!]

10 Things You Can Do This Year to Be a Better and Happier Person

The secret to substantial and enduring happiness, I have discovered, has nothing to do with putting yourself first, nurturing your inner child, or any of the many other forms of narcissism so popular among today’s pop psychologists. As someone who has spent too much time in the vain (and I do mean vain) pursuit of self-satisfaction, I am here to tell you that fulfillment in life is usually about doing less for yourself and more for others.

This is not a revolutionary concept. It was, it seems to me, the essential message of Christ and Gandhi, to name just two. “Happiness and fulfillment in life,” they seemed to have been saying,” will come to you not when you are making yourself the center of your universe but when you forget yourself and look outside.” You may know that already. And you may be much further along in making it part of your life than I am in making it part of mine.

When I think about the happy people I admire, they are invariably those who are always looking out for others. I’m not speaking of missionaries and professional do-gooders but of ordinary people who make it a habit to care about those around them. They are the people who ask you how you are doing and care about your answer. They visit you when you are ill, and give you little gifts or kind words when you need them.

When involved in a negative conversation (particularly one that involves gossip or badmouthing), they find something positive to say. They are ordinary people with the same number of problems that other ordinary people have — yet, they don’t ask you to pity them. When they see you limping because of an injured knee, they don’t tell you about their aching backs. They give you sympathy and recommend helpful treatments.

When everyone gets up from the holiday meal and rushes off to have an after-dinner drink or smoke, they linger with the host — helping out by cleaning the dishes or wiping off the table. They know the names of your children. They remember your birthday. They know how you take your coffee. And though they want you to be better and stronger and more successful than you are, they never give you the feeling that they are unsatisfied with what you are, in fact, right now. I know people like that. And I am fortunate enough to be around them. 

They are also, I am really blessed to say, in my extended family and among my closest friends. And although I don’t say so enough, I am always astonished by their goodness and humbled by their strength. I am naturally inclined to be one of these good people. I am a living composite of every bad habit, obnoxious inclination, and selfish reflex known to man. But lacking those qualities makes them all the more admirable to me. And makes me want to be, a little bit each year, a better man.

So that’s my 10th big resolution this year — as it was last year: to be a better person. I invite you to make the same New Year’s resolution — to spend less time thinking about your own happiness and more time trying to make other people happy. Start with your immediate family. Your spouse and children, mother and father, aunts and uncles, and nieces and nephews were not brought into this world to listen to and/or solve your problems.

That’s your job. Resolve to spend less time complaining to them and more time listening to their complaints. Do share your dreams and ambitions with them, but don’t talk too long. And be sure you give them the time and attention they need to share their dreams and ambitions with you. Make your friends happy too. Smile when you see them. Listen to their stories. Give them the advice they want and shut up when they don’t want any. Become the person they turn to when the chips are down. Learn to love their relatively minor sins or annoyances and encourage them to overcome their faults.

Above all, be loyal to them. Be a reliable and steady resource for your business colleagues. Help them achieve their goals — not because you want their loyalty but simply because you care about them and want them to succeed. And do something for someone you don’t know — a stranger you come upon, a foster child, or a sick or poor person who can benefit from your help. Spend time and money.

Make this outward focus a natural part of your daily life. Do it purposefully and deliberately — by beginning with a set of resolutions and then transferring them to your weekly and daily task lists — till it becomes second nature to you. This is not the kind of resolution one can make and achieve in a single year. It will be on my list next year. Perhaps it will be on your list too.

[Do you know how Facebook and Google became the most powerful companies in the world?

It’s NOT helping you share pics of last night’s dinner...
It’s NOT searching for drunken cat videos…

And it’s DEFINITELY NOT about free Gmail accounts.
 

The simple truth is Facebook and Google SELL TRAFFIC.

They SELL TRAFFIC to business owners, and that advertising revenue alone has turned them into billion dollar companies.
 

Traffic is the most valuable commodity on the Internet, and that will never change.
 

This is why using the Traffic Authority business system is the ultimate way to make extra income in your business…

Click here to watch the video and start your own premium traffic business today!]

Your First and Most Important New Year’s Resolution

“There is no achievement without goals.” – Robert J. Mckain

Every year, we make 10 New Year’s resolutions — one each weekday for two weeks. The idea is that by spreading out our promises over two weeks, instead of making them all on New Year’s Day (the way most people do), we will take the time to really think about what we want to accomplish over the next 12 months.

This year, like last year, your first and most important step is to identify one significant goal in each of the four most important areas of your life:

1. Your health (without which most of the others don’t matter)

2. Your wealth (which is undeniably important — so treat it as such)

3. Your personal self (your hobbies and interests)

4. Your social self (your friends, family, and community)

Make each of your four goals significant yet specific. To do so may require setting several subordinate objectives. For example, “Being in better shape” is a significant goal, but it is not specific. “Being able to run a seven-minute mile” is specific, yet it may not seem significant to you.

Here’s my goal for health: To continue to modify my diet to help bring my blood pressure back to normal range (120/80) without the use of medication. 

Your health goal might be fitness oriented, such as: To become measurably stronger, leaner, more flexible, and to have greater endurance. Specifically, that would mean adding three pounds of muscle to your body, taking off four pounds of fat, being able to do a proper Sun Salutation in yoga, and running a mile in seven minutes.

You see how it works?

For the financial part of your life, your goals will probably be more ambitious than mine. My goal is to “stick with my seven-year financial independence plan.” That plan was set three years ago. All I have to do next year is get, overall, a 8% return on my investments and earn enough to live on. I’m probably going to do better than that. But I’m not going to think about it too much. For now, for me, health and personal goals are more important than my financial goals. For you, it might be different.

Your job today is to set these four big goals. To set them and commit to them.

The year 2016 can be the healthiest, wealthiest, and wisest year of your life. It starts today. Set your goals.$

[Do you know how Facebook and Google became the most powerful companies in the world?

It’s NOT helping you share pics of last night’s dinner...
It’s NOT searching for drunken cat videos…

And it’s DEFINITELY NOT about free Gmail accounts.
 

The simple truth is Facebook and Google SELL TRAFFIC.

They SELL TRAFFIC to business owners, and that advertising revenue alone has turned them into billion dollar companies.
 

Traffic is the most valuable commodity on the Internet, and that will never change.
 

This is why using the Traffic Authority business system is the ultimate way to make extra income in your business…

Click here to watch the video and start your own premium traffic business today!]

How to Stay Motivated About Achieving Your Long-Term Goals

 

“The highest reward for a man’s toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes.” – John Ruskin

Your most important goals — becoming rich, famous, etc. — can take time to accomplish. Sometimes years and years. How do you stick with them? How do you avoid distractions? How do you keep yourself from losing interest?

There’s only one answer to all these questions: Learn to love the process.

The process is what you engage in while you are on your way. It consists of the steps you take on your journey. It includes the little breakthroughs, the small triumphs, and the pleasure of overcoming adversity.

I do that by breaking all my long-term goals into shorter-term objectives. I’ve broken down all my lifetime goals into five-year objectives, then into yearly, monthly, and weekly objectives, and finally into daily tasks.

Each completed effort is something I feel good about. Often, I reward myself with small psychological prizes. Usually, the reward is simply the gratification I feel when I check the task off my task list. Sometimes, I reward myself with a monetary reward — a hundred dollars here, a thousand dollars there.

Let’s say you want to save a certain sum of money every month but find you don’t get any pleasure out of doing it. In that case, what you could do is pay yourself off each time you achieve that goal … perhaps with a small sum of “fun” money that you can spend any way you want to.

If, for example, your savings goal is $3,000 a month, you might give yourself a $100 bonus. The money might go to buy a nice dinner or to pay for some toy — almost anything, so long as it feels like an “extra.”

I like to give myself a cash bonus. There’s something tangible about a $20 bill that I am still very fond of. I usually spend that reward on music downloads.

Think about a long-term goal you might apply this idea to. Make deciding what the reward should be part of the enjoyment.

Hint: It’s sometimes fun to let someone else — a partner, your spouse, or even your assistant — award the bonus. That way, it feels more like a pleasant surprise.$

[Do you know how Facebook and Google became the most powerful companies in the world?

It’s NOT helping you share pics of last night’s dinner...
It’s NOT searching for drunken cat videos…

And it’s DEFINITELY NOT about free Gmail accounts.
 

The simple truth is Facebook and Google SELL TRAFFIC.

They SELL TRAFFIC to business owners, and that advertising revenue alone has turned them into billion dollar companies.
 

Traffic is the most valuable commodity on the Internet, and that will never change.
 

This is why using the Traffic Authority business system is the ultimate way to make extra income in your business…

Click here to watch the video and start your own premium traffic business today!]

When Are You Going to Start? Tomorrow? Next Week?

“Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.” – Don Marquis

If you asked me what the most common reason for failure is, I’d say procrastination.

Most of us know this. Yet, we often fail to recognize how often we make this mistake. Because we are busy with the everyday pressures of making a living and having a family, we feel it is only sensible to delay new projects until we have time “to do them well.”

As you can guess, I spend a lot of my professional and even my personal time encouraging people to carry out their ambitions. Almost every day, I am in a discussion with someone who tells me that she wants to accomplish something but admits that she hasn’t begun doing anything about it.

“I’m planning to get started as soon as I finish my master’s degree.”

Or …

“I’m going to begin next month, after I’ve finished filing my taxes.”

Or …

“I’m really eager to get started. First thing Monday morning …”

Procrastination is expressed in many ways and has many reasons, but it all means one thing: “I don’t want to start now.”

I have a 24-hour rule when it comes to getting things done. Whenever I come to the conclusion that I “have to” do something, I give myself 24 hours to take at least the first step toward getting it done.

I write it down on my daily task list. It’s highlighted in yellow. If it isn’t crossed out by the end of the day as “done,” I cancel all appointments for the following day and commit to doing nothing else.

I don’t take phone calls. I don’t read e-mail. I don’t allow people to come into my office for emergency visits. I come in early — extra early — and do nothing else but work on it.

Since I’ve been using this radical approach, I’ve been able to dramatically increase my personal productivity — and particularly in terms of goals that I have traditionally put off and put off.

By not allowing myself to procrastinate, I am doing many things I’ve always wanted to. I am healthier, wealthier, and wiser — and I wasn’t doing so badly to begin with.

Sometimes (and this honestly doesn’t happen too often), I get to my 24-hour deadline with nothing done — despite having set aside the time to get started. In those rare cases, I admit to myself that I’m emotionally incapable of accomplishing that goal. So I pull it off my list either permanently or for six months or a year, whatever feels right.

If you are putting off doing something important, it’s almost certainly because of fear. It helps to identify what exactly you are afraid of. Ask yourself, is it a fear of …

* failing?

* working hard?

* facing your ignorance?

Or could it be a fear of succeeding? I believe that some people procrastinate because they are actually content with their lives as they are and don’t really want them to change. They say they want to accomplish this or that because it seems like the right thing to do, but, in their heart of hearts, they actually don’t want anything to change (as it would if they succeeded).

I don’t know why my buddy is putting off doing his Jiu Jitsu, but I think he needs to figure out what he’s afraid of. If he can do that, we can have a productive conversation about it. We can figure out if his fear is founded and, if it is, how it can be overcome.

Take notice of the deadlines you are setting for yourself. If they are more than 24 hours away, beware. You just may be fooling yourself.$

[Do you know how Facebook and Google became the most powerful companies in the world?

It’s NOT helping you share pics of last night’s dinner...
It’s NOT searching for drunken cat videos…

And it’s DEFINITELY NOT about free Gmail accounts.
 

The simple truth is Facebook and Google SELL TRAFFIC.

They SELL TRAFFIC to business owners, and that advertising revenue alone has turned them into billion dollar companies.
 

Traffic is the most valuable commodity on the Internet, and that will never change.
 

This is why using the Traffic Authority business system is the ultimate way to make extra income in your business…

Click here to watch the video and start your own premium traffic business today!]

Resolution: Increase Your Income

Let’s start with some simple arithmetic. Joe Ordinary is 25 years old, makes $28,000 a year, and gets ordinary 3% to 4% yearly increases. Over a 40-year career, he makes approximately $2.3 million. Elwood Blues is not satisfied with ordinary. He follows the advice he gets here every morning and averages a 6% increase in wages over the same 40-year period.

By the time Elwood retires, he’s earned about $4.3 million. As you can see, increasing your income — even by as little as 3% or 4% a year — can make a giant difference over the course of a lifetime. Imagine what would happen if you could do even better than that!

Well, you can. Today, I want to talk about how you can get BIG salary increases — double, triple, or even quadruple what your peers get. And to get your New Year started right, I want you to set a “category-A” goal for yourself — to increase your salary by at least 10% this year. Let’s start with a very short discussion about how salaries work in a normal, free-market economy.

Businesses exist to make profits. As an employee of a business, it’s your job to perform a function that helps produce those profits. The more important your work is seen as being in terms of creating profits, the greater your salary is likely to be.

Thus, salespeople generally make more than accountants and profit-center managers have higher salaries than engineers. In other words, if you want to get a higher salary from your boss, you have to make yourself more valuable to her. So that could be a “category-B” goal — to make a resolution that you will find a dozen ways (say) to become more valuable to your boss.

Take a moment right now and list the ways you are currently valuable to her. Then make another list of things you can do to increase your value. That list will be a good source of ideas for writing up your monthly objectives. This month, for example, you might make it a point to get your boss her most important report a day earlier than normal.

Next month, you might tell her she can delegate to you the sales call she hates to make. As the months roll by, your boss will recognize that you are operating at a higher level. She may be surprised at first — even threatened a little, if you aren’t diplomatic about it — but she will appreciate how you are making her work life easier and more productive. And she’ll begin to depend on you.

Eventually — and this may happen in four months or it may take a year — she will see you as an entirely different and more important employee than anyone else she deals with. She will begin to think of you as indispensable. At that point, you will have no trouble getting that 10% raise. You might do much better than that.

Here’s a key point: The habits you will develop this year in order to get yourself the 10% raise will be the same habits you need to double or triple your salary in the future. Superstar employees don’t do a hundred things better than ordinary, good employees. They usually do just a handful. You’ll discover and perfect your handful this year in seeking to please your boss, and you’ll be able to use your new skills to go all the way to the top. One caution: It’s not enough just to do a better job and make your boss’s life easier.

To get that raise you want, you sometimes have to ASK FOR IT. You have to promote yourself not only when your salary review comes up but throughout the year. (Remember, it’s your responsibility to make sure you get noticed — it’s not the responsibility of those you work for.) Another caution: Sometimes, what you have to do to please your boss is not necessarily the best thing for the business. Some businesses — and this happens more often with larger, corporate businesses than with growing enterprises — become fractionalized and politicized in parts.

In such businesses, it’s possible to get a job working for someone who doesn’t really care about making the business grow profitably. He cares only about himself. If you have such a boss, you have to be a bit duplicitous. You have to do everything you can to please your boss (or he will fire you) — and at the same time, you have to find a mentor at your boss’s level (or above) whose interests are aligned with those of the company.

Work to please your mentor at the same time as you work to please your boss. By pleasing your boss, you keep yourself employed and you’ll get your raise. And by pleasing your mentor, you will be able to get away from your boss (when the time comes to abandon his rotten ship) to a secure, inside position.

The work you do that makes your company better is the most important work you will do (for your company and for yourself). Only by making your business better can you expect to make dramatically more money than you do now. The greater your contribution toward your company’s success, the higher the salary you will demand. The best way to be a big contributor is to practice a financially valuable skill. I’ve made this point over and over again in past messages.

For example, I said: “You can’t earn a high income, consistently, unless you have a financially valuable skill. To merit a lot of money for your time, you must do something very well that creates value for others.” In business, there aren’t a whole lot of financially valuable skills to choose from.

Though it’s good to know how to analyze a spreadsheet, write a balance sheet, or engineer a new design, if you want to break into the big bucks at work, you are almost certainly going to have to start doing at least one of the three things businesses traditionally pay big bucks for:

* selling

* marketing, and/or

* managing profits

Yes, I know you’ve heard it before. And, no, I won’t be angry with you if you decide to stick with what you already know. I’m just pointing out that in going after this goal of increasing your income, there is the standard ladder (i.e., becoming more valuable to and pleasing your boss) and then there is the jet-propelled way — which might mean changing your profession. Whichever way you take, you can and should be able to boost your salary by 10% this year.

That is what your goal is — and here is how you are going to do it:

1. Make a resolution to be more valuable to your boss (and/or your business — see above). Do it now. Write it down.

2. Make a resolution to develop one or more of the three financially valuable skills identified above.

3. Make a list of a dozen or so ways you can please your boss and/or improve your business. Write these down too. And pick one or several of them as monthly objectives for January.

4. Figure out some way to communicate to your boss or to your company’s president that you want to make a bigger contribution this year. (No need to tell him you want a higher salary. He will “get that” without your saying so.) Will this be enough?

Last January, an old friend of mine mentioned to me that she was struggling on her yearly $45,000 income. She told me she was “hoping for a 5% raise” but was worried that she might get less because her company was floundering. I gave her the advice I just gave you — and she brushed me off. Then, in April, in an e-mail message on an unrelated topic, she again mentioned that she was “struggling to make ends meet.” I told her — almost rudely — that I didn’t think she had any right to worry or complain, since I had given her the solution she needed. She e-mailed me back to say that she thought my advice was “just like all the good advice I read — well-meaning but not relevant to my situation.”

We discussed her “situation,” and, not surprisingly, it was not as special as she thought. This turned into a challenge. I told her that if she didn’t get a 10% raise by following my advice, I’d give it to her myself. She refused the charity (smart woman that she is) but accepted the dare. It wasn’t even six months later that she wrote to tell me she’d been promoted. Her new salary? $62,000. If you set for yourself the modest goal of getting a 10% raise this year — and get it … and then get an increase of just half that amount for the next 10 or 15 years … you’ll be worth millions more when you retire than you will be worth if you do nothing. So start with that 10% goal.

And develop the habit of making yourself more valuable. Don’t brag, but do promote yourself. Then watch your income grow!$

[Do you know how Facebook and Google became the most powerful companies in the world?

It’s NOT helping you share pics of last night’s dinner...
It’s NOT searching for drunken cat videos…

And it’s DEFINITELY NOT about free Gmail accounts.
 

The simple truth is Facebook and Google SELL TRAFFIC.

They SELL TRAFFIC to business owners, and that advertising revenue alone has turned them into billion dollar companies.
 

Traffic is the most valuable commodity on the Internet, and that will never change.
 

This is why using the Traffic Authority business system is the ultimate way to make extra income in your business…

Click here to watch the video and start your own premium traffic business today!]

Make Your Personal Life Richer Next Year

Although he is one of the most accomplished leaders and politicians in the world's history, Winston Churchill also indulged in several hobbies. In fact, for Churchill, hobbies were the ideal way for him to work through some of the most difficult political problems he was faced with, during his long and distinguished career. 

Frequently turning to painting as a pastime, Winston Churchill was known for entering his study to paint for hours on end, with strict instructions to not disturb him. During the war, these painting sessions sometimes extended far into the night. Yet, he didn't come to this hobby early in life; he began painting when he was far into his adult years, at the age of 40.

What are your hobbies? If you say “watching sports on television,” I’ve got news for you. That’s not a hobby. It’s a habit, and a bad one at that. A hobby is, or should be, something that makes your life richer.

The kind of hobby that Winston Churchill would have recommended is one that might:

* stimulate your imagination

* satisfy your curiosity

* give you a sense of peace

* sharpen your senses

* broaden your knowledge

Maybe even stave off senility. By this, more demanding, definition, reading could be a hobby or it could merely be a habit. The difference would be in what you chose to read. If the purpose of your reading is amusement and the result is nothing but amusement, then what you are doing is better, but not much better, than watching television. I’m not opposed to mindless amusement, but, like junk food, it must be consumed in small quantities on a very occasional basis. If you do more than that, you will get fat.

Having two or three challenging and/or stimulating hobbies will make your life infinitely better. It will give you ways to soothe your agita and make rainy days something to look forward to. It will fill up your spare moments. It will keep you feeling young and alive. And it will keep you from getting lonely. People who pursue interesting hobbies are themselves more interesting. They tend to have broad and active intellects, spirited hearts, and youthful souls.

Spend some time today figuring out how much time you waste every week watching television, reading mindless books, or fiddling around with some other junk activity. Then promise yourself that you’ll devote at least half that time to the pursuit of hobbies that will improve you.

Here are some hobbies I can recommend from personal experience:

1. writing and/or reading poetry

2. creating and/or studying art

3. studying and practicing a foreign language

4. keeping a journal

5. learning to enjoy wine and/or food

6. collecting something you love

7. photography

8. writing your family history

9. making movies and/or writing screenplays

10. learning to dance and dancing

11. designing and tending gardens

Churchill recommended two or three, and that is probably enough. I have a few more than that. Since I don’t feel compelled to devote any minimum amount of time to any of them, it doesn’t seem excessive to me. I tend to focus on a smallish group of them at a time — and when I get “enough” of them, I stop for a while.

This year, I faithfully kept a journal, studied wine and art history, and learned some Spanish. Now and then, I’d write a poem or take some artsy photos. I did that when it felt like fun. Next year, I think I’ll do some fiction writing and get back to dancing. What are you going to do? Make a promise. Allocate the time.

IT’S GOOD TO KNOW: WHY JOB INTERVIEWERS ASK ABOUT YOUR HOBBIES

Two questions commonly asked by job interviewers are “What are your hobbies?” and “Do you play any sports?” There’s a reason for that. According to an article that appeared a while ago in USA Today, the interviewer is not simply curious as to whether you have a life — he may be looking for evidence that you have job-related skills outside of your professional experience.

If, for example, you play chess or bridge, that shows you have analytical skills. Reading, music, and painting demonstrate your creativity. Individual sports show that you have determination and stamina. And participation in group sports indicates that you are comfortable working as part of a team.$

[Do you know how Facebook and Google became the most powerful companies in the world?

It’s NOT helping you share pics of last night’s dinner...
It’s NOT searching for drunken cat videos…

And it’s DEFINITELY NOT about free Gmail accounts.
 

The simple truth is Facebook and Google SELL TRAFFIC.

They SELL TRAFFIC to business owners, and that advertising revenue alone has turned them into billion dollar companies.
 

Traffic is the most valuable commodity on the Internet, and that will never change.
 

This is why using the Traffic Authority business system is the ultimate way to make extra income in your business…

Click here to watch the video and start your own premium traffic business today!]