Or, “How To Get Rich and Lose 30 Pounds, in 30 Minutes – Guaranteed!” For as long as marketing has existed, there have always been ridiculous claims made that on the surface, everyone knows are stupid. Logically, we KNOW that it’s not really possible to become a millionaire in a few weeks, lose 30 pounds in 30 days (and keep it off), or create some other life altering result in a very short period of time. However, what provides never-ending fuel for these kinds of claims to keep working is that human beings make decisions based on emotions, not on facts. This powerful fundamental explains why people invest in things they KNOW they shouldn’t, buy products they KNOW won’t work, and believe people they should NOT trust. By and large, we are conditioned by marketing to expect immediate, instant results in everything we do, and the implication is that there is some special “secret” that, if only you knew it .. you could do it too. Become a millionaire in 5 years? Man, that’s way too long! I wanna be driving my Bentley by December. Lose 10 pounds in 45 days? Forget it, I wanna lose a pound a day. And we’re continually being conditioned to believe that you can generate these kinds of results not only in a short period of time, but with very little effort. The human mind is built to seek out short-cuts. There’s simply too much information coming at us, so we rely on short-cuts our mind creates to make sense of everything. For example, if you want to buy the best quality product in a certain category, should you buy the least expensive or the most expensive? Well obviously, you’d buy the most expensive, because that will be the best quality. Right? Well, maybe. See, that’s a short-cut that all of us have learned. Our brain assumes that the most expensive is often the best quality. However, is this always true? Of course not! The suits sold in Nordstrom’s or Holt Renfrew are often the same suits sold in discount department stores, but with a different label. We assume these high end stores sell ‘only the best’, yet it’s not always true. A recent book, “The 4 Hour Work Week”, is a great example of great marketing that sells a concept that people like on the surface, but doesn’t really work in real life for the typical person reading it. Anyone who thinks it’s possible to get rich working 4 hours a week is fooling themselves! I know a lot of rich people, and I can tell you with absolute certainty, NONE of them got wealthy by working 4 hours a week! Now, some will say it IS possible to get rich in 4 hours a week. I’m not saying it’s impossible.. just that it’s VERY, VERY unlikely.. and even less likely you can keep it over the long term.. because what made you rich won’t keep you rich. Quite often, you’ll watch someone on an informercial talk about how they made $47,500 doing a deal that only took them 3 hours. And that happens all the time, I readily admit. In fact, it’s happened to me many times. A couple of months ago (as I outlined here on my blog), I made $150,000 in literally 2 hours by discounting that mortgage on one of my properties. But HERE is the point — it didn’t take me just 2 hours. Yes, it took me 2 hours to SEE the opportunity and capitalize on it. But how long did it take for me to GET INTO POSITION to have the knowledge and ability to act on that opportunity? The truth is, it probably took thousands of hours, and a lot of deals under my belt, for me to SEE that opportunity to take advantage of it. This explains why it often seems like wealthy people are able to quickly generate huge returns on their investments.. and it true. Not because they have some magical touch, but because they have the knowledge and expertise to capitalize on and execute opportunities much faster, and much more confidently. If I was a brand new investor who didn’t have any experience or knowledge, I wouldn’t have been able to see that opportunity to begin with. In other words, there is usually A LOT of hidden time invested by someone who appears to make a bundle of money overnight. As my coach and friend Keith Cunningham likes to say, “Success Never Goes On Sale”. You HAVE to pay full price for success. Expecting a lot by putting in a little is a bad philosophy, and ultimately the reason why most people don’t succeed or achieve their potential. And this is what drives me crazy about so much of the marketing out there, whether it’s for seminars, products or anything else. A lot of people are out there selling boatloads of books on the topic of “Passive Income”. Well I believe that by and large, passive income is a myth. I don’t know of one single business owner that’s gotten rich following this insane theory.. yet it continues to sell millions of books because emotionally, people want to believe they can get something for nothing. I see guys all the time pitching real estate training programs on the basis you can create “seven figures” in less than a year. Is it POSSIBLE? Yes, of course it is. I do that EVERY year now, as do a lot of people I know. Increasing my net worth by seven figures is not a challenge to me, because I have the knowledge and expertise to do it consistently and predictably. However, for someone just getting into real estate, it is VERY difficult. When I speak and do my training, I take great pains to ensure that people understand I’m not the kind of guy to sugar coat what I say, and that what I teach may not be what people want to hear, but it’s definitely what they need to hear. My favorite saying (as many of you know) is that “Real estate is simple .. but it’s not easy.” In the 4 Hour Work Week, the author suggests that he became the national Chinese kick boxing champion not because he was a good kick boxer, but because he read the rules and figured out a loophole. The rules suggested if a competitor stepped out of bounds 3 times in a match, they were immediately disqualified. So, he decided to enter the competitions — with apparently NO training or years of practice and dedication, like all of the other competitors — and simply push his competitor out of the ring repeatedly. He did this, and much to the chagrin of the industry, he became the national Chinese kick boxing champion. I don’t know about you, but I prefer to be considered a champion because I excel at the skill or sport I am competing in.. not by gaming the system and relying on a technical rule to get my competition disqualified. The story of how that guy became champion may be the single greatest lesson of how losers think when they want to be number one. Rather than figuring out how to become GREAT, they figure out how to become DEVIOUS. Now, don’t get me wrong. I think there are lots of great messages in his book. I definitely like the idea of spending more of your time doing what you love, and minimizing the time it takes to be successful. And, from a pure marketing perspective, I think he’s a genius because he’s built a speaking and publishing business with a lack of actual business success in his history. However, I think taking alot of his advice is dangerous. Keith put it best when I was with my Board of Directors last week — “Working 4 hours a week will definitely work for you .. as long as your competitors only work 3 hours a week. But if they work 60 or 70 hours a week, like most business owners I know, they’ll kick the hell out of you.“ In the past, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to find the short-cut, the “easy way”, the path that got me there before everyone else with less work. I got to a point a few years ago when I realized that what separates the super-successful from the mediocre is that every successful person I know is willing to do whatever it takes to succeed.. those who practice mediocrity are willing to do the minimum they can slide by with. There are lots of great ways to make sure your path to success is efficient, but don’t fall for the trap that so many marketers set for you — success doesn’t go on sale. Name any wealthy or successful person you can, and I guarantee — none of them got there by doing the minimum necessary. Remember that when someone tells you they made “$30,000 in 3 hours” or some equally foolish claim, ask yourself .. how much time REALLY went into creating that success? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that same result .. or are you trying to slide by with doing the minimum necessary? Be honest with yourself, because the result — and your commitment to doing the right thing and NOT the easy thing — is what ultimately will lead you to success or mediocrity. ]]>