This book is a New York Times Best Seller and I can see why. If you’re not familiar with the authors, they’re hitters. Mark Victor Hansen is co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul with Jack Canfield. This book and series have sold more than 65 million copies. That’s really amazing. I read one of Robert Allen’s books in the late 90’s called Multiple Streams of Income. This was and is a great book and is more relevant today than ever before. Think about it. Years ago, one person could work and support the family and then both spouses needed to work to support the family. At times like this, two people working is not enough due to the employment situation and price pressures on living expenses. Multiple Streams of Income shows you the power of making your money work harder than you do in multiple areas. I’ll profile that book in a future roundup.
Why is this important to me? Asking you to read a 400 page book is a tall order and a request for your time. So I want to make sure it’s worth your while to do it. In my humble opinion, this book is worth it. It is designed for total retention of the mind. What this means is that it is two books in one. The left side of the book is the nuts and bolts and left brain stuff that shows you how to do it. The right side of the book is the right brain material that shows you in a candid story, the principles at work. This makes it much more relatable to the reader. These two authors are on a personal mission to create 1,000,000 millionaires. This is a tall vision that could be seen as a gimmick. It’s not a trick. You will find that the principles are sound and easy to follow. One thing that drives people is incentives. The stronger the pain, the more incentive there is to fix it. This is a key component to success and is shown throughout the book.
3 This book is packed with great information, as well as an excellent story to demonstrate the concepts. For reasons of time, I will talk about the Millionaire Formula that consists of the following:
1. Dream: This is the incentive part. The authors have a vision of creating 1,000,000 millionaires. This is imprinted and is part of your DNA. It’s what I call your Mandatory Why! Without this, your dreams are more of a fantasy. There has to be a real incentive to do the work. Imagine this, your husband dies, you are left with two children and no money, and your parents take custody of YOUR children. They have a lot of money and you are broke. What is your job? After you suck your thumb, you find a way to fix the problem. This is the fictional story of this book.
2. Team: Every successful person talks about the power of teams. Teams allow you to take advantage of OPE, OPT, OPW – the experience, time and work of other people. When you find teammates with the same Dream, you build a powerful force and make the job much easier to accomplish. Thus, you get the power of time leverage because, simply put, two heads are better than one.
3. Theme – The theme is the way you decide to set up your multiple streams of income. You can use a business, licenses, real estate, investments and the Internet. I want to spend more time on the subject.
I want to relate each of these pillars based on some of the things I’ve done. I am a work in progress and have experienced both sides of the sword on each of these cubes. Based on my initial result on each one, I should be on the street corner with a sign saying, “Please help, I need a 12 step program to stop losing money.” Hopefully, you can take advantage of the good and eliminate the bad. Remember that to truly understand an issue, you have to study both sides. Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s partner always says: invest, invest, invest.
1. Businesses: A business can by far generate wealth faster than any other cube described. It is also the most difficult. One of the key components outlined is team building. I can tell you that if you look for the wrong partners, you’ll lose money and get old fast. Please think a little about who you associate with. I’ve lost more money and gotten more butt rubs from the wrong people, so I implore you to give this some thought. A good place to start is by outlining the outlet. What if we both want to date? How does it work? How do we value each part? When you start with the end in mind, at least you know how you can solve the problem. The real benefit of the business is the structure. It goes from “Earn-Tax-Spend” to “Earn-Spend-Tax”, which is a huge advantage over time.
2. Real Estate – More fortunes have been made in Real Estate. There are several types and you need to be educated and take advantage of the right resources to be successful. You earn money from the purchase and the goal is to be cash flow positive every month. If you are looking to invest, you should make sure you use 1031 exchanges to avoid taxes. As everyone knows, you can lose your tail in Real Estate if you’re not careful with debt or fall for the deal. find out.
3. Licensing – I first read about this in Robert’s book, Multiple Streams of Income. Licensing is anything you can replicate and get paid for. So if you create software, music, books, or content that other people want, then you can get a license. We’ve done this in the software world and it’s powerful because the cost of your next unit is close to zero. The headache involved is that you need to invest a ton of time and money up front and your payoff can be three years in the future. This is the reason why licensing is so strong. Today, if you’re smart, you can create mobile apps and license them for Android and Apple. This is one way you can make a 99 cent article and get a million downloads. There are 15 year olds doing this as we speak.
4. Invest – Paper investing is probably the easiest to do and the one where most people lose money. If you look at investing in the stock market, it’s really hard to beat the S&P 500 over time. Everyone knows that you buy low and sell high, but there is a small force called EMOTION and 90% of people end up buying high and selling low. Again, this requires education. You need to understand the difference between price and value. A $50 share may be “cheaper” than a $5 share in terms of price and value.
The One Minute Millionaire is a good book to read if you really want to build wealth for yourself and your family. I thought it was a hack trying to take advantage of the One Minute Manager concept. It’s not a gimmick and the principles are sound. Anytime you can tap into the knowledge of two people who have generated over a billion dollars in business, they are worth studying.
I hope you found this short summary useful. The key to any new idea is to work it into your daily routine until it becomes a habit. Habits are formed in as little as 21 days. One thing you can take away from this book is DREAM. What is your compelling WHY? If you have the right incentives, then the way to break up is easy. Spend some time over the next two weeks and really decide what you want and GET STARTED. Taking action will put you in front of 90% of people.