Editor’s Note: Happy New Year from the Palm Beach Research Group. As “Pledge Week 2016” winds down, it’s not too late to get your wealth-building goals in order.
We’re featuring the best ideas for living richer in 2016… and we’re making commitments that’ll improve our lives. Yesterday, Mark helped you pledge to push yourself mentally, physically, and emotionally this year…
Today, we’re making it happen…
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From Mark Ford, founder, Palm Beach Research Group: Welcome to the New Year! Did you read through your pledges this morning? If not, do it now.
You’ve been practicing your new, better life for almost a full week. You’re eating better, exercising more, getting to work earlier, and gearing up to do everything a little smarter than you did last year. Right?
If so, you’re off to a great start. (If not, don’t worry. It’s not too late to start… right now!)
Yesterday, you promised to push yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally this year. Today, you’re going to promise to make it happen.
Here’s what I mean by “make it happen”…
A while ago, I was talking to my dance instructor, PL, about his life and career. He’s a very ambitious guy who shares many interests with me: jiujitsu, screenwriting, and dance… to name a few.
At the time, PL was well on his way to making his screenwriting dream come true. He’d written more than a half-dozen screenplays and had most of them optioned. He had several Hollywood agents working for him.
But he was still poor as a church mouse… struggling to pay for his life—and his jiujitsu lessons—on a dance instructor’s salary.
I explained to him my idea about developing a financially valuable skill.
He agreed that—other than writing screenplays (which hadn’t yet paid off)—he had none.
I told him about the American Writers & Artists Institute (AWAI) copywriting program—how it was designed to make six-figure copywriters out of ordinary people.
He called the next day to get started.
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There’s a difference between financially valued skills and financially valuable skills. Financially valued skills include doctoring, lawyering, and playing world-class basketball. You can get paid a lot of money for your time practicing those skills. That’s because—as the term implies—they’re valued. Financially valuable skills—like financially valued skills—create income. But these also create long and lasting wealth. If you want the ability to create wealth time and again—regardless of your age or your circumstances—you must master at least one financially valuable skill. There are many financially valued skills… but only a handful of financially valuable ones. The five big financially valuable ones are marketing, selling, creating saleable ideas, buying right, and managing for profits. |
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I’ve offered the AWAI program to many people in similar situations.
Few of them followed up on it… despite the fact that those who’ve finished it have gone on to make six-figure incomes (while working from home).
What usually happens is they accept the basic program (worth $500) with a modest “thank you.” They put it on their desks or on their bookshelves and never look at it.
If they call me again for help, I remind them there’s nothing I can do for them until they’ve finished the program.
Not long after I gifted PL the program, he told me he’d finished it. I almost didn’t believe him. This course should take six months to finish. A very motivated person can do it in half that time.
PL had done it in four weeks. But something even more dramatic happened.
He handed me a sample copywriting assignment—modeled on one of the assignments in the course… but aimed at a mail-order business idea he’d come up with.
The copy was very good—way better than what I’d expect from someone who’d put in the full six months of work.
It was so good, I made some contacts on his behalf. And I committed to personally mentoring his next few projects.
PL went on to develop a good business and he’s been making north of $250,000 every year since.
He bought a house, invested in rental real estate, and started a few side businesses. He does stand-up comedy… and even developed a sketch comedy group that performs in Florida and Los Angeles.
Which Palm Beach Research Group team member is pledging today?
If PL can do it, so can you. Just promise yourself you’ll get off your ass this year and get things done.
And not just done eventually… but done in record time. Astonish yourself. Be successful.
Surely you have a secret goal you’ve never accomplished. I’m not talking about some dream involving luck (like winning the lottery). I’m talking about an accomplishment of some kind—like writing a book… or building a log cabin… or learning to fly.
Several years ago, I had an unfulfilled dream of my own.
I’d always fantasized about writing and making a movie. It was an absurd idea. I knew nothing about making movies. I had no contacts in the movie business. I didn’t even have an idea for a screenplay.
Yet, despite everything that suggested my dream was foolish, I decided to make it one of my New Year’s resolutions.
And had I not implemented my goal-setting system, what followed next would’ve never come to be…
I made a deal with a friend to work jointly on the movie, and we gradually got started. I had a budget of a few thousand dollars.
In the end, I came out with my first documentary film. (Three more films followed this first one… each with a larger budget and each better than the last. The most recent one—a comedic coming-of-age story about three childhood friends in South Florida in the 1970s called After Midnight—is currently being edited.)
I wouldn’t say my first film was a great one. In fact, it’s not even a good movie. But it was a dream. And I did it.
What’s your dream? Writing a song? Driving a Porsche?
Spend a few minutes right now. Give yourself permission to imagine doing something your life keeps telling you you can’t do.
Imagine it. Then figure out a way you can do it. Make that today’s New Year’s pledge.
You don’t have to achieve your entire dream in 2016. Just determine how much of it you can do in the next 12 months… and make that your goal.
If you did this last year—and accomplished your dream—I want to hear about it. Please let me know by writing to me here. Your story will inspire other PBRG readers to do the same.
If you resolved to accomplish some impossible dream last year, but fell short of your goal in 2015, don’t despair.
Ask yourself these questions:
- Were my expectations unrealistic?
- Did I break down my one-year goal into doable monthly goals—and then break my monthly goals down into doable important but non-urgent daily tasks?
- Did I try to do too much each day and shirk these tasks because they weren’t urgent?
Once you’ve figured out why you failed, resolve to succeed this time.
Remember, success is what happens after you’ve learned from failing. Congratulate yourself for trying.
Make a new, realistic resolution. Get going.
Reeves’ Note: Over two intense years, Mark went from $60,000 in debt to a Palm Beach millionaire. And he believes anyone—with the proper mindset and the right plan—can follow suit. He shares the exact blueprint he used—and shows how to live rich in the meantime—in his prized coaching service, the Wealth Builders Club.
If you’re looking to get on track in the New Year—financially, mentally, emotionally—the club delivers the most comprehensive plan and strategy you could follow. But they’re shutting down the membership initiative tomorrow. This may be your last opportunity to set out on a life-changing 2016. Click here to reserve your spot.