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 People are shocked, at the beginning of my seminars, when one of the first things I tell them is "Don't believe a word I say." Why would I suggest that? Because I can only speak from my own experience. None of the concepts and insights I share are inherently true or false, right or wrong. They simply reflect my own results, and the amazing results I've seen in the lives of thousands and thousands of my students. Having said that, however, I believe that if you use the principles you learn in this book, you will totally transform your life. Don't just read this book. Study it as if your life depended on it. Then try the principles out for yourself. Whatever works, keep doing. Whatever doesn't, you're welcome to throw away.
I know I may be biased, but when it comes to money, this may be the most important book you have ever read. I understand that's a bold statement, but the fact is, this book provides the missing link between your desire for success and your achievement of success. As you've probably found out by now, those are two different worlds.
 
No doubt you've read other books, listened to tapes or CDs, gone to courses, and learned about numerous get-rich systems be they in real estate, stocks, or business. But what happened? For most people, not much! They get a short blast of energy, and then it's back to the status quo.
Finally, there's an answer. It's simple, it's law, and you're not going to circumvent it. It all comes down to this: if your subconscious "financial blueprint" is not "set" for success, nothing you learn, nothing you know, and nothing you do will make much of a difference.
In the pages of this book, we will demystify for you why some people are destined to be rich and others are destined for a life of struggle. You will understand the root causes of success, mediocrity, or financial failure and begin changing your financial future for the better. You will understand how childhood in?uences shape our financial blueprint and how these in?uences can lead to self-defeating thoughts and habits. You will experience powerful declarations that will help you replace your nonsupportive ways of thinking with mental "wealth files" so that you think-and succeed-just as rich people do. You will also learn practical, step-by-step strategies for increasing your income and building wealth.

In Part I of this book, we will explain how each of us is conditioned to think and act when it comes to money, and outline four key strategies for revising our mental money blueprint. In Part II, we examine the differences between how rich, middle-class, and poor people think, and provide seventeen attitudes and actions to take that will lead to permanent changes in your financial life. Throughout the book we also share just a few examples of the thousands of letters and e-mails I've received from students who have attended the Millionaire Mind Intensive Seminar and achieved powerful results in their lives.
 
So what is my experience? Where am I coming from? Was I always successful? I wish!
Like many of you, I supposedly had a lot of "potential" but had little to show for it. I read all the books, listened to all the tapes, and went to all the seminars. I really, really, really wanted to be successful. I don't know whether it was for the money, the freedom, the sense of achievement, or just to prove I was good enough in my parents' eyes, but I was almost obsessed with becoming a "success." During my twenties, I started several different businesses, each with the dream of making my fortune, but my results went from dismal to worse.
I worked my butt off but kept coming up short. I had "Loch Ness monster disease": I had heard of this thing called profit, I just never saw any of it. I kept thinking, "If I just get into the right business, get on the right horse, I'll make it." But I was wrong. Nothing was working...at least for me. And it was the last part of that sentence that finally struck me. How come others were succeeding in the exact same business I was in and I was still broke? What happened to "Mr. Potential"?
So I began doing some serious soul-searching. I examined my true beliefs and saw that even though I said I really wanted to be rich, I had some deep-rooted worries about it. Mostly I was afraid. Afraid that I might fail, or worse, succeed and then somehow lose it all. Then I'd really be a schmuck. Worse, I would blow the one thing I had going for me: my "story" that I had all this "potential." What if I found out I didn't have what it took and I was destined to a life of struggle?
 
Then, as luck would have it, I got some advice from an extremely rich friend of my father's. He was at my parents' house playing cards with the "boys" and, in passing, noticed me. This was the third time I'd moved back home, and I was living in the "lower-level suite," otherwise known as the basement. I suppose my dad had complained to him of my woeful existence because when he saw me, he had the sympathy in his eyes usually reserved for the bereaved at a funeral.
He said, "Harv, I started in the same way as you, a complete disaster." Great, I thought, this was making me feel a lot better. I should let him know that I was busy...watch-ing the paint peel off the wall.
He kept going: "But then I got some advice that changed my life, and I'd like to pass it on to you." Oh, no, here comes the father-son lecture, and he's not even my father! Finally he came out with it: "Harv, if you're not doing as well as you'd like, all that means is there's something you don't know." Being a brash young man at the time, I thought I knew pretty well everything, but alas, my bank account said something different. So I finally began to listen. He continued, "Did you know that most rich people think in very similar ways?"
I said, "No, I never really considered that." To which he replied, "It's not an exact science, but for the most part, rich people think a certain way and poor people think a completely different way, and those ways of thinking determine their actions and therefore determine their results." He went on, "If you thought the way rich people do and did what rich people do, do you believe you could become rich too?" I remember answering with all the con?dence of a mush ball, "I think so." "Then," he replied, "all you have to do is copy how rich people think."
 
Being the skeptic I was at the time, I said, "So what are you thinking right now?" To which he replied, "I'm thinking that rich people keep their commitments and mine is to your dad right now. The guys are waiting for me, see ya." Although he walked out, what he said sank in.
Nothing else was working in my life, so I figured what the heck and threw myself wholeheartedly into studying rich people and how they think. I learned everything I could about the inner workings of the mind, but concentrated primarily on the psychology of money and success. I discovered that it was true: rich people really do think differently from poor and even middle-class people. Eventually, I became aware of how my own thoughts were holding me back from wealth. More important, I learned several powerful techniques and strategies to actually recondition my mind so that I would think in the same ways rich people do.
Finally, I said, "Enough yakking about it, let's put it to the test." I decided to attempt yet another business. Because I was really into health and exercise, I opened one of the first retail fitness stores in North America. I didn't have any money, so I had to borrow $2,000 on my Visa card to get the business started. I began using what I'd learned by modeling rich people, both in terms of their business strategies and their thinking strategies. The first thing I did was commit to my success and playing to win. I swore I would focus and not even consider leaving this business until I was a millionaire or more. This was radically different from my previous efforts, where, because I always thought short-term, I would constantly get sidetracked by either good opportunities or when things got tough.
 
I also began challenging my mental approach whenever I began thinking in financially negative or counterproductive ways. In the past, I believed that what my mind said was truth. I learned that in many ways, my mind was my biggest obstacle to success. I chose not to entertain thoughts that did not empower me toward my vision of wealth. I used every one of the principles you are going to learn in this book. Did it work? Boy, did it work!
The business was so successful that I opened ten stores in only two and a half years. I then sold half the company shares to a Fortune 500 company for $1.6 million.
After that, I moved to sunny San Diego. I took a couple of years off to reflne my strategies and began doing one-on-one business consulting. I presume it was quite effective for people because they kept bringing friends, partners, and associates to our sessions. Soon I was coaching ten and sometimes twenty people at a time.
One of my clients suggested that I might as well open up a school. I thought that was a great idea, so I did. I founded the Street Smart Business School and taught thousands of people all across North America "street-smart" business strategies for "high-speed" success.
As I traveled across the continent giving my seminars, I noticed something strange: You could have two people sitting side by side in exactly the same room, learning exactly the same principles and strategies. One person would take these tools and skyrocket to success. But what do you think might happen to the person sitting right next to him or her? The answer is, not much!
That's when it became obvious that you can have the greatest "tools" in the world, but if you've got a tiny leak in your "toolbox" (I'm pointing to my head right now), you've got a problem. So I designed a program called the Millionaire Mind Intensive based on the inner game of money and success. When I combined the inner game (the toolbox) with the outer game (the tools), virtually everybody's results went through the roof! So that's what you're going to learn in this book: how to master the inner game of money to win the game of money-how to think rich to get rich!
 
People often ask me whether my success was a "one-shot deal" or whether it has continued. Let me put it this way: Using the exact principles I teach, I have now earned millions and millions of dollars and am a multimultimillionaire several times over. Virtually all my investments and business ventures seem to skyrocket! Some people tell me I have the "Midas touch," where everything I get involved in turns to gold. They're right, but what they may not realize is that having a Midas touch is simply another way of saying, having a "financial blueprint" set for success, which is exactly what you will have once you learn these principles and do this work.
Early on during our Millionaire Mind Intensive Seminar, I generally ask the audience, "How many of you came here to learn?" It's a bit of a trick question because as author Josh Billings said, "It's not what we don't know that prevents us from succeeding; it's what we know that just ain't so that is our greatest obstacle." This book is not as much about learning as it is about "unlearning"! It is essential you recognize how your old ways of thinking and acting have gotten you exactly where you are right now.
If you're really rich and really happy, fine. But if you're not, I invite you to consider some possibilities that may not fit into your "box" of what you currently think is right or even appropriate for you.
 
Even though I suggest that you "don't believe a word I say" and want you to test these concepts out in your own life, I'm going to ask you to trust the ideas you are reading. Not because you know me personally, but because thousands and thousands of people have already changed their lives as a result of the principles in this book.
Speaking of trust, it reminds me of one of my favorite stories. It's about a man who is walking along a cliff and all of a sudden loses his balance, slips, and falls off. Fortunately, he has the presence of mind to grab on to the ledge, and he's hanging there for dear life. He hangs and hangs and finally yells out, "Is there anybody up there who can help me?" There's no answer. He keeps calling and calling, "Is there anybody up there who can help me?" Finally this big bellowing voice calls back, "This is God. I can help you. Just let go and trust." Next thing you hear: "Is there anybody else up there who can help me?"
The lesson is simple. If you want to move to a higher level of life, you have to be willing to let go of some of your old ways of thinking and being and adopt new ones. The results will eventually speak for themselves.