Chapter 1 - The Other Guys: Other Get Rich Strategies and Why They Don't Work !

By Chuck Marshall

Chapter 1

The Other Guys:  Other Get Rich Strategies and Why They Don’t Work

“When I was young, I use to think that money was the most important thing in life.  Now  that  I’m older, I know that it is”   Oscar Wilde

What You’ll Learn:

1. The other guy’s approach to getting rich and why they never work.   
2. The most embarrassing way to “attempt” to get rich.
3.  Long term strategies don’t motivate.
4. Your thoughts are just that…… your thoughts.

     When you consider any of the “Get Rich” publications on the market, I’m afraid you’re going to find them to be very disappointing.  Many of you may have already tried to work with some of these “strategies”, and you now know the truth.  Each of them is fraught with some serious flaws and gaps in logic.  These are all very well intentioned attempts to assist the greedy people of the world that they can get rich relatively easily.  But they don’t work !  Here’s Why:

1.  Investments:  “ Save all your money and put in safe securities such as bonds and certificates of deposits or even real estate.  “Remain patient” (they’re losing me already  J).  Live like a pauper for 35-40 years.  Then, as long as the stock market cooperates with you and your bank is still around in 2045, you’ll have plenty of money to retire on.”   Well, who cares if they’re rich if they’re also an old bag ?!  Rich old people spend all their time and money on Doctors,  Oatmeal,  Geritol,  Buicks and  depressing “over 50” condominiums.  They lose their faculties, wear diapers,  obsess over yappy dogs and make headlines in the newspaper about  how far they’ve fallen.  All the while their ingrate children battle over their millions and/or write books over what horrible parents they were !   No sir, investing for old age might work, but the reward is too long in coming and too depressing to get us motivated.

Great Quote:  “To make a million, start with $900,000.” — Morton Shulman

2.  Get Rich Through Network Marketing.  So you go to a religious revival but you’re not praising Jesus Christ,  you’re praising the latest “millionaire” who struck it rich by annoying every human being he/she has ever met.   The company has the secret formula for getting rich in their  “bottle of Dr. Good” as it were.  Often you’re praising the ego- maniac that started the whole company with odd,  over-the top applause, praise and adulation.   Usually he’s oddly refrained and mysterious,  sort of off in the shadows.  Creepy.   Each “network marketer”  has promised everyone they know a business of their own that can be run “in their spare time” (if their spare time runs into the 50-60 hour per week bracket, that is).   What they don’t tell you in their breathless hopping up and down is that only 1/10 of 1% of all people who get into network marketing actually end up making a living from it.  One tenth of one percent !  Ask  yourself this;  If you had a new shampoo line that you wanted to market and you wanted to effectively promote it to the North American market,  would you hire 20 sales reps for $65,000 per year on average, OR would you hire 200,000 sales reps for $5 per year?  Those 200,000 sales  reps are the poor souls that got suckered into network marketing.  Of course they want you in their program !  You’re their 200,001^st sales rep out there selling their mediocre shampoo!  There are enough large customers to support 20 sales reps.  Do you think there are enough customers to support 200,000 sales reps?  Of course not !  Network marketing is the most embarrassing and least likely way to become wealthy.    

Warning:   Whatever you do, don’t ever refer to the network business as a “pyramid” or as a “scheme”.  If you do the person working to get you into the…er, “business opportunity”  will become contorted and curl up their lips and scream at you “it’s not a pyramid scheme!” so forcefully you’ll be inclined to crawl under the nearest metal  fold- out chair.   

3. Think and grow rich through your thoughts and the power of attraction (or some sort of variation of these concepts).  This also ties heavily into the concept of visualization and self-actualization.  Your thoughts attract to you what you experience in life, they explain.  Consequently, all your experiences are brought on by your subconscious mind because you directed it to bring those things about.  So, let’s take a “for example”.    Someone has a crazed lunatic break into their house, rob them of all their money, tie them up in a chair,  and stuff  a dirty sock in their mouth.  Somewhere in their past, this person had a thought that he/she would really be interested in tasting a dirty sock.  “I would enjoy eating or sucking on a dirty sock for a couple of hours “  they must have said to themselves.   “I just need that to happen for me to be truly actualized.”  What other explanation could there be?   

Great Quote:  “There is only one class of people that thinks about money more than the rich, and that is the poor.  In fact, the poor can think of nothing else.   Oscar Wilde ….And we see where that gets them.  While I love the idea of “thinking” your way to riches, you’re more likely to “think” your way into abject poverty. 

4. Trade your way to riches.  Trading currency, stocks, bonds,  derivatives, options, puts, etc….  This is the classic approach to getting rich in that you simply take what you have and get more for it than it’s worth and continue until you’ve reached a pinnacle of wealth.  There is one problem with this.  YOU NEED MONEY TO START WITH !  How am I supposed to get rich trading stocks when I have no money to begin with?  The reason anyone reads a “get rich” book is to make money because they don’t have money right now.  Don’t tell me you can do it starting with nothing when nothing can be further from the truth.  What do you think I’m going to hear if I call a stock broker  and tell him to “come on over so we can discuss what to do with my $250 I have left over from this month’s paycheck”?    The real world wants to see the money, the hard cash, the moola, the dough, the Benjies….  not  “promises” and/or “possibilities” of money.

  Cliché Alert :  It takes money to make money. 

5. Real Estate.  These guys will advise you go and buy real estate and “you don’t need any money”.  These “No Money Down” strategies usually involve convincing someone who’s selling their house to take on the role of the mortgage holder.  That is, they are the bank and you are the borrower.  How many thousands of people would you have to go through before you found someone whacky enough to do that?   Flipping houses requires lots of money to start with OR it has unrealistic expectations of the participant.    This requires  financial and sales abilities that the regular “Joe” just does not have.   How to get these skills ?  You got it, a lot of work !  One other little problem has appeared over the last couple of years,  and that is “the impossible” happened back in 2008 when the real estate bubble burst and real estate really DID lose substantial value.  The average American home had lost 1/3 of their value at one point.  Can’t make money off something that’s dropping in value as I understand the concept.    Also, unless you have pristine credit don’t expect any bank to help you out on any house flipping opportunities.   Those days are long gone.     

Great Quote:  “A bank is a place that will lend you money if you prove that you don’t need it”.  Bob Hope.   

6.   “Find your passion and create  product or service out of that passion.  Then go sell it to the world. “  That sounds great,  but  my passion is sleeping in late and reading the paper all day?  Is someone going to come pay me for doing that?  If I do come up with a product or service, I have to go “sell” it to the world?  Sell?  Selling gives me a stomach ache.   I want to go to the Bahamas and drink cocktails on the beach all day.  I want to take luxury cruises to Europe.  Read novels on train tours.  Go fly fishing in a mountain stream.  I want to go skiing in Aspen every winter with the pretty people.   These things are my passion.  I don’ want to sell anything ! 

Summary:

1)  Other get rich schemes often require large sums of money to begin with, which means they are a waste of paper.  Why would you buy a get rich book if you’re already rich?

2) Going  to nutty “conferences” where everybody jumps up and down over speakers praising their newfound wealth from the new  “perfect” vitamin line they’re representing is as much a waste of time as you suspect.

3) The other guys talk about  being “patient”,  as in “wait 40 years towards the end of your physical life”.  Forty years is 39 years too many.

4)  They have unrealistic expectations of the reader to do things that require super human financing capabilities. 

5)  They tell you to find your passion and pursue that passion.  Make a product or service out of that passion, and then go “sell it” to the world.   You lost me on the “sell it” part, folks !

6)  Real Estate investments,  aka  “flipping” is an excellent  approach to getting rich if you have plenty of knowledge, plenty of money and are willing to risk that money AND- most offensively-  you’re willing to work hard !  Bad Squat !   Then, yes it’s an excellent investment.