Interview with an Expert: West Loh

Yaro: Hi, everyone, this is Yaro. Welcome to another Interview with an Expert. We’re talking membership sites yet again. I have a good friend with me, West Loh. West is from Brisbane, where I’m from. Thanks for joining me on the call, West.

West: Absolute pleasure, Yaro.

Yaro: I got West on this call for a few reasons. He runs a membership site, so let’s begin with that, West. Tell us a little bit about your site.

West: The membership site is www.Money-Mind-Set.com. It’s about how people indentify and overcome their financial subconscious blockages to money. It’s not a process that I sat down and thought, “I’m going to start a membership site on that.

Actually, a good friend of ours, Andrew Grant, had been through a process where he was working on a job, he was working as a financial planner/consultant and he was in the Army for awhile. He was never really getting anywhere.

In the last year or so, he started addressing a lot of his issues subconsciously, working with a coach and a mentor that helps him do that.

He has made massive leaps in income. He’s making six or seven figures in his Internet businesses. So for him and his wife Daryl it was a huge difference. He wanted to create a site that teaches people the process that he went through.

I’ve always been of the philosophy that I never want to actually work for money in a job, so I was aligned with him in that. I’ve turned the site into a study of people that create wealth.

I interviewed 10-20 people who are the wealthiest people in Australia in property, business, Internet marketing, success coaches, peak performance coaches, and I’ve turned the site into a hub where people can learn all aspects of success.

Yaro: So it’s a lot of learning through osmosis from experts who’ve done what you want to do and to break down those blockages. There are a couple of things I’d like to talk to West about today.

The first one is blockages. The people listening to this call have membership sites in progress. So they’re building membership sites and they’re hoping to have a successful launch within six months.

People listening to this call may not realize this, especially if they haven’t done it before, but the main reason why you may never actually get a membership site launched or why you might be experiencing a lot of hiccups and difficulties with getting your site off the ground, is actually mental blockages, things to do with your mindset regarding making money, building a business – any sort of achievement. There is probably a lot of self esteem issues involved with this too.

I’d like to talk about how we can maybe combat some of the more common mindset issues for people who are launching projects of this magnitude, and what you’ve found from your experience dealing with your students about what they struggle with and then overcome.

Maybe you can start, West, by talking about a couple of the more common blockages people have in terms of this topic.

West: Sure. They way I look at blockages, they’re things that people think to themselves or reactions that happen in someone’s brain that they haven’t necessarily thought consciously.

For example, people go and launch a membership site. The first time you read it from Yaro’s program, what were the first thoughts that came into your head, without you having to think about it or really analyze if you could do it or not?

So for many people it would be stuff like, “I’m not good enough. I’m not as good as Yaro. I don’t have Yaro’s audience. I don’t have Yaro’s team. I don’t have Yaro’s skills. How on earth am I actually going to make this happen?”

Or other stuff like, “I already work. I don’t have the time to put in to actually do this.” All this stuff that pops into your head as to why you can’t do it is what I refer to as blockages.

It’s the same problem when it comes to making money – all the stuff that pops up when you go into a new venture or you start to make more money than before. Things will pop up. You’ll be asking yourself, “How can I deserve this?” Some people don’t feel like they’re deserving.

You were saying before about self esteem – some people just aren’t ready to do that from a confidence perspective. I think it has a lot to do with the conditioning that people have had from childhood.

If they’re not Internet savvy, people automatically class themselves as, “I’m a technophobe,” or “I don’t know how to do this or that.” They haven’t even considered the quality of the coaching they’re getting from your program.

They haven’t considered that they’re working with someone who’s done it, who’s been successful and is helping them, step by step, through the process.

That’s how I’ve defined blockages and the kind of most common things that pop up when people are looking to get into something that’s out of their comfort zone.

Yaro: I think everyone can definitely agree that they’ve at least had some of those thoughts. I’ve done that myself, when I was just getting started. I looked at people that I was trying to emulate and I would often say, “Well, yeah, sure, it’s good for them because they’ve got ten joint venture partners who are their close friends, and they’re all going to promote them because of that.”

Let’s be honest, though, everyone came from the same point in the beginning, when they didn’t have any contacts, built up relationships, or anything. Why is it that a very small segment of the population gets through that and becomes these leading figures, and most of us seem to stay at a rather mediocre place and feel
like the world’s against us and the universe is contriving to hold us down, where really that’s not usually the case.

It’s more to do with ourselves. What’s the first step to move beyond that?

West: One of the things I’ve identified in talking with all of these wealthy people is that they realize that these are things that are holding them back. 95% of the people let these things keep them where they are.

The funny thing is that everyone I’ve spoken to gets the same thoughts. Every single person that I’ve asked gets the same thoughts. You just said it. I got them all as well.

The difference is those people know that they get those thoughts and they’ve actually worked on the process where they identify them first so they can catch them when they get them, and then they just act in spite of the thoughts.

They know the outcome, because they’ve done it in the past, what happens when they don’t listen to all the stuff that’s coming through their head, and let their actions do the talking.

Yaro: So for people who don’t even have the experience to rest on, step one would still be creating an awareness of the conversation going on in your head in the first place. So that’s step one, to identify that.

West: Correct.

Yaro: Is that almost like just monitoring your thought process?

West: It is. There’s a few ways that we teach our members to do it. The first way is to just really take note of what you’re thinking when you’re looking into a new venture, or anything to do with money – what are the first thoughts that come into your head?

I’d recommend getting some sort of journal. You can call it your “Blockage Busting Journal” or “Barrier Annihilating Journal” – something powerful that you can pick up and say, “This is it!” and start writing down the thoughts that come in.

What you will find is that there will be a pattern. Later on it will click that these are the thoughts that have been holding you back, not only in your finances but in every other area of your life. It’s very rarely just in one area and not in other areas as well.

That’s the first step; you’re dead right. Being ready to identify and being open to the fact that this is something that you are actually falling victim to, like many people don’t even have the guts to admit it. They just feel like everything’s all right.

What I found out with that is that Andrew himself, who is earning six to seven figures a year through his various businesses, still gets blocks on a regular basis. He identifies them and works through them.

The other thing people can do, and we do this at the workshop, is ask themselves a question about membership sites: “What is holding me back from making this membership site the best it could possibly be?” or something along those lines.

Or it could be something more specific, like, “Why aren’t I making
$5000 from this membership site every month?” or something like that. Or it could be a goal.

Write it at the top and for two to five minutes (time yourself), just write. Let your pen go nuts, don’t think and just write whatever comes into your head. Even write all the excuses you could possibly spit out as to why it won’t work.

That’s a really powerful experience, and I’ve found it so for me personally. The first step is identifying it.

Yaro: Once you’ve identified it, what’s the second step?

West: Once you’ve identified it, I think that’s a really good platform to be aware of it. Successful people, once they’ve identified it, will catch themselves doing it. Once they catch themselves doing it, they just don’t listen to it.

Where most people would let it beat them to the ground or talk themselves out of it, they know that they’ve already associated that blockage towards taking the results away from them. They automatically discard the thought when it comes into their head and move on with it anyway.

When people sign up with your program, they know that it’s a proven formula. They know that they have every opportunity to make it work, but it’s the stuff in their own head that’s going to hold them back.

Andrew and Darrel Grant are a prime example. They’ve taken on 50 or so joint venture partners and I think that probably ten, if that, are actually highly active still and making it work and pushing through
all the barriers that have come up in getting that set up in our membership program. The other 30 or 40 have allowed life to take over. They’ve gone back to where they were.

That’s really sad to see that they just haven’t allowed the opportunity to materialize.

Yaro: This is the experience I’ve had with most of my websites and I openly state it on my blog that I don’t expect that the greater majority of people who actually sign up for my programs to finish and implement everything that I tell them to do. It’s just like a rule.

Is it a lack of motivation, life circumstance – what is it that would stop people? Other people might be in exactly the same life circumstance yet get it done. What is the magic ingredient?

West: I think, Yaro, that people like chasing opportunities, but I think that it has to be a “must” in their life. They have to be driven by
something. First of all, they have to enjoy it, but secondly they must have an intense, burning desire to make it work. It’s different from a “nice to have.’

So if someone’s joining your program thinking, “Right, it’s nice for me to have a membership site on top of my blog, it would be nice, I wouldn’t mind doing that. I’ll give it a go,” chances are that they’re going to fail. Things are going to get tough. They’re going to have to put in some work. They have to come in with the attitude that it is going to work at all costs, it’s an absolute must.

I was talking to a friend the other day who has kids, and I asked him, “What would make it a must for you?”

And he said, “If my kids were starving and I couldn’t put food on the table, and I joined up this membership program, I would do whatever it takes and it would happen. It would absolutely happen.” So he found his motivation, which was his kids.

Not everyone has kids, but you need to find for yourself what it is that drives you, that is so much more compelling that getting up and doing it isn’t work.

If you’ve joined the program, I know that you’re already active in some form on the Internet. You already have a list or some interest in business already, so that’s an interest for you. Lack of interest is not part of the equation.

Once that’s in place, you need to find a compelling “why” as to why you’ve got to make it work, and I think once that’s set, the chances of you succeeding are almost guaranteed. There are other factors, but that’s probably the key one.

Yaro: And looking at three examples I can think of right now, one is a student of the BlogMastermind program, I’m not sure if she will end up in this program, because she’s still in BlogMastermind, but her name is Caroline Middlebrook. She started blogging specifically as a platform to tell her story after quitting her job.

She lives in the UK. She quit her job and she said, “I am now going to try to make a living from the Internet. I’m not specifically sure how. I’m going to chronicle it on my blog and this is life or death. I have a certain amount of savings that I’m living on and if it doesn’t work, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

West: That’s powerful.

Yaro: She’s gone on to grow a successful blog now and it’s bringing in about $2,000 – $3,000 a month after only six months of working on it, which is an amazing result. It’s so easy to look at her writing style, her commitment to content production, to research into the
ideas in order to produce that content. That’s a clear demonstration.

My own situation – I’ve had a few recent years of success, but
going back before that, there was a reason why, and like everyone I
started at the beginning.

For me the biggest reason why was to never even get a full time job. I never wanted to have to be somewhere from 9 to 5; I wanted to make my own choice with that. I hated the idea of having a full time job so much that I was prepared to work hard enough to make something work through business.

West: Whatever works! Some people like moving toward pleasure, some people like moving away from pain. I think if you can find a combination of both, that’s the ultimate. Absolutely, Yaro, that’s another prime example.

Yaro: I was just going to finish with a third one, West, which was your situation. I’ve known you for awhile and as far as I’ve known you, you’ve never had a full time job either.

West: I had one for about two months. It didn’t last.

Yaro: What has been the motivating factor for you?

West: For me it gets back to family. I was thinking about this the other day, actually. I have two very sick grandparents and in Malaysia there’s very little support from the government. In Australia, if you get sick and you don’t have a lot of money, the government will take up the slack.

But in those countries, you don’t have that government support, so you pretty much can either die of starvation or you don’t get medical help. They just leave you on the streets to die. There’s no consequences there.

So for me, one of my recent motivators is to help my grandparents pay for their medical expenses and live a pleasant life in their last years here on earth. It’s a much nobler cause than me going out and buying a Ferrari or whatever.

For me that’s a real driving factor. I get up every day and I think how much they’ve given to me and my parents. For me to be able to support them is a very small gesture, but it’s a very powerful driving force for me.

Yaro: I think everyone listening to this call needs to find their own root reason why. That is the core motivation.

West: And making money isn’t a reason; it’s what the money will give you.
Get them to go a few layers down. It’s not the money. You’re not after a paper note with Sir Douglas Morrison on the front of it, or whoever the deceased notable is.

You don’t want that note. You want what it will give you; you want the feeling, the lifestyle, and the emotion – what it will give you. Find that root. Find that core.

Yaro: For most people the money just represents either freedom or removal of a pain, like a full time job, or being able to help family members. For some people it’s just to avoid circumstances they don’t want to be in.

o you have to think about that and for some people it might help to take a photograph of your desk at your full time job, where you
don’t want to be, and keep that on the wall and go, “Don’t want to
go there!” and that’s what you look at when you’re at home at night, working.

West: Definitely, that’s an awesome strategy. The root behind that is actually living those emotions and creating those emotions on a regular basis.

The first thing that you do when you get up in the morning is the first 20 minutes before you get out of bed, you visualize your outcome. You visualize the pleasure that you’ll get from achieving that. So you experience those emotions.

So whatever it is that you’re working toward, you want to sit or lie down, close your eyes, and let your mind take you there. On the other side of things, you should also visualize what would happen if you don’t make it – create pain for yourself.

Sometimes I get out of bed and I’m not crying but I’m actually close to crying, because it’s been so vivid, and I’m giving away all my secrets here, but you then actually go throughout the day and it’s like turbocharging or supercharging your emotions.

You put yourself into a positive state to do whatever it is you have to do. Human emotion drives all behavior and everything that you do. All of your actions you do to satisfy or nullify some form of emotion.

If you can master your emotions by creating those emotions artificially, but your brain doesn’t know that they’re artificial, you still feel the emotions as if they’re real, that will definitely help drive you towards implementing whatever it is that you’ve committed to, in this case, building a successful membership site.

Don’t forget the fact that you’re potentially helping hundreds of thousands of people as well. If your site is a valuable adding site, if it provides proven, great content that helps people to make money and helps them to live a better lifestyle, you are helping other people lead an improved quality of life or increasing their business, or whatever. So that should be a driving force for you as well.

Yaro: I think on that point, a lot of times when I’ve focused on the money as the outcome that I’m looking for, it’s really been a demotivating factor for me as opposed to thinking about what you just said and how what I can do can help other people.

Of course there’s the intrinsic reward there for me, because I get the warm fuzzy and the sense of participation and contribution by helping others. So if you can lock into those feelings while you’re doing this, that’s generally a much finer path than money.

Let’s just recap: step one is creating a level of awareness for whatever mental blockages or defeating phrases you’re giving to yourself, identifying them first.

Second, I won’t say ignoring them, but maybe transforming them and moving past them and understanding that they’re just thoughts.

I think what you’re saying there is regardless of emotional or mental state, the desired outcome only happens when you take an action that moves you toward that. You’re saying ignore the feeling and
self doubt and take an action that gets you a step closer to the results.

West: That’s exactly right. Everyone has those thoughts; most people do, anyway. Very successful people won’t even think those thoughts, but the majority of people do. Successful people just blast through them.

Yaro: And step three I would say is realizing that if you’re having trouble doing steps one and two, particularly step two, then it’s probably because you’re not tapping into a strong enough root cause. So until you find that higher cause, it’s difficult for you to keep taking those steps when you’re facing self doubt. That’s a very simple three step process that you can push yourself to.

I like to reiterate a methodology for dealing with that. If you’re having trouble simply doing this by yourself, take some kind of training or motivational audio or any mentor you want to emulate and study their work. Listen to their voice talking to you in a motivational manner to push you beyond those issues.

West: Definitely. I seriously doubt that anyone listening to this call hasn’t come across your other blog, Yaro, which is Entrepreneurs- Journey.com, but there’s really a lot of neat stuff there. You’ve

talked to a lot of successful people there as well. That’s a really good start for people.

Yaro: That pretty much covers the first topic. I wanted to bring West on
the call because he’s had so much communication with people who have moved past mental blockages and experienced above and beyond normal success.

If you do launch a successful membership site, you will be a non- typical person. You will be having above and beyond normal success.

There’s one other reason, though, that I brought West on the call. He’s actually running his own membership site, which is a big deal in itself. You have your own members and you’re doing that as part of your living.

One of the things I’ve heard you speak about previously in regard to running membership sites is actually the process of automation. We’re going away from a mindset topic which is a little bit more intangible.

West: But it all ties in nicely and we’ll wrap it up at the end.

Yaro: It does. So this is something that I discussed in the last module of this program. It’s essentially looking at ways to reduce the labor requirements to run your membership site, not only so you can get more free time, which is a goal for all of us, but to increase the value of your membership site as a salable asset.

If something requires little work from the owner, that increases the value to a potential buyer. So there are two reasons here: lifestyle for yourself and also a potentially big windfall as a sale.

West, can you take us through some of the techniques that you’ve done to automate the process or techniques that you recommend to people to set up a membership site that runs itself?

West: Sure. I’m a big believer that lifestyle is important. If you’ve chosen the Internet as a lifestyle and you’re working on it as if you were working on a job, then you probably need to reevaluate your strategy.

From an Internet perspective, I believe you guys are in the best position to actually really leverage your time and your skills to create freedom.

The first step I’d recommend is going to Yaro’s blog and listening to that call with Tim Ferris, who wrote The Four-Hour Work Week.
That will definitely give you a mindset rock. Tim’s mind is really cool in terms of being lazy; I love being lazy as well. Not as lazy as Tim,
I work a little more than four hours a week, but I don’t see it as work; I see it as play. When I’m in front of the computer, I’m having a great time.

But in terms of automating your business, the first thing you need to do is have a look at your core skill sets. What are you good at?
Take out a piece of paper and write down your business, the topic of your blog, and where you can add the most value.

The initial urge will be that you want to do everything. Make a list. Yaro will probably give you a list of the things you need to do at the end of each e-class and that will start piling up.

If you’re busy one week or so, you’ll have 20 things instead of only ten things. And if you only get five things done on the next list, you’ll have 25 things. That process will never end.

If you’re sitting there in front of your computer trying to do it all on your own, you’re going to be fighting an uphill battle that you will never, ever win.

The first thing is to identify what you’re good at personally. I’m assuming you’re some sort of expert, some sort of recognized authority in a niche or industry. And if you’re not, you probably are able to associate with someone who is an expert or has some sort of knowledge in an industry.

Once you’ve identified your main skill set, you then need to identify the tasks that need to be done that would take you too long and waste too much of your time to do, but which are still important to get done.

For example, I’m actually working through Yaro’s Blog Mastermind program, which is a brother program to this one. There’s a lot of installing of tags and all sorts of different technical things that need to be done on a blog.

I have neither the time nor the inclination to do them, but Yaro tells me that it’s important and I know that it needs to be done, so I find someone who is able to do that quickly and much more effectively and efficiently than me.

I pay them usually very little, and we’ll talk later about some of the developing countries who have a lot of really good workers who work for very little. It’s not a bad thing, just that the market rates for their current situations are not very high, so what seems low to you is actually a fair price to them.

Then I get them to do it and I can spend my time doing the stuff that
I see as valuable to me.

Yaro: So first identify your core talents and skills, and also identify other things that are of paramount importance to the success of what you’re doing.

West: The things that you’re not good at.

Yaro: That’s very practical. In Module 3 of the Membership Site Mastermind we talk about technology. To run a membership site, you obviously need to make use of a lot of technology. You have to set up a membership site script to protect your content. You have to set up an email autoresponder to deliver emails.

Maybe you haven’t got a blog yet, so you need to set up a blog. You need to have some kind of name capture to bring people into your website.

West: These are all important things. You can’t say, “I’m not doing that!” They’re important. They need to be done. But they don’t need to be done by you.

Yaro: I’ve said to the people listening to this call, in the modules anyway, that you need to be getting a tech person. That is the #1 area that they should first look to outsource. So let’s talk a little bit about the process of actually identifying the people we want to work with.

I have a section of this program called Human Resources, where I explain the team I built around me and what they actually do for my business so that I can see the overall structure. I offered my advice for how I found people. What do you recommend to people, West, to find contractors or employees to work with?

West: You did right, Yaro, in that the typical person looking to get help will definitely need help with technical stuff first. Usually they’re people who aren’t really tech savvy and they need help with uploading and creating web pages and things like that.

I would actually identify all the tasks that need to be done. You can go one of two ways: there are outsourcing sites that you can post task by task, so you can go to a site such as www.Guru.com or www.RentACoder.com and post that one specific task. People will bid on that in a reverse bidding process. Someone might start at
$100, and someone else comes in at $80 and someone else comes in at $2.50 and you choose someone.

They do the task for you, and you pay them and you probably won’t see them again. If you’re smart you’ll actually work a little more closely with them and potentially get them on board for other stuff.

The other way you can do this is to go to a site like www.oDesk.com and they will actually provide a working staff member for you.

You’ll put in a proposal to have someone work for you for a set amount of hours per week and it’s an ongoing communication
where you work with that techie on however many hours you set, at a set rate that you agree on, and you have that relationship from
the start. That’s what I’d recommend.

As time progresses, you will find that different tasks pop up that might require different skill sets that a general techie might not be able to do. In those instances, you would then go back to one of those sites, be it www.Elance.comor www.RentACoder.com and post another project.

In the past I found that people who can do a task really well, have quite a good skill set, are related to that area, so let’s say that I have a really basic task like I want them to install a blog plugin on my WordPress blog.

They would generally know a lot about WordPress. They will generally know how to do a lot of other things with WordPress as well. So before I post any other projects, I’ll actually ask that person if they would be able to do that for me. That works well.

In time, if you have enough work, they’ll actually work for you on a regular basis anyway. The beauty of it is, they generally won’t expect a set amount of hours like, “You have to give me ten hours a week or I won’t work for you” – they’re happy to work job by job,
and you pay them by the job.

Yaro: You listed a bunch of great websites there which I’ll include in the notes for this call, in the Resources area. I think the most interesting one there is ODesk.com, which is where you can get
someone who’s more of a jack of all trades employee arrangement. I think ultimately that’s the best situation, if you can find a reliable person who is a jack of all trades in the tech field, so that you don’t have to continually post projects and assess people, because that’s a time consuming thing. That’s something you could outsource.

A lot of people who really start to get into this will outsource to a project manager who is really good at vetting people and using Internet technology to find answers to questions and say, “Listen, I want you to hire someone to manage my scripts for a membership site, I want you to hire my copywriter and I want you to hire the content writer for transcripts.”

So you just go through one person, who then becomes your connection for all outsourcing.

West: That’s another really good model and it’s one I believe you’ve used as well.

Yaro: Similar, yes. Once you have your team going, it’s a great thing. But there’s a concern, and I’ve experienced this myself, with the contract workers, because of the relaxed relationship that you have with them. Sometimes they take a full time job and they’re no
longer available, or their time gets filled up with so many jobs that they can’t fit you in. What have you found is the best way to combat this sort of circumstance?

West: It has happened to me in the past. I think, due to the nature of the situation, it’s tough to be able to get around that, unless you can offer them something really solid on a long term basis.

At the end the day, if you analyze where these guys are, they usually tend to have a job where they’re nine to five and they do what they do with you outside of work, to supplement their income.

There are a few that actually do this full time. They have a small team of people that they work with, that they can call on to do certain tasks and you’ll pay them, then they’ll pay their people and make a bit of a cut on that.

Take an example from Mike Filsaime. He really looks after the people that he works with. He has a team of coders in Romania (Mike, if you’re listening to this call, I hope I haven’t given away your secrets here!) and he’s basically given one head guy there some equity share in some of the sites that he’s involved with and that guy deals with all the Romanian coders.

He’s taken this to the next level, because he has a very successful business, but he’s fitted out an office there. He’s bought them all computers. He looks after them really well. He takes them out to events and he actually flies over to Romania from time to time to meet with them personally. That’s Michael Filsaime. Mike is a great relationship builder.

If you’re an affiliate or if you’re associated with him in any joint venture, he really looks after you. He creates a loyalty to him that you just wouldn’t want to leave. Who’s going to buy you a new computer? I’m not saying everyone can buy your techies a new computer, but what I am saying is you can try to create a more personalized relationship with them.

As a start, try talking to them on Skype. Most of them are on Skype. Get to hear their voices, get a feel for who they are as people. A lot of people would just send them an email and say, “Do this and report back to me when you’re done” or use chat. So there are
small steps you can take to do that to edge things in your favor.

I don’t believe you could totally eliminate the possibility that they could leave at any time, and I’d always encourage you to have maybe two or three people who could potentially do the same task. For example, if you’re doing a big launch, the last thing you’d want is your own lead techie to leave you two days before and you’d be completely stuck. I know with your launch, with BlogMastermind, you came across some hitches.

In this recent Product Launch Formula 2 launch, I don’t know if it was a marketing ploy or not, that the website that Jeff had ready to go at launch was down, I think.

If it was valid, which it might well be, then if you don’t have a techie on hand and people are coming to your site ready to buy, it’s the worst feeling in the world, isn’t it, Yaro?

Yaro: To lose customers, yes. I think on that point as well, I’ve heard a similar recommendation from someone who’s really good at outsourcing, which was if you find someone who’s good, using these contracting sites, actually pay them more than they expect when the job is done. That creates an instant loyalty.

We talked before about how these countries have currencies and economies that, because our economies in certain Western countries are better, if you give some people a bonus of $10 USD or $20 USD for a job, that’s massive.

West: Yes. It makes a big difference.

Yaro: That can be a whole days’ worth of work.

West: For you it’s nothing, really, it’s not much at all, another $10, but for these people it can feed their families for a couple of days, and that’s a lot.

Yaro: I’ve done that, even with locals. I employ mostly Australians for what I do, and I will give $50 or $100 on top of a $200 – $300 invoice, if I’m really happy with the work they’re doing. This is just a way to create the loyalty and build a sense of team around what you’re doing.

I think having team meetings is an important thing. Obviously, if geographic boundaries prohibit that, you can do it virtually through things like Skype, and that really helps to create the connections. But it does depend on what stage you’re at and how much work you have for these people.

Continuing then down this thread, West, let’s talk about how you can eliminate nearly all the tasks you have to do as a membership site owner.

We can hand off the technological component quite easily. Another rather labor intensive aspect is writing the content for your members and also writing the marketing materials that you use to promote your membership site with. What’s your advice on getting that content taken off your hands?

West: I think one of the problems I encounter when I talk to people who are so-called ‘experts’ in their sight is that they take on an almost obsessive approach to overseeing the content and being the ones who develop the content. They must have every single thing in place and it all has to be personalized to them.

That’s great if I’m wanting to sign up to your program and I know that it’s all coming from you, but from a business perspective, a membership site perspective, and from a lifestyle perspective, it’s really actually bad for you to take on that approach.

I’m not saying reduce the quality of your content or be slack in any of those areas, because that will come back to bite you as well, but what I am saying is that you can put together some strategies and follow a few different models where you can still give a ton of your own input, but not necessarily be there to type every single word yourself.

A prime example is a woman who is an acupuncturist. I met her at a workshop where I spoke and she was wanting to get in and do it all herself, like type it all up and write her own books, newsletters,
write all the e-classes and all that sort of stuff.

I just sat down with her and after half an hour of chatting with her, I found out that she had a few of her seminars already recorded on DVD. She’d done a few consultations that she had recorded, but had never thought of using them for content in any way, shape or form. I got her to list out all the major topics, issues, and troubles that her clients have.

And I said to her, “Do you think you could get one of your clients to actually sit down with you for a three-hour block and just really blast your brain and ask you every single question about all the issues that you have to deal with on a regular basis?”

You will be blown away at how much information you can produce from three hours of Q&A just from an e-class or a newsletter perspective. Once that audio file is created, there’s a ton of stuff you can do with it. You can leverage that to no end, in many ways.

A few examples that I gave her were to break them up into maybe
8- to 10-minute topics and she would have 25 – 30 pieces of content there already. She could get it all transcribed and create two to three ebooks out of that.

She could get someone to edit the information and create e-classes from those topics. She would give direction on how she would like it structured, because in three hours you can talk about a whole
range of things, but for that three hour investment of time, with the right outsourcing and leveraging mindset, you don’t have to spend multiple hours developing your content and typing it all up yourself. I hope that’s been helpful.

Yaro: I really like the idea of using audio in that manner. I think people underestimate it. Even if you’re not a good speaker, the potential is for audio to get ideas on the table, and that can be converted to content, either through transcribing it or through continuous back and forth Q&A sessions with the right type of person who could ask you the right type of questions – and that can just be a customer of yours.

West: If worse comes to worst, you write out a series of 25 questions and get someone – anyone – to ask you the questions and you just go on. You just do your spiel.

Yaro: And like you said, you could deliver that content as MP3s, have it transcribed for text, you could have someone create brand new articles by taking your ideas and elaborating on them. There’s all kinds of ways.

And audio is definitely the fastest way to get content into existence. It’s definitely quicker than writing and easier to do than creating videos, so that’s a really big tip for people to get started.

That could be applied for marketing or for content within your membership sites. It’s a great place to start, West, thank you for that.

West: Definitely.

Yaro: We’ll start to wrap up the call. We’ve covered two very distinct topics, mindset and automation of your website. You mentioned that these two topics are quite interrelated. People may not realize why. Could you link the two together for us?

West: Sure. I think we may have talked about this in the call previous to the one we just did, but it’s a concept called The Hedgehog Concept that I want to make people aware of.

I think it’s worthwhile mentioning it again, and that is when a hedgehog gets into trouble, it rolls into a ball, sticks its spines out, and it does that one thing really well.

A fox will try to eat the hedgehog when it’s hungry and it will try lots of things; it will try to bite it, burrow into its holes, or try to pick up sticks and hit the hedgehog. The fox has a diversified approach.

The hedgehog does its task so well that the fox will never be able to penetrate its spikes. The hedgehog has one strategy and does it unbelievably well.

I think if you take that mindset, for you as a hedgehog to continue on this site, what are the things that you do well? What are the things that you can now outsource and allow the people who can do that really well, which is their hedgehog, do for you?

I don’t think that cost will be an issue for you when you get on to these sites. If you’re willing to invest $500 as a startup, just put that aside and I think you’ll make that back pretty quickly, if you’re doing what Yaro is telling you with your marketing strategies.

Tying it all together, you need to look back and think, “Am I hedgehog or am I fox?” or “Is what I’m doing now making me a hedgehog or a fox?”

That mindset will help to keep you on track, because when you get into the daily grind of doing things, you sit down and you read
Yaro’s next e-class and there’s five more things you need to add on to your list, it’s very easy to get caught up in, “Do I have to do this now? I have to get this done!”

It’s not what you’re busy doing, but are you busy doing what? Because I think everybody’s busy. I’ll finish with a quote that I heard from Jim Rohn and that is, “Never confuse activity with achievement.”

That’s another powerful quote, because people are always active. They’re always moving and they’re always busy, but they’re not always achieving, and there’s a big difference.

Yaro: Just to clarify, for anyone who has got lost in talk of hedgehogs and foxes and any quotes there, simply put, we talked earlier in the call about feeling a sense of, “I can’t do this, it’s too technical.” That’s one of the very common blockages and stepping stones that people fall for early on.

Then you’ve been presented with some realistic techniques for removing that. All it takes for you is a few action steps to either find the outsourcer or find someone you can record some audio with and respond to and then have them create content from.

Find the right people and make this happen, and it removes that constraint and you can move on. You’ll hit another constraint, and you’ll have to move past that as well.

Everything that we’re talking about there is actually a mindset to get that done. Most people will listen to calls like this or study blog articles or buy courses and training programs and learn all of this and be told these things over and over, but most people will never actually go and implement and get the result to verify that this actually works.

That creates a sense of momentum, and I think momentum is really important here because you need to have a celebration of small achievements. And in order for a small achievement to occur, you have to at least have taken some sort of action.

If it’s a case of simply finding one person and hiring them to do a logo for your new membership site so you’re taking that step forward, that’s enough to start momentum moving forward.

West: Exactly. Momentum is powerful.

Yaro: Before we wrap up, West, talk a little about your site. What’s the website address again?

West: It’s www.Money-Mind-Set.com and my blog is at www.WestLoh.com. Listen, Yaro, I’ve just finished writing a book on the Money Mindset, and I am going to sell it. But for your membership clients, if it’s all right with you, I’m more than happy to include it as part of what you’re offering, at no charge.

Yaro: Thank you, West, it’s very generous of you. I’ll have to include that with the link for this audio. I’m assuming it’s a PDF?

West: It is a PDF, that’s correct.

Yaro: Great. I’ll have to grab that off you.

I like to end these calls with this one question, and it’s totally off topic, but that’s all right because it’s been off topic every other time I’ve asked it of other people.

It’s this: you start a membership site, you’ve got members – how did you get traffic to your site?

West: I’m a little bit lucky in that I have had an association with Andrew and Daryl Grant, who are already quite respected and have relationships with other people. However, they haven’t fed it to me on a silver platter.

One of the things that we’ve done recently is Andrew has given me contact details for Stephen Pierce, who’s quite a prominent Internet marketer. He has allowed me to contact him and put together a promotional campaign where we could promote some of the stuff we’re doing, during his seminar.

So he spoke and we were able to joint venture, through some of the techniques mentioned in the previous call to this. You can make
that call available to your clients as well. The same steps that I mentioned, Yaro mentioned in that to do a joint venture with Stephen.

So that actually got us a lot of traffic and a lot of affiliates who want to now drive traffic to our membership site. The seminar was on how to create income streams with no money and no product. For you guys that would be awesome as well, because you should have an affiliate program where people can promote your product for you without your having to be there.

If you can recruit and nurture some really good affiliates, they’ll
keep driving people to your site. Yaro’s actually done a fantastic job in BlogMastermind of nurturing his affiliates. He’s one of the best that I’ve ever seen.

It’s a great affiliate area, if you just join up for the fact that you can have a look at Yaro’s affiliate area and see all the promotional materials and all the training tools he’s given. If you’re half serious about making money, that will get your engines firing.

Yaro: I want to bring you back a bit, West, because it sounds a bit like you’re talking about the end result here. Let’s go even further back.

You’ve got relationships with prominent experts, Andrew and Daryl. They’ve presented you with an opportunity to run a membership site in conjunction with them. You jumped at the chance; it’s a topic that you’re interested in yourself with the mindsets.

That led to connections with people like Stephen Pierce, so the joint ventures can come easier because you’ve got this connection with someone else who has good connections.

Let’s go back a bit further, though. How did you initially get in contact with Andrew and Daryl?

West: I actually found out about them through a great site called www.Entrepreneurs-Journey.com.

Yaro: Let’s go even further back.

West: I did find out about them through Yaro, yes. I owe a lot to Yaro.

Yaro: How did you meet them? You listened to the podcast I did with them. But that’s not enough to meet them. What did you do next?

West: What I did then was contacted them through the site, just through email, to start building a relationship, so they got to know who I was.

I told them a little bit about what I do. I signed up for their email list and I found out they were running some workshops. I believe at the time these workshops cost quite a lot of money to attend. I was happy to pay the money, to go and meet them and to learn what they had to teach.

For me, it was a process of being able to commit to actually putting some money down to go and meet them, for them to get to know me, and put my face out there. I met a lot of other people at those workshops and seminars as well, and subsequently I saw them in other seminars.

So there were three seminars that other people have run, like Internet Traffic Mastery and a few other ones, where a lot of speakers get two to three hours to speak. I would just stick around until Andrew and Daryl were willing to meet me.

I did that with a lot of the other speakers as well, but Andrew and Daryl had an opportunity going that appealed to me, with membership sites, and I decided to jump on board.

I had a lot of the negative stuff going through my head that many of you have had, and I pushed through them and did what I’ve described in this call.

Yaro: In my experience, West is the best example of someone who’s really leveraged the workshop/conference/seminar series as an avenue for connecting with top experts to get joint ventures. I
almost think you could do an entire program yourself, West, on how to leverage those opportunities.

There’s an art to that. Shy people go to these conferences and they’re too afraid to talk to people. Even if they’re not afraid and they do meet people, they don’t really know how to turn that into a meaningful connection.

You clearly have done something that’s beyond the average when you attend these workshops and events that gets you into the mindset and the frame of awareness of these experts. What do you think that is? Let’s wrap this call up with that last point.

Your traffic technique is pretty clear. You’re fantastic at meeting experts. You have a lot of access to traffic at events. How have you done that?

West: I think generally if you’re happy talking to people, you just need to get over that mindset where you think, “He’s too good for me” or “He’s learning so much from the Internet, he would never want to speak to me.” You’d be really surprised at what you could offer someone like Stephen Pierce or any other marketer who’s at these seminars.

Some of the things that I’ve done are for example, meeting Brett McFall. I went up to him and said, “Brett, I’m a big fan of your work. I really appreciate all of the stuff you’ve done for me. If you ever need a testimonial on any of your work, a video testimonial, let me know.”

And he said, “West, I am always looking for testimonials. Here’s my card,” and I went home and shot one and sent it through to him.

Now I don’t know whether he’s using it or not, but first of all it tells him who I am. I didn’t get a chance to tell him what I actually did, because he’s a very busy guy. He speaks, he sells a lot of packs, and then he’s off speaking with the other speakers and all that sort of stuff.

So I only had two minutes or so, but I did establish that connection and managed to get a card or some form of contact and then I followed up on the promise that I delivered, so it wasn’t asking anything from him.

And this is another thing that Yaro spoke about on the Joint Venture call, is that maybe you can offer that person something, even if it is something as simple as a testimonial for one of their products that you may have considered, or even a presentation that they gave. No one’s going to refuse a testimonial.

Yaro: No. If anyone wants to give me video testimonials, I’m all for it.

West: Exactly. Me, too.

Yaro: Just for anyone who might be concerned that we are talking about Internet marketing industry here, every single niche, if has somewhat of a following, has a major event that’s attached to it, so there’s like a conference or something that you can attend where all the enthusiasts are there, and the people putting on the show with their stands, and there will be people there that you can connect with who have access to large audiences. It’s a matter of identifying them and then introducing yourself.

That’s a fantastic joint venture tactic, and if you’ve got a membership site or you’re planning one, that can almost be all you do.

West: Just recently there was a property expo in Brisbane. All the guys doing property membership sites were there networking their butts off and they got a lot of good results from that.

Yaro: There should never be a gap. Thanks, West, I really wanted to highlight that as a traffic technique. I’m ending all the calls with traffic techniques, that’s why it seems a little bit out of place, but it’s got to be the hottest question that everyone asks.

West: One technique I’m moving into recently, and I haven’t had any results yet because I haven’t actually spent a lot of time on it, but on the weekend I went to a presentation by a gentleman named Monte Huebsch. He’s a Google expert.

Some of the results he was putting up there were on YouTube as a site that’s growing even at a faster rate at this point in time than a lot of the social networking sites. The trend was amazing. It blew him away, but it blew the audience away as well.

Even just shooting some basic videos and putting them out there for free on any of the video sites, but primarily YouTube, trying to brand them with your URL and creating some value in the actual video, is something that I’m going to move into.

Maybe I can report that in our next call if you want me to talk about something like that.

Yaro: I’m planning on doing the same, actually, get the webcam out and
sit and talk about it. Great way to drive traffic. West, I think we’ve hit an hour, so that’s a good time for us to end our call.

Just before we finish, we mentioned your website again, but if anyone’s interested in what West does with his membership site or wants further information regarding mindset or automation, as we’ve talked about membership site automation, the best way to get in contact with you or if they want to join your membership site is…?

West: Just go to www.WestLoh.com or email me personally. If you guys know Yaro, you’re my friends as well: info@westloh.com and I’ll reply to you personally.

Yaro: Great. I hope everyone got something out of this call and you’re hopefully motivated to move past your blockages and definitely thinking about getting some outsources so you can start getting that membership site out the door! Thanks for joining me today on the call, West.

West: My pleasure, Yaro. Thank you for having me, it’s been great.

Yaro: I’ll speak to everyone soon. This is Yaro Starak.

Speakers:
West: West Loh
George: George Mihos

West: Folks, I want to welcome you to the call today. We’re very, very privileged to have Mr. George Mihos on the line today. Now I had the pleasure of meeting George in Gold Coast. We recently met at a seminar about eBay. And one of the things I really respect about George is the way that he’s open to learning and continuously open to learning and his philosophies in investments and in business were very refreshing. I was privileged to have spent even just a little bit of time with George but he blew me away with his philosophies. So I had to get him on a call for you guys and I’m sure you’ll feel the same way after we speak with him. So George, I want to thank you for joining the call today.

George: You’re welcome, West. And I also want to thank you for persisting, one of the many success characteristics I’ve experienced in my short life; and we’re all just getting started. What’s exciting is most peak performers will do what it takes to achieve an outcome. And you persisted; and then I persisted. And finally I caught up with you on the golf course, I find, that is. How are you, mate?

West: Very well, very well. It’s always good when you get to chat to someone you highly respect.

So George, why don’t you tell us a little bit about your story? I mean you’ve come a long way. And I understand, from what you were telling me, that you’ve got interest in so many different areas. And one of the philosophies that I believe you preach is that wealthy people need to have multiple streams of income. And we’ll get to that a bit later on. But where did you start and how did you get into it?

George: That’s a very fair point there, West. I’ll just share my story very briefly. I come from a very humble beginning. My parents—as most people in Australia—immigrated forty, forty five years ago. And one thing my parents instilled in me as we were growing up was to go and live your passion. And my passion growing up was soccer balls. And I played professional sports at a very young age. And I lost my passion for it a little bit along the way. But what happened, I met my next passion. And that was my beautiful wife. And with our culture, if you’re married for twenty four hours and you haven’t started a family, well, there’s something wrong.

West: Now you’re Greek, is that correct?

George: Greek heritage. Autralian born here—in the largest capital city of Greeks in Australia, but a true‑blooded Aussie.

What changed my life dramatically was I was working in the corporate world doing the treadmill—what most people choose to do—the path of least resistance. And let me preface by saying that whatever we chat over the next twenty, thirty minutes or whatever it takes is, as always, I’m not giving financial advice in any way. I always encourage people to go and see or do an independent and legal professional advice. But also keep in mind that Titanic was built by professionals…whatever that means.

Anyway, suffice to say, I was working the typical long hours—60-70—hours working in the corporate world. And I came to a realization when my wife and I found out that we were about to be blessed with the birth of our first child. And the realization was that I looked around me and I saw people 5, 10, 20, 30 years my senior doing what I was doing, not living a better lifestyle. And I realized at that point—it was a pivotal moment in my life—that unless I took some drastic action, I wasn’t going to get the results I really wanted deep down.

And West, I’m sure you can relate to this and people listening to this call…and that is that if we were absolutely honest, purely honest, we look at ourselves in the mirror and looked deep down in our gut what we really desired, and if we ask ourselves this question, “Today was the last day of our life, would we do what we did today?”

West: Powerful. Very powerful.

George: And that’s what changed my life. And the answer was, “No.” However, guess what happened next?

West: You took action.

George: Well, no. Reality kicked in. The fear kicked: “Well, what am I going to do? I don’t know what I’m going to do.” So I made a decision to invest the next 5, 6, 7 months before our beautiful daughter came in this world, was to go and find what the wealthy knew.

West: Get the knowledge.

George: Absolutely. Now as you can appreciate, in six, seven months, you’re not going to find all the secrets, are you?

West: No. There’s a lot to learn.

George: There is a lot to learn. The other realization I’ve come to now—knowing what I know now—is that all the answers already exist. The difference between the wealthy and not wealthy is they know how to ask better quality questions. And I’ll give you an example of this.

As I was going through my journey of making a decision, “Should I?” “Shouldn’t I?” “Should I?” “Shouldn’t I?” I remember hearing an amazing quote that’s embedded in this beautiful brain of mine. And that is—and you may want to write this down, folks:
“The quality of your life will be determined by the quality of the questions you ask yourself.”

Who do we talk to the most everyday, West?

West: Ourselves.

George: Ourselves. By appreciating and respecting that quote, what I realized was that fact that most of us—because not all of us talk to ourselves more than anybody else—and the majority of our own internal dialogue is not serving us. In actual fact, it’s self‑sabotaging us. And as soon as I appreciated that point, I can recall being stuck in peak hour traffic, my left eye caught my rear vision mirror and I remember asking myself, “Wow!”—I’ve been asking myself—“What am I doing here? What am I doing here?” For the last 5, 6 weeks, I couldn’t come up with an answer.

And then I said, “Okay.” These are the questions. Write this down, West. This will definitely add value to your life. You’re ready?

“What am I passionate about?” And as soon as I asked myself that question, it was like a bolt of lightning. Bam! And I call it my BFO, my blinding flash of the obvious, my epiphany. And my passion—right there I was able to identify it—is being able to transform and add value to people’s lives because that’s what I’ve been really great at. I’ve been able to connect people, inspire people, frustrate people and move people.

And then reality kicked in. I heard that voice in my head saying, “George, you’re full of crap. How can you honestly impact other people’s lives when you’re stuck in the rat race?”

West: So that’s, I guess, what we call in our program a block or one of the limiting beliefs. So talk us through how you approached and how you got over it, George.

George: Well, the other point I would like to ask everybody to make at this point is write this down: “Purposeful decision.” Make a purposeful decision. How many times have you heard people saying, “You need to make a decision?” Have you heard of that before, West?’

West: I have. But purposeful decision gives it a bit more juice, doesn’t it?

George: Well, I used to hear this a lot: “You need to make a decision.” And I kept saying to myself, “But I have.” And I was getting frustrated. And then I woke up one day and the purposeful decision was when my wife and I looked at each other and we were about to go down the IVF path, because unfortunately, we found out that we weren’t able to really start a family the natural way. And we found out after doing our own investigations, the only choice we have was to go through the IVF process. And I understand it can be pretty stressful for both male and females.

Anyway, the good news is we woke up after forty months of procrastinating, we looked at each other and we said, “Are we going to do this? If we’re going to do it, let’s do it.” And from that day when we made a purposeful decision, five weeks later my wife got pregnant the natural way.

West: Wow.

George: And that was a major lesson. That was a major turning point in my life because I realized… a lot of people struggle to make decisions, correct?

West: Correct.

George: In actual fact, they don’t West. They’ve actually made a decision not to make a decision.

West: I see. I see.

George: Does that make sense?

West: It does.

George: I have another analogy to put in perspective. How many of us have heard that the human capacity, the human brain is that it’s so powerful that we’ll likely be able to access or utilize 10% of it.

West: I’ve heard that before, yes.

George: You have? What I’d like everybody to do is don’t believe a word I say. I like them to take my pearls of wisdom and go and test it for themselves, is that fair enough?

West: Definitely.

George: Okay. Let’s get a pen and paper and write down ‘10 percent.’

I read an article—which I don’t have in my hands right now—but it states that if they were to take a human brain and transform it into like a computer, into a machine, it would be so big that it would need the equivalent size of the Mississippi River to keep it cool. It would cost about a $100 billion to build. So let’s write down ‘$100 billion.’

West: That’s a lot of money.

George: That’s a good start, isn’t it?

West: That’s a very good start.

George: Then if you were to take the power that it can exert, it would be the equivalent of about $200 billion worth of power. So to cut a long story short, $100 billion and $200 billion will give us $300 billion, correct?

West: Correct.

George: So let’s apply the theory of 10 percent. 10 percent into $300 billion is what?

West: $30 billion.

George: I know you are great at golf but I also know that you’re pretty good at numbers too, West. Absolutely. $30 billion.

How many people out of 6 billion people do you know in this world right now that are worth $30 billion?

West: Probably ten? I don’t know.

George: Not many, correct?

West: Not many. A canful.

George: So we’re talking about 10% of $300 billion. Let’s be a lot more conservative. The recent stats I came across was if you were to take the world’s wealth and divide it by the world’s population, the average person would be worth about $3 million.

West: Wow.

George: Okay? So $3 million into $300 billion is what percentage?

West: That would be one percent, isn’t it?

George: Not even. 1 percent is $3 billion.

West: Oh, $3 million. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

George: 1 percent is $3 billion. $300 million is .1 percent. So it’s .001 percent or something to that effect, correct?

West: Correct.

George: And a point I want to illustrate is that people are claiming we’re using 10 percent of our capacity.

West: We’re using less.

George: We haven’t even started, West. We haven’t even started. Does that make sense?

West: It does.

George: So when I realized ‘purposeful decision,’ I went out to the marketplace and I decided to find the evidence.

Now write this down: ‘What is your evidence procedure?’ And this is a very, very important point because I have coached, directly and indirectly, thousands of people over the last nine years personally. And you know what I found? I’ve come across good‑looking people, I’ve come across not that good‑looking people. I’ve come across bad people, good people, dark people, light people, tall people short people, old people, young people. Does that make sense, West?

I went searching for the secret of wealth. Maybe it’s because I was born in the northern suburb that’s why I wasn’t wealthy.

West: It sounded like you were on a mission, George.

George: Absolutely. Now what I would like to share with all the listeners here is go in the marketplace and find the evidence. Because you will find whatever evidence you choose. If you want to find the evidence, West, something works, you will find it. If you want to find the evidence, West, something does not work, you will find it. We live in a world of duality, correct?

West: We do.

George: Absolutely. And if you want proof of that, just have a look around you. There are good‑looking people, there are people who got a face like a smashed tram or something like that, right? There are people who are extremely wealthy, there people who aren’t.

So what I found was this: as I went out into the marketplace, I started to eliminate—this is very important to overcoming personal barriers and self-sabotaging—I started to eliminate some of my fallacies. So I thought, “You know what, well, I’m doing okay. But, you know, all rich people were crooks.” And I didn’t realize I had that embedded belief in me as I was growing up. The reason why I had that—you may laugh at this side comment, West, and you may not appreciate it or have seen this show—but have you heard of Starsky and Hutch?

West: I’ve heard of it but I don’t believe I’ve seen it. But I know it’s a funny movie.

George: It is a funny movie but I actually grew up with the series. And I used to watch it religiously every week. And on that show I used to notice something. All the good guys were the broke guys. All the good guys, their cars were breaking down and they’ve got holes in their shoes and so on. But the guys that had the cash, the yachts, the girls, the cars…

West: Those were the bad guys.

George: They were the bad guys. Yeah, armed robbery and drugs and so on. So I didn’t realize this, I was planting in my head a belief that wealth was bad.

West: Through your television programming.

George: Unbelievable. And then I would go the park and physically train for sports—my passion was sports—and I’d see a beautiful car fly by, a Merc or a Beemer, whatever. And my natural reaction was ‘drugs’. Makes sense?

West: It does. And it’s a reasonably common association, isn’t it?

George: Absolutely. And that’s why I started earlier, West, is what is your evidence procedure? What I then did, I went out the marketplace to counteract that. I went out in the marketplace looking for good people with good ethics, good values who had results. And you know what I found out? It had nothing to do with whether they were born on the right side of town or the wrong side of town because there are good and bad operators in every side of town…correct?

West: Definitely. Definitely.

George: There are good and bad operators in every industry. I think one thing I didn’t probably properly comprehend or appreciate enough is that in Australia, it’s a lot easier not to excel. We have this thing called the tall poppy, have you heard of that?

West: That’s very pronounced in here.

George: And I can speak from personal experience here—I didn’t appreciate that—if you decide to have a go, you’re going to start intimidating some family, friends and extended people. Because reality kicks in. And West, I can speak from my heart and say if anybody has a deep desire and they follow their passion and they do what it takes—and the key is—they’ve got to be willing to take massive action. Massive action is an integral part to success.

You know, some people have been coming up to me recently and asking me my thoughts on the phenomenon of The Secret. And I said, “Look, it’s fantastic. In actual fact, I came across those secrets after a book called The Science of Getting Rich was written back in 1900.”

West: It’s certainly not a new concept. I believe they just repackaged an old classic.

George: That’s true and that’s okay because what is okay about it is that it was able to catch a large audience of people. So a lot more people are at least considering the fact, does that make sense?

West: Yes.

George: Where I felt that it could have been a lot more powerful was the message of accountability, responsibility and massive action. And let me make one thing clear: I don’t care—young, old, where you’re at—I don’t care where your starting point is. If you’re willing to do what it takes and you’re willing to get around the right quality of people and information and you’re patient enough, my experience has shown me most people within 3‑7 years can transform their life phenomenally. Granted there’s always an exception to the rule, correct?

West: For sure.

George: Some people, their starting point is way back where they need to do a lot more housecleaning; in other people, because their starting point is a lot healthier, they will be able to accelerate that. But I’m just giving you some genuine information here, West.

West: I understand. And I’m sure people are extra dedicated and they follow what they’re told. And what they learn more closely, they will get results quicker than in 3‑7 years, correct?

George: Without a doubt. I heard a famous comment from Albert Einstein. And Albert Einstein is respected as being one of the most intellectual human beings to ever cross this physical plane, would you agree?

West: I would definitely agree with that.

George: I’m not saying I agree or disagree with any of these comments. I’m just providing people with the information…

West: The stimulus.

George: Absolutely. They can come to their own conclusion. But suffice to say, Albert Einstein made a comment: “One of the three most powerful forces in the universe was, one, compound interest: the ability to leverage your time and money. The other one was the human mind.” And he said the sad fact about that is if most people stated or expressed what they thought, most people would say nothing. The mind’s very unproductive.

West: I have heard that one before. And it’s true. It’s very true.

George: So what I say to people is—can I just give a bit more value here please, West? Is that okay?

West: Yeah, absolutely.

George: I want people to write these down: just a line down the middle, two columns. On the left hand, I’d like them to write probably the three most common words people use verbally or in their internal dialogue. And the first one is ‘can’t.’ The second one is ‘if.’ And the third one is ‘should.’

West: They’re pretty wishy‑washy, aren’t they?

George: West, that’s what’s impressed me about you. You are pretty switched on. Not as good‑looking as me but switched on. [Laughs]

On the right side of the column, I’d like them to substitute these… See, what I’d like to do is give so much value where people can take this information and implement it now. Not in three weeks time, not in ten years time, NOW. It’s the small, incremental steps you take now that will create massive compound effect.

When Albert Einstein made that quote, he wasn’t just talking about money. He was talking about every effort we put in, in our life on a daily basis. Does that make sense?

West: It does.

George: So instead of using the word ‘can’t,’ substitute it to ‘how can I?’ Now does that mean you’re going to come up with a resolution straightaway? Let’s be honest. Not always.

West: But you’re asking the right question.

George: Absolutely. What it does, it gets the stimulus going in your brain where it’s now looking for the evidence, “I cannot… I cannot… I cannot”

The second one is instead of using the word, ‘if,’ say ‘when.’

West: That’s powerful.

George: ‘When’ gets you committed.

West: You’re telling your brain that it’s going to happen.

George: Absolutely. ‘If’ is an element of doubt. Now doubt becomes cancer. The more doubt you have, the more cancer spreads. It doesn’t influence productive behavior.

And the last one, how many times have we heard people saying this: “I should do this.” “I should get up half an hour earlier.” “I should go to the gym.” “I should clean up…” “Should, should, should, should.” And then what happens, you wake up one day shoulding all over yourself. Substitute it to ‘must.’

West: Yeah. I like must.

George: Recently I was inspired to add value to a lot of people that I’ve had the privilege of inspiring. I created a theme, my 21 Gifts of Christmas.

And in the first gift is 20 ways to getting started to your very own financial and emotional transformation goal. One of my—I call them my friends now because people I coach I eventually tend to build great relationships with them. He rang me up and says, “Geez, George. One of the tasks was get up one hour early.” Just one hour early. And set aside that to either personal or physical development. And he said, “I didn’t realize one hour a day will give me 31 hours a month.” 31 hours x 24 hours a year, that’s 744 hours. You divide that by 24 hours, that’s an additional month per year.

West: And nowhere… out of thin air.

George: Bam! So when people say to me, “I’ve only got 24 hours in a day,” I don’t care how many hours you’ve got. How are you using those hours? Now see, a very simple yet powerful exercise.

The other thing that I came to a realization very early was you need to immerse yourself in a system, West, because as people, it’s very easy to B.S. ourselves. Makes sense? And I’m talking about B.S‑ing about our belief system. It’s very easy when we’re just accountable to ourselves to get distracted; particularly in Melbourne, I can assure you, when it rains quite frequently.

West: And there’s a lot going on in Melbourne, isn’t there? A lot of sporting events and…

George: A lot of distractions without a doubt, but not enough rains. So please, can we all put out some positive energy for rain.

But I realized through my trial and error and having a goal, I designed a system which I called my ‘7 Musts for Wealth.’ I just want to share one of the 7 musts for now, if that’s okay, West?

West: Please do. We’d love to hear it.

George: Write these down, folks. My number one of my 7 Musts for Wealth is: You must know what is your exit strategy.

West: Regardless of whatever project you go into.

George: Regardless. The first step is identify your exit strategy. Now you can be flexible because the market changes, doesn’t it?

West: Absolutely.

George: And who makes up a market? People. We all do. So when I talk about the market, this could be with relationships, it could be in your personal life. It could probably be in your portfolio, you know, whether it’s cashflow, developments, lease options—whatever—negative gearing, capital growth combination, joint ventures. The same with the stock market. You need to have an exit strategy in place. However, that doesn’t mean that you don’t change it as the market changes.

West: It’s very easy to forget once you’re in.

George: And also, West, most people don’t have that in relationships. When things are going well, they think everything’s fine. However, when sometimes things turn as we know, then you start identifying, “Oh! This was my understanding. This was your understanding.” Now without procrastinating and overanalyzing things—I think you got the message, West—what I’ve learned about success and getting around a lot of savvy successful people is that they tend to prepare phenomenally but they don’t procrastinate.

Do you know when is the best time to take action in anything?

West: When?

George: When is now the best time to take action, West?

West: When is now the best time to take action… it kind of gives it away, doesn’t it?

George: It does. Right now. You do whatever you can NOW.

And I’ll give you a classic example of that. In 1999, there was some major headlines going around the major mediums in Melbourne and saying ‘get out of the property market; it’s about to explode.’ Now for the average Joe Blog—they’ll look at those headlines and how do they react?

West: They get scared.

George: One, they get scared and they assume they’re correct. And thirdly they assume the person who writes it has the credibility to write it.

West: They need to ask better questions.

George: Exactly. If you actually, say, you’re then going to ask these people, “Tell me, what is your investment strategy?” And this is the issue with having these tall poppy culture. It’s very easy to be a critic. It’s very easy and it’s very easy to have a market for critics. What I say to people, “If somebody’s going to make a criticism, that’s okay because we live in a…” You know, people before us went to war in our behalf, correct?

West: They did.

George: And they dispended our right to be as unequal as we wanted to or as we choose to. And the great thing about this country is we talk about our opinions without having the risk of throwing grenades at each other. Isn’t that a brilliant gift?

West: That’s awesome.

George: That’s phenomenal West, do you agree?

West: I absolutely agree.

George: I highly agree with you mate. I’m not going to get into an argument there. And the point is this—it’s okay to criticize as long as you say, “Look, I think that guy’s breath smells but here is another option…” The problem with critics is they don’t provide another solution. And the reason why they don’t is because they’re never going to take action themselves.

Don’t get me wrong, I eat books. I’ve got a lot of books. I’ve given more books and more research away than what is in my life at the moment. And I don’t do that anymore because what I found, by giving away things to people, they don’t place value on them enough.

West: They don’t value them.

George: Does that make sense?

West: Exactly right.

George: But if books alone were enough, West, we wouldn’t have any schools, we wouldn’t have any unis, we wouldn’t have any cultures. Okay, books are a supporting tool; they’re not the vehicle. Does that make sense?

West: Because all the information’s there. But the structure isn’t, the system isn’t.

George: That’s right. So a system is very important. So my number one ‘must’ of my 7 Musts is you must know have exit strategy in place.

West: Powerful. And just on that, you were talking about relationships before, I’m assuming you mean both personal relationships and professional relationships, is that correct?

George: Absoutely. And actually, West, write this down. This really changed my life in a big way. Write down: 100 percent.

West: Done.

George: Okay? Now, coaching a lot of people, I’ve seen conflict in relationships both in professional and personal. And because people have this preconceived belief that if I’m in a relationship and as long as we’re putting in a 100 percent together, that’s a 100 percent. So let’s break it down. One might be putting in 70, one might be putting in 30 or 50‑50 and so on, correct?

West: Yup.

George: If you got that attitude and you’re only putting in 50 percent and the other party doesn’t turn up, how much do you have now?

West: 50 percent?

George: Is that a 100 percent?

West: No way.

George: No way. And to be successful, you’ve got to always be putting in 100 percent: with your children, with your spouse, with your investments, with your passions, with everything. And my attitude was when I came to the realization, “Look, I love my wife. I love my kids,”—though I did not have kids at the time. And my wife was a little bit nervous because what I did and when I took drastic action is I actually gave away a pretty cushy, comfortable corporate job. And I went home and I said, “Honey, I did it.” She said, “You did what?” “Your primary source income—quit.”

West: So you effectively burnt your bridges. The point of no return.

George: I did not get that reaction at that time. However, suffice to say—I’ve been blessed with a beautiful wife and a beautiful family now—because one thing she did do is she didn’t jump in my way. She had her fears. She had her limiting beliefs. But one thing she did know, that I was willing to do what it took. As long as, she knew I had a worthwhile goal,that’s very important.

People talk about goal setting. How many times have you heard people talk about ‘You’ve got to set goals. You’ve got to set goals’?

West: Many times.

George: Okay. How many times do people not hit their goals?

West: Quite often.

George: And reason being, West, is there are three sides to the equation here. One is…I find if people are hitting 70 percent of their goals or more, their goals tend to be too small. Okay? They’re not stretching themselves enough. If they’re not hitting at least 30 percent of their goals—so they’re hitting 30 percent or less—their goals tend to be too big. Now that doesn’t mean it’s a big goal. What it means is they may not be putting in the appropriate action to be able to treat it. Does that make sense?

West: Yes.

George: Okay. So what I say to people is, “Don’t have goals; have the outcomes.”

West: Interesting.

George: Have the outcomes. Because when you set a goal, you tend to put a limitation. And that is, a goal becomes like a timeline: “I want to reach to this goal on this date.” Now as we have already admitted and agreed, we don’t hit most of our goals. So when you don’t hit a goal, what you’re actually embedding in your own conscious or subconscious mind is, ‘loser,’ ‘failure,’ ‘you failed again,’ ‘you lost again.’ Understand what I’m saying?

West: Continually betting yourself down.

George: Absolutely. So a goal should be used as a tool to test, measure, and monitor how you’re progressing towards your outcome.

West: Right. Wow. That’s a refreshing new way to look at it. For sure.

George: That is powerful. That is phenomenal. An actual fact, I had a coaching session with one of my grads that’s been with me now for 4, 5 years—he actually came down from Adelaide—met down the road and had a nice peppermint tea and relaxed and talked about life. And he just became a dad recently and his world’s changed. And that distinction alone, he said to me it was worth coming to Adelaide. So he got up with a lot more energy and a lot more passion and focus.

Actually, focus is another interesting point. People have said, “Oh, I’m not focused.” And I say, “Well, that’s not actually accurate. You are focused.” Every minute of the day we are focused beings. But what are we focusing on? And we tend to be focusing on too many distractions.

And this is a question that changed my life and I would like to share this with you also—write this down, folks—ask yourself this question: “Am I productive or am I being busy?”

West: Big difference.

George: A lot of people in business are busy-ness. It doesn’t mean they’re productive. It doesn’t mean they’re profitable.

West: Actually, I heard this one quote from Jim Rohn which is similar. And he says, “Never confuse activity with achievement.” And I think that pretty much hits what you’re hitting on here.

George: Very similar focus. That’s a great point.

West: So people, they can mistake being busy with achieving. And that’s a big mistake. Carry on.

George: Well, it’s true. Particularly at this time of the year. You know, we’ve got the festive season upon us—which is great; it gives you time to reflect. In actual fact and for most people, it tends to create a lot more pressure: financial pressure, expectations…

It’s funny, I was talking to a friend of mine the other day. And I didn’t realize this, but I was talking to a lawyer. And he reckons December is his busiest month for family law issues. It tends to bring a lot of cracks in a family out in the open. It tends to add a lot of pressure.

And, you know, this word ‘pain’ is a very interesting word. Most people go through life, West—what I’ve identified what I’ve observed—they go through life thinking they can avoid pain. Understand this: We will never, ever, ever, ever—and let me illustrate this point again—we will never, ever, ever avoid pain. All we are going to do is delay it. Okay? So we’re either going to experience—and this is very important, West—we’re either going to experience the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.

West: I’m sure people know which one weighs more.

George: It does. And I’ll give you an example. How many people do you think hear of movie stars or major sporting athletes and when they achieve they think, Geez, I would love to be in his or her shoes? Or successful people, you know. I mean how does it feel to be an overnight success? Youtube is a recent example. Google. Skype. I mean these things did not exist 2, 3, 4, 5 years ago. Does that make sense?

West: That’s right.

George: Well, you look at something like Mc Donalds, Ray Croc. What a name—Ray Croc. That’s why he went to the Mc Donals brothers and said, “Listen, I want to license your name.” Imagine having all these golden arches, ‘what a load of croc.’ The guy was switched on enough to appreciate his strengths. His ego was not his amigo.

West: And he identified his weaknesses.

George: Absolutely. He said, you know, “I’ve got my strength. These guys have got a strength, I’m going to marry it.”

Now my association to pain is completely the opposite. Pain is spelt P‑A‑I‑N, isn’t it?

West: It is.

George: ‘P’ to me means passion. ‘A’ means action. ‘I’ means integrity, inspiration. And ‘N’ means now.

West: Awesome. I love that.

George: So I don’t look to avoid pain. I say, “Bring it on!” And in actual fact, when things are not painful enough, I look up in the sky and think, well, maybe it doesn’t me trust me enough. I don’t know.

West: So you have a completely different association of pain and what everyone else does.

George: Very different.

West: It sounds to me like you seek pain, George.

George: Now some people may take that out of context. Let me just add… I’m a very happily blessed married man with two beautiful little girls so I’ll leave it at that.

However, saying that West, it’s true you know. If you look at anything worth pursuing, it takes effort. And critics would say, “Aw, he’s talking about get rich…etc.” It takes massive effort. Now you can either put in the effort over 40, 50, 60 years and not be in the best position to appreciate it. Or you can convince that in the next 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 years and really accelerate the process, yeah?

West: Definitely. You’ve just got to do what people who have done it in that time do, right?

George: Well that’s a great way to leverage yourself. West, you just inspired me to remember one thing…my evidence procedure is very simple: if somebody has achieved something and they’ve done it, so can I. Because in most cases, they’re not better‑looking than me, they’re not smarter than me, you know. I’ve got all my limbs, I’m breathing.

And write this down: “What other people think of me is none of my business.”

West: I love that quote as well.

George: Makes sense? And there is a disclaimer to that quote. And that is if they’re paying your bills and they’re helping create the lifestyle for you and your family and they’re taking care of all that, they’ve got a right to tell you what they think.

West: They do.

George: And appreciate these people. They’ll think what they’ll think, anyway. You’re never going to make a hundred people happy at the same time. If that was the case, this world will not be where it is because we live in a world of reality.

West: Absolutely. I can vouch for that fully. I recently did an interview with another one of my wealthy mentors. And she said that if there are people that aren’t pulling you down and talking bad about you, you’re not doing good enough.

George: Because you’re not doing enough.

West: That’s what she said.

I wanted to ask you, George, really quickly later on, if you’re in a train of thought now we can touch on this later, but over like the end of the month or the end of the year, maybe you can tell us a little bit about how George Mihos goes through the process that he does in setting up the next batch of activities or the next set of outcomes or what kind of process that you go through…later on if you get some time.

George: West, I’m happy to give you a simple answer to that very empowering question. And that is this: I have identified my strengths. And that is, unless you consistently look into adding value to others… In actual fact, let me expand on this. Now most people, I found, have not heard of Buckminster Fuller. He was renowned to be just as intelligent, if not more intelligent than Albert Einstein, but he doesn’t have the profile of Albert Einstein, correct?

West: Correct.

George: Now to cut the long story short, he was married. He had a young girl. And he did what most people do in America, on a certain hour of the week he was planning to go to the North American version of football, Gridiron.
So when he saw his daughter while she was laying in her bed, not too healthy, and he says, “Sweetheart, what would you like daddy to bring home? Talk to Daddy.”
“Bring me home a flag, Daddy.”
He said, “Fantastic,” kissed her on the cheek, off he went.

What happened? He didn’t come home that night. He didn’t come home to say goodnight. He eventually came home. As you can appreciate, his wife was distraught, she’s got a new child she’s dealing with, her partner’s been away for a couple of months. Finally comes in the house. She looks at him and says, “Listen, I don’t have the energy to argue with you. Your daughter is very ill. You need to go see her.” So up he goes upstairs, walks in the bedroom, looks at his daughter and guess what the first thing she asks him?

West: “Got the flag?”

George: “Where’s my flag, Daddy?” And his reaction was, “Ohh…”

To cut the long story short, she died very shortly thereafter. Now can you imagine how devastating that would be?

West: Absolutely.

George: I mean I’m blessed with two beautiful girls and you really don’t want to think about stuff like that. But suffice to say, what happened at that moment, he got up and moved out of that household. And apparently, the story goes he did not speak to a soul for the next two years. He went searching for the meaning of life. You know, his marriage collapsed, his family collapsed as you can appreciate, right? Two years, he finally found it. Guess what it was…

West: What?

George: He found the meaning of life…the meaning of life was living on purpose. Okay? And I’m answering your original question by sharing a story. How do you live on purpose? Adding value to others. Add value first—that’s one of my key ingredients to success. In actual fact, it’s part of my laws—number two—in my Indisputable Laws of Wealth. Adding value first.

And what I do is I always look at ‘how can I create win‑win opportunities?’ And one thing which we want to expand on this one—I’m happy to look at our schedules—maybe down the track, West, is one of the key things that I’ve come across that makes people really successful is joint ventures. Joint ventures are a very powerful way to create wealth and to diversify at the same time.

West: Definitely. And you’re referring to any industry, any project, anything?

George: Anything.

West: It’s just a generically powerful concept. Yup.

George: Absolutely. And the key there is building relationships and adding value. People who go through the wrong process, they’re always thinking about ‘what’s in it for me?’ And most people’s favorite radio station is WIIFM. We know that. What’s In It For Me.

And in the day, when you come from a space, ‘okay, you’ve got a frustration, I’ve got a solution; I’ve got a frustration, you’ve got a solution. How can we marry that?’ And it’s not necessarily fifty‑fifty. That’s not always the best win‑win. Makes sense? But it’s finding a medium that’s going to be profitable to both parties. And everybody’s able to bring different value to the table. Does that make sense?

West: For sure. And even long term. I mean it might be only a very small gain right now. but down the track, you can see massive gains from it from a long term relationship.

George: Absolutely. And persistence is very important. You may have heard of Graeme Alford. His book, Never Give Up: Mental Toughness.

West: I have heard of that book. Yes.

George: I actually saw Graeme present on a couple occasions over the last 12, 15 years. And for those people listening who don’t know who Graeme is, he set up an organization called World Business Mastery in the mid‑to‑late 90s. And he was responsible for promoting and bringing the likes of Mikhail Gorbachev, General Swartzkoff, Lee Iacocca… just to name a few, you know, world leaders.

West: Wow. Incredible leaders, yes.

George: Now if you had told Graeme twenty five years earlier that he would be doing this, twenty five years earlier he’d been arrested for armed robbery. He was the barrister of a lawyer from Melbourne’s underworld. And whilst he was in jail, realization kicked in. And he also had an accounting background. So he got a pen and paper and he thought, ‘You know what, I’m going to do an assets and liabilities of my life.’ In actual fact, I challenge everybody to this.

So he got a pen and paper, put a line down in the middle, ‘A’ for assets, ‘L’ for liabilities. And he looked at the left column and said, “Oh, I’ll get back to that.” Liabilities were easy. You know, ‘my marriage has collapsed,’ ‘my life sucks’…

West: No money. No relationships.

George: After seven hours of contemplating, he only wrote two things on the assets column. And you know what they were? He wrote ‘my life’ and ‘my mom still loves me.’

West: [Laughs] Now I think most people would have those two.

George: Yeah, at least. And, you know, we live in Australia…to name a few.

But suffice to say, he reckons that day changed his life. He became totally focused, started working on his health. And his exit strategy, West—you know, we talk about exit strategy—while he was in prison he was working at his exit strategy. And his exit strategy was to get in at a prison whilst to act like he had brain damage because he had a lot of alcohol abuse. So he was telling his prison mate, “I’m being interviewed today by a counselor. I’m going act like I’ve got brain damage.” He comes back after the interview and his mate says, “How’d you go?” He said, “You wouldn’t believe it. I got brain damage.” He said, “No, no, no. Mate, I’ve got brain damage.” Something like one fifth or a quarter of his brain had been burnt away or something because of so much abuse.

Anyway, I take my hat off to him because he transformed his life, he overcame adversity.

And during the experience of bringing up these world leaders, he asked Lee Iacocca, a Christian, and also General Swartzkoff, which is, “General, two years to get you out here. So many phone calls! And I asked your publicist, your PA, after two years—now we’ve all heard this saying ‘insanity is keep behaving the same way expecting the same results,’ correct?

West: Same results. Yes.

George: Okay. Well, he came to that realization. He says, “Well, I’ve been asking them the same questions, I’m getting the same results. Maybe I need to change the questions I’m asking.” So he rang up the PA and said, “What will it take to get General Swartzkoff out here?”

West: Ooh. Powerful.

George: Powerful question, right?

West: Different question.

George: Very simple. Very simple.

The answer was something like this:
“Double his fee, triple his speaking engagements.”
And he said, “Is that it?”
And they said, “That’s it.”

You see, that’s amazing.

Then he asked Lee Iacocca, “Lee Iacocca, two years! Eight NOs. You said no to me eight times!”
And he goes, “What are you talking about, Graeme?”
He says, “It took me two years to get you out here blah blah blah blah.”
And he says, “Ohh… I automatically give four ‘NOs’ to somebody. Automatically.”
He said, “What do you that for?”
He says, “Well, how many people do you reckon come back after four ‘NOs’?”

In actual fact, how many people do you reckon come back after one ‘NO’? Something like 91 percent of people would take the first ‘no’ and off they go. He took eight ‘NOs’. Now when somebody says no to me, West, you know what I hear?

West: An invitation for more information?

George: Yeah. But I hear something else. I don’t hear the word ‘no: N-O,’ I hear this, K‑N‑O‑W. They don’t know. Because if they knew what I knew, they would be breaking down my door. And I know eventually they will know.

West: So it’s your role to pass on that information?

George: Absolutely. I’m just going to keep looking at the relationship, appreciating people of where they are, part of their journey. Everybody has different starting points.

See, to be able to implement the strategies that have changed my life and thousands, for most of us we need to unlearn what we previously learned to be able to apply what we’re learning. Does that make sense?

West: That makes perfect sense, yes.

George: That’s why you need to immerse yourself around good quality people, an environment, a system that’s consistently immersing yourself. And eventually, what happens… How many times have you heard something, West, for the first time and you may have got confused?

West: Many.

George: And sometimes you may hear the same thing 7, 8, 10, 12, 15, 20 times but when that pin finally drops and you have that epiphany you go, “Aha!” Now you may be in the shower. Or you might be on the golf course. Or you might be driving your car or making love or whatever. But if you immerse yourself long enough and stay in your environment long enough, you would eventually get it. The key is, are you willing to do what it takes? Because life is not a dress rehearsal, West.

West: It’s the real deal.

George: And we’ll put a blowtorch on my back side. And I ask permission if I can do that to them also. When I read an article of about 180+ year olds were interviewed, and they were all asked this question: “Having the ability to go back in time, would you make any changes?”

West: What did they say?

George: “And if, what would they be?”

Something like 88+ percent, “We would make changes in a heartbeat.” And the common two responses they got were these…you ready?

West: Yes, I’m ready.

George: “We will take more massive actions/risks.” “And we wouldn’t care about what other people thought of us.”

Pretty compelling, isn’t it?

West: It’s very compelling. And I think it’s easy for people to hear it. And they might need to listen to this interview again and again for it to sink in like you were saying before.

George: They’re more than welcome to, West. In actual fact, can I add some more value here, if that’s okay?

West: You can. Fire away.

George: I’d like to invite your listeners and their family and friends to go into my website, www.GeorgeMihos.com. And very simply, when they log on to my website I like to give them what I believe are the most powerful gifts for this festive season called my ‘21 Gifts of Christmas.’

West: Not even if it’s not the festive season and they listen (or read) this later on, are they still able to get it?

George: That’s fine. I will extend that. And if it’s not on there, all they’ve got to do is send me an email and say, “Hi. You said I can do this… on behalf of West,” and I will arrange that for them.

West: Awesome, George. So where can they get it? Just through your website?

George: It’s just through my website—GeorgeMihos.com.

You know, technology’s brilliant, isn’t it? You can be anywhere from anywhere and access any information you want these days, which is awesome.

West: Definitely. Definitely.

So tell us a bit about what the 21 Gifts gives you. Does it take them through a process? Or cover many of the concepts a little bit more detailed that we’ve talked about today?

George: A lot more detailed. It’s an accumulation of my practical, pragmatic experience and leveraging of others. And I’ve put it together in a very simple yet powerful way of delivering the data so they can take it with them and impact their lives. And not just their lives. Because the exciting about it is when you start to live your passion, West, people start to see this. And they start coming to you and they start saying, “What do you want?” Your regulars starts saying, “Look, there’s something going on. You’re changing.” And as you take action, you start to get your results, you then become…from a strength of you’re able to add value, you’re able to influence. Not through opinions, because as we know we’ve all got opinions. They’re like armpits and they generally stink.

But I would really encourage anybody who’s absolutely serious about becoming better, adding value, experiencing more. And you know what? Who says life was meant to be a very simple brisk walk in the park? We could smell the roses, appreciate each other’s strengths and enjoy life. You know, take your kids to the Amazon River, take them to the Acropolis, take them to the Nile River. Take them to parts of Australia that Australians haven’t seen, West. It’s cracking me up. Our own backyard…there’s so much to do.

West: It’s amazing, yeah.

George: I’ve employed a personal trainer. And I meet him just down the road from my office. We go through different parks. Just through that experience alone, I’m experiencing things that I’ve never seen before. And I go home and I say to my kids, “Kids, what are we doing this Sunday? We’re taking our boats. We’re going to do this…” And it’s just opening their eyes to the possibilities.

I would love to take somebody from fourteen hundred and thirty three (1433) or eleven thirty eight (1138) or seven ninety three (793) and plant them here today.

West: As an experiment?

George: You reckon that would fry their brains? They would look around and say, “God, I thought I was thinking big. Look at this.”

West: For sure.

George: Imagine 10, 15, 20 years from now. I mean, you’re recording me on this thing. I’m looking at your face on the screen. If you told me this was possible 10, 12 years ago… My first mobile phone was a brick. I needed ways to be able to carry it.

West: The rate of change is just amazing.

George: I don’t want to leave this message, ‘If today was the last day of the rest of your life…?’ By the way, you want to behave like it is, but you want to plan and prepare and act like you’re going to be here for the next hundred years. Does that make sense, West?

West: Sensational. I love that.

George: Can I help you with anything else?

West: Mate, you have answered and inspired myself, obviously, but hopefully many, many of the listeners on the call today. I do want to ask you one more question, George, and that is how does George define success? I know it’s a very broad question.

George: It is. And that’s fine. To me, it’s organic. It’s constantly evolving ever. As long as you can look yourself in the mirror and those eyes looking back, know the truth… because we live in a marketplace where we heard all the clichés, we live in a marketplace where people have a lot of masks on and they try and impress people with money they don’t have, they buy things with money they don’t have. Now that’s insanity. You don’t have to impress anybody. As long as you can look in the mirror and that person loves you back, that’s powerful.

West: Definitely. That’s a great way to finish on, George. I want to thank you for your time. And obviously, you’ve done a lot of preparation for this call. And I think the listeners will really appreciate it.

So guys, if you’re listening and you want more information on George and his work, please visit his website. Contact him if you would like to know more information. I mean I’m sure, George, you also provide information for people wanting to get into certain property vehicles, in terms of education.

George: Across the board, West. Not just property. I’m a firm believer…what inspired me getting around the wealthy people… sure, they I tend to focus on one or two key areas. And then they take that passion and leverage it into other areas. So I provide information across the board, real practical data, whether it’s properties or shares or business or joint ventures or peak performance.

One thing I probably didn’t do any justice…my passion is kids. I’m blessed with two beautiful little girls. And in the last 2, 3 years, I put on what I call kids’ workshops. Kids are kids. I call you a kid, I call me a kid. Jerry Lewis said to me, “Never lose the kid. Never lose that child. Stay creative. Be passionate.”

So a lot of my—which I call my friends now—my graduates, my clients inspired me with an overwhelming message: “George, we wish we had met you earlier. We wish we knew this stuff 20 years ago.” And that got me thinking. So I did about a half dozen workshops off my back because I wanted to; I was passionate about it. And that is where we got their kids and we taught them the fundamentals of wealth. Across the board. I talk about holistic wealth.

West: You teach your stuff that I learned in school.

George: Oh, unbelievable. And in extension of that, we also support the Make‑A‑Wish Foundation which is one of my favorite charities. But I’m happy to help anybody out when time permits.

Look, West, if I can just again express my sincere gratitude for this opportunity. Also, I know it’s the festive season. I hope everybody takes the opportunity to enjoy the family because family is probably the most important thing in this world. And also, reflect and decide from now—not only to decide from now—the next year is going to be bigger and better than ever, and appreciate that. Some people may be listening to this message after the festive season, the message is the same. Do it now, folks. DO IT NOW.

Love you. Have a great day. And I look forward to being able to inspire you and add a lot more value to your lives. Thanks again, West. Have a great day.

West: Thank you for your time, George. We really appreciate it.

George: You’re welcome.

West: Take care.