When I began my property investment career, I knew that I wanted to achieve a high level of success. Not having much money, I knew this would be difficult. Yet, I also knew that others had achieved success, people whose talents and resources were no greater than mine.

As I talked to successful people, not just in the property investment field, but in many fields of endeavour, I found that they shared a few characteristics in common.

First, they knew the value of hard work. Some of the successful people I met lived a life of ease. But at some point in their lives, they had devoted a great deal of time and effort to their chosen career.

Second, they were not afraid to take action. Not that their actions were guaranteed to produce the positive results they wanted. But they were committed to taking action, learning from their mistakes, and persevering.

Third, (and this one surprised me), virtually all of them were avid readers. And I’m not talking about being literary fiction scholars or science fiction addicts. These successful entrepreneurs were most interested in literature devoted to the art and science of business and personal achievement.

So I became a reader myself. And I began to study—deeply. And I learned.

If you aspire to success in property investment, or in some other field, I want you to achieve that success. Of course, you will need to work hard and take action. I also want you to commit yourself to learning from others. Start your own personal success library, one book at a time. And read. The greatest book in the world, unread, will do you no good.

To get you started, please accept my gift of three books reviews below that have meant a great deal to me, books I have studied in depth, books that have helped me on my path to success.

Let me tell you how these great authors have changed my thinking and changed my life…


Unlimited Power
By Tony Robbins
Publisher: Free Press, 1997

When I began my property investment career, the only thing I started with was unlimited ambition. As I later found out, this is a great starting point. But ambition alone won’t guarantee success. An ambitious person must develop skills.

Successful People Are Different
I wondered which skills were most important. I knew that communication skills were necessary, because property investment is not just a property business; it’s also a people business.

But I found that the successful people I met were more than just good talkers. They were different somehow. I could sense the difference, but could not articulate what those differences were.

Tony Robbins’ book, Unlimited Power, helped me understand what makes successful people different and pointed me toward ways I could transform myself into one of those successful people.

Successful People Think Differently
This was a great revelation to me. Tony Robbins helped me understand that communication is not just what comes out of a person’s mouth. The more important communication is the talk that goes on inside the person’s own head.

As I began to pay attention to my own communication habits, I found that Tony was right. Something would happen to me as I went about my daily tasks—I would have a conversation with a person; I would encounter a problem; or I would accomplish some task. And as soon as that thing happened, my brain would immediately begin telling me stories about it.

Some of the stories were not flattering. I would tell myself that I had been stupid or clumsy. If I was in a negative mood, my mind would project the story to a disastrous ending—utter failure and dejection.

Two Forms of Communication
Tony’s great book helped me take conscious control, not just of my “external communication,” but also my “internal communication.”

We think in pictures. Our brains sift information and filter it back to us in the form of mental images or pictures. Unlimited Power showed me how, first, to take control of my internal communication.

I no longer allow my brain to filter images back to me in the form of negative images.

The key ingredient seems to be alertness. If something happens and I find myself thinking negative thoughts about it, I have learned first to notice it.

Then I stop. No matter how busy I am, if I hear a negative thought running through my head, I stop and change that negative by reinterpreting it in a positive way, in a way that serves me.

For example, let’s say that I have been working on the purchase of a property and suddenly the seller changes his mind. He wants more than the property is worth, and now the deal is no longer attractive. It happens sometimes.

There are two ways I can look at it. One sounds like this.

“Oh no, the property investment market has changed. Now it is no longer possible to buy properties at 30 to 40 percent under market value. My property investment business is going to dry up. I’ll have to find another line of work.”

What does that do for me? It does nothing except depress me and make me afraid to take action. I prefer to think about it this way.

“That was the right kind of property for me, but it was the wrong kind of seller. Now I know what a wrong seller looks like and can recognize one faster in the future. This will make me a more efficient buyer of investment properties”

Of those two statements, which one is true? We cannot know, nor does it matter. A better question is, which one will empower me? Obviously the second will. So I choose to interpret the event in a positive way, a way that serves me, a way that makes future action more likely.

Successful People Take Action
And that leads me to the second thing I learned from Unlimited Power. Successful people take massive action.

I’m not talking about taking foolish risks. Successful people have a system. Robbins calls this his “ultimate success formula.”

The first step is to define exactly, precisely what you want. In my chosen field of endeavour, property investing, I decided exactly what kinds of properties I wanted to own, where they would be located, what financial characteristics they would have, what kinds of people would live in the properties, and so on.

The second step is to take action. You cannot imagine how terrified I was the first time I bought a property—such a big responsibility and such a big change in my financial picture—and with absolutely no guarantee of success. But I knew that if I wanted to be in the property investment business, I would have to—guess what—buy property. It sounds comical to say it like that, but it’s true. If you want to win the game, you first have to start playing.

The third step is to gauge the success of your action. I decided to become completely objective in asking myself whether the action accomplished my goal. I learned that, when I am buying a property, my planning process needs to be based on realistic expectations and include regular stopping points when I must honestly evaluate whether those expectations are being met.

The fourth step is to adjust. In the beginning, my first actions were almost never absolutely correct. I blundered. But then I noticed my blunder and creatively thought up ways to fix the blunder and to fix it so it wouldn’t happen again. This is the true creative work that goes into any endeavour.

What is the next step after that? Go back to step one. Set some new goals, take action, gauge the results, and adjust. This is the creative cycle.

Successful People Give
This may be the most important lesson I learned from Tony Robbins, or anyone else. If you want to “get,” you must first “give.”

And somehow it makes a difference whether you give grudgingly or freely. I don’t know how to explain it, but I know that it matters. You must give—provide value to others—freely.

I have found that when I focus on what I am giving to others—on how I am providing value to them—then the “getting” seems to happen automatically. Of course I have to be prudent. Believe me—I analyze all details of any transaction in advance. But underlying all that analysis is a bedrock belief that both sides must win in any transaction.


Shut Up, Stop Whining, and Get a Life: A Kick-Butt Approach to a Better Life
By Larry Winget
Publisher: Wiley, 2005

In several areas of my life, I was like a person walking along the rails of a railroad track. Suddenly, a bully came and gave me a tremendous, rude shove, a shove hard enough to knock me completely off the railroad tracks.

That bully was Larry Winget.

What I could not see was that a train was coming up behind me. If Larry had not given me that shove, the train might have wiped me out.

We Believe What We Say
One of the tricks in the art of selling is to get the prospect himself tell you how great he thinks your product or service is. Why? He may not believe what you say because you have a vested interest in the outcome—a sale. But if he tells you, in his own words, what he likes about the product or service, he will believe every word of it.

Larry taught me that the same is true about whatever we say about ourselves.

To paraphrase Larry, wonderful things happen in life. “Crappy” things happen too—to everyone. As I became more aware of how I responded to both, I noticed that I gave more attention to the negatives than to the positives.

The problem with that is: you will get more of whatever you focus on most.

So, with my bully friend Larry looking over my shoulder, I made some rules for myself.

No whining. It accomplishes nothing. In fact, it prolongs the situation and the pain that accompanies it. If you hang around me for a week or a month, you’ll never hear a whine coming out of my mouth. Or if you do, please give me a rude shove.

No excuses. It is always easier to dream up an excuse than to dream up a plan to correct the situation. So I no longer make excuse; I make a plan.

No explaining. Explaining what went wrong is just a cleverly disguised form of whining and excusing. Why explain? Who cares? If something went wrong, so what? Move on!

Fix Your Own House First
When I speak of fixing your own house, I am speaking metaphorically. “Fixing your own house” means taking care of your own physical health and mental well-being before you try to serve others.

It is easy to find activity and work, so easy that we often get caught up in “doing” to the extent that we forget to take care of our most important assets—ourselves.

I was no exception. As I began to be successful in my property investment career, the demands on my time were tremendous. I began to lose sleep, stopped eating nutritious food, stopped exercising; and I neglected my family and friends.

Who was I kidding? Did I want to end up rich, but unhealthy and unloved?

Larry helped me get my priorities straight. I’m no Olympic athlete now, but I try to live a healthy lifestyle. I try to be physically active and stick to a consistent exercise plan. I pay attention to what I eat and to the quantity I eat. And when I am tired, I go to sleep.

No matter how busy I am, I make time for my family and for my friends. And I make

time to help the people I see daily, whether they are tenants, investment partners, or professionals.

But I can’t help others unless I take care of myself first.

I also make time for fun. Life is hardly worth living if you don’t enjoy yourself along the way.

Care
Whining does not mean that you care. Only action means that you care.

Larry helped me to understand that whining takes away from one of the most important tasks of success: planning and goal setting.

If you visit a new city there are two ways you can get to know it. One way is to drive around aimlessly and see what you see. This can be enjoyable for a while.

The other way is to find out in advance what is interesting in the city. Then you can make a plan and see many things that interest you.

After Larry bullied me into stopping all of my whining and complaining, I found that I had a lot of spare time on my hands. So I used that time to do the work of planning.

Planning is difficult work. But it is exciting and creative.

Once of the tricks of good planning is to turn off that inner chatter that tells you that what you are planning is impossible. “Be reasonable,” it chatters. “Play it safe.”

I can tell you that the world is not run by reasonable people. It was unreasonable for me to think that I could be wealthy and successful. So I chose to be unreasonable.

Nor do timid people make it to the top. Boldness is required—boldness of thought, (planning) and boldness of action.

Thanks Larry, for kicking my butt. I needed it.



What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful
By Marshall Goldsmith
Publisher: Hyperion, 2007

We often see in the newspaper stories of rich, successful people who fall from power, usually in disgrace. How could this happen? It makes me wonder; could it happen to me?

Marshall Goldsmith’s wonderful book unlocked this mystery for me. Marshall helped me understood that, as success begins to happen, it means that we have reached a new stage in life. And we must change our behaviour so that it is appropriate for the new stage.

A Good Thing Can Become a Bad Thing
“Good” and “Bad” are not objective qualities. That is why we have laws: to objectively define actions that harm others. Even ending the life of a fellow human being is not illegal if done in self-defence.

Sometimes good qualities can become negative qualities. By “good,” I mean qualities that foster success; by “bad” I mean qualities that inhibit success or even lead to downfall.

Here’s an example.

I am the type of person who likes to think things through carefully. That quality has served me well and has kept me out of a lot of trouble.

However, with the exponential growth of my property investment business, I do not have time to mull over every small decision. In the time I spend in indecision, things can get worse.

It has been necessary for me to learn to make decisions quickly and take action immediately.

It is riskier. Sometimes I can be wrong. So I make it a practice first to gauge the scope of the decision I am about to make. I ask, what is the downside if I am wrong? If I can live with the downside, then I make the decision and move on. I reserve my “mulling” for situations in which I cannot live with the downside.

Marshall has taught me that, as I become more and more successful, I must constantly examine my behaviours to see which ones are still working for me and which may be having a negative effect.

Growth Tempered with Caution
When I was just starting out, the bad thing was that I didn’t have much. The good thing was that I didn’t have much to lose.

Now that I have more, that is a good thing. But the “bad” thing is that, if I slip, I have a lot to lose.

Marshall’s book helped me understand the dangers that lie hidden in the very qualities that made me successful in the first place. He lists 20 workplace bad habits that we should examine in ourselves.

The one that most surprised me was the danger of an all-consuming need to win. Every successful person I know loves to win. That mentality seems to be a necessary ingredient for success.

Yet, carried to extremes, the need to win can surely work against you. And the more successful you become, the higher the stakes, and the more it can work against you.

The same can be said of obsessive dedication to goals. Of course you must set goals. Of course you must work to reach them. But there is a fine line that is not to be crossed. Striving to reach goals should not include deceptive practices, taking advantage of others, or bad manners.

What does success do for you? It gives you leverage.

Money gives you the leverage to buy and enjoy many good things in life.

Power gives you the leverage to do good: for yourself, your family, your friends, your clients, even for strangers.

Fame—whether international or just in your local community—gives you leverage by providing a platform from which to communicate.

But these can turn against you. Money cannot buy happiness, and the attempt to buy happiness can cause grief. Power can corrupt. Fame can gloriously illuminate our shortcomings.

So I try to examine my life as I go, and change my behaviour so that it enhances my life instead of detracting from it.

Changing for the Better
Some believe that people cannot change. But I am living proof that a person can change his beliefs, his knowledge, his attitudes, and his habits, and thereby change his life.

Marshall Goldsmith’s wonderful book gave me a simple and foolproof formula for effecting the changes that I wanted to make in my life.

The first step—and this one is difficult for many people, including me—is to be open to feedback from anyone and everyone. I don’t always like what I hear; I don’t always agree with it; but only by being open to all feedback do I get the honest feedback that helps me identify my strengths and weaknesses.

Next is to develop the habit of apologising when you are wrong. Why? It clears the air so you can move on. I don’t make excuses; I don’t blame someone else; I just say, “I was wrong and I’m sorry,” and leave it at that.

I had not realised, until I read Marshall’s book, the value in announcing your intentions to the world, or at least your corner of it. He calls this “advertising.” I use this simple technique to commit myself and to give to others the ability to hold me accountable. I need that.

Marshall also showed me what a bad habit it is to interrupt and say, “I knew that,” in order to boost my self image. I make it a point simply to listen, often giving only responses that indicate, “I heard you and appreciate your message.”

I had not thought about the importance of gratitude until I read the book. But it makes sense. When I express gratitude, I am saying, “This is what I wanted. Give me more of it, please.” Gratitude completes the circle and keeps the flow going.

Follow-up is important to me. There are so many tiny details in my business that it would be impossible to manage my large property holdings without excellent follow-up skills.

And last, I now involve others as I seek to make changes in my behaviour by explaining how I want to change, asking for and implementing their suggestions. And I keep returning to them for feedback and suggestions.

… Now you understand how I used the thoughts of these authors to develop the skills and habits that I needed to be successful. I hope you will now take the next step, which is to select one of these great books and begin reading.

The books are rich with ideas, and the ones that mean the most to you may be different from the ones I wrote about in my review. The point is to take exactly what you need from the resources that are available to you and implement those ideas.

The knowledge you gain in your new habit of reading is an important aspect of the Real Wealth that you seek.

So read!

Wishing you Real Wealth in all areas of your life,

Rhett Lewis

P.S. Please read on, enclosed is a special book review, my favourite!!

Special Bonus Review…

Think and Grow Rich
by Napoleon Hill
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group Copyright 1937. Revised 1960

There are some books that I have read once, enjoyed, and put away on my bookshelf, never to be touched again. There are other books that I take down from my shelf every two or three years and read again. And there are a certain few books that I keep handy always and study frequently. Think and Grow Rich is in this third category—an old friend and constant companion.

I know what your reaction will be when you begin reading it for the first time. It is corny and old fashioned. The language is from a bygone era, a time when people used phrases like “bygone era.” The language has a “breezy” manner that is no longer popular. And the stories are all about stuffy old White men in starched white shirts and rumpled woollen suits, unrepresentative of today’s diverse business world.

But there is power in this fusty old book… and Truth with a capital T. If you read just one book on human potential and business relationships, read Think and Grow Rich.

Imagination
One of the most startling things I learned from Napoleon Hill when I read Think and Grow Rich is that there is a widespread misunderstanding of the role of brains in the business world. Most people believe that successful people are smarter—that they think better and more diligently than the rest of the population.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Successful people have learned to think differently than others.

This different kind of thought is not of the linear, logical type. It is a thought process based upon imagination.

Oh, logic must come in at some point. Certain details must be reasoned out. But logic is not the starting point. Successful people allow the imagination to lead.

Hill points out that there are two types of imagination, which he refers to as “synthetic imagination” and “creative imagination.”

Synthetic imagination takes existing ideas and rearranges them in innovative ways to produce new results.

Creative imagination leaps into the void and dreams new dreams. It is the world of hunches, intuition, and “gut feelings.”

Unfettered imagination produces dreams, but dreams are not just thin air. You must think of them as real things. Although they may seem wild and impractical, you must have respect for the dreams and for the power that created them.

Napoleon Hill helped me to understand and believe that my dream of being a wealthy and successful property investor was within my reach. He led me to respect my dreams.

Realising Dreams
When I first read about imagination, I glossed over it, disregarding it as fluff. But as I came back to the book again and again, I saw that Hill had not just written a wild idea; he had also included a specific plan—a procedure— for implementing the products of the imagination.

As I developed my property investment business, I had big dreams, dreams that seemed wildly impractical. Who was I, to think that I could become successful and wealthy investing in property when others had tried and failed?

But I took the leap of faith and tried implementing Hill’s procedure as an experiment. I found it so helpful that I continue using it today. It is a procedure for translating your wildest dreams into reality.

You can and should read about it in detail in Think and Grow Rich, but I’ll share a brief outline here to get you started. There are six steps.

Step one is to imagine a sum of money that you desire. It can be a small amount or a large amount, but since the procedure works equally well on large or small, why not choose a large amount? The amount should be believable, but it also should be big enough to be little bit scary. To work best, the idea should stimulate an emotional reaction.

Step two is to figure out what you are willing to do for that money. For me, it was to learn the property business and begin investing in properties.

Step three is to impose a deadline. A dream with a deadline is a goal.

Step four is to create a strategy for reaching that goal within the deadline. Don’t worry about getting the strategy right on the first try. You will not. But, over time, you will continue to adjust your strategy until it works the way you want it to. Your strategy must include steps that you can take NOW.

Step five is to write your mission statement. Briefly and succinctly state what you are going to do and, equally important, why you are going to do it.

Step six requires you to declare your intention twice a day. Morning and evening you must take out your mission statement and read it aloud. Remember that our minds may or may not believe what we read or hear from others. But our minds believe everything that our voice speaks. There is magic in speaking the dream aloud.

That is the procedure. How long should you continue it? Continue UNTIL!

Master Mind
I have a tendency to be a bit of a lone wolf. I cultivated in private my dream of being a successful property investor. But Hill taught me that to realise any private dream, it must at some point march out into the world and be implemented.


A critical part of implementation involves sharing your dream with others whom you respect and trust. It also involves getting feedback and information from many diverse sources.

Hill calls this collaboration the “Master Mind.” It is a team that you organise yourself. Members are not necessarily your employees or employers, although they may be. They may or may not be personal friends, though they may become your friends.

The interesting thing is that your Master Mind may contain members who are no longer alive. For example, I consider Napoleon Hill to be a member of my MasterMind group, even though I never met him, and he is no longer around. But his ideas live on, and I use them every day.

I constantly look for new members for my Master Mind group—people who can infuse me with new ideas, energy, and passion.

Tapping into the Master Mind will help keep you fresh and on track. It will help you fight against your great foes: time and procrastination.

My Master Mind, along with the other procedures in Think and Grow Rich, has helped me develop that “sixth sense” needed for success in business, that intuitive gut feeling that is so necessary.

It can do the same for you. Enjoy it!

PPS. Dont forget to read my bestselling book, order today at http://www.rhettlewis.com/77mistakes/