Conversations with Millionaires (Book Review)

I’ve been kicking butt with my goal to read 2-3 books each month. Seriously, it only takes 15-30 minutes of reading each day and that’s it! I thought it would be a good idea to start sharing some of the great nuggets of wisdom I get from the books I’m reading.

MikeLitman One of my recent reads was a book by motivational speaker and coach Mike Litman. Mike has this quote that I love… “You don’t have you get it right, you just have to get it going.” Anyway, I met Mike Litman on Twitter months ago and he generously sent me a copy of his book Conversations with Millionaires. The book is essentially a transcript from a number of radio interviews he did with some extraordinary entrepreneurs.

I will warn you and tell you that this is a long post, but I didn’t want to hold back on the awesome words of wisdom I highlighted from the interviews:

Conversation with Jim Rohn

We suffer one of two things. Either the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. You’ve got to choose discipline, versus regret, because discipline weighs ounces and regret weighs tons.
Set a goal to become a millionaire for what it makes of you to achieve it. All that you learn and all that you become to reach the status of millionaire is what’s valuable. Not the million dollars. If you do it that way, then once you become a millionaire, you can give all the money away because its not the money that’s really important. That was the one of the best pieces of philosophy I have ever heard in my life.
Jim’s recommended reading: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and The Richest Man in Babylon by George Clauson

Conversation with Mark Victor Hansen

Four principles for success: (1) Figure out what you want (2) Write it down (3) Visualize it (4) Get your team together. You take your two index fingers, and one and one equals the power of 11. When you get your team together, you get your dream together. And two people can create miracles. You have to explore and ask yourself “where am I weak?” Then you say “I’m going to find somebody who is unique where I’m weak.”
Mark’s recommended reading: The E-Myth, by Michael Gerber

Conversation with Wally “Famous” Amos

The core to my success is going the extra mile. Doing more than absolutely asked or expected of you.
Favorite quote: Fear knocked at the door. Faith answered. No one was there.
People are always talking about business vs. personal life. It’s just LIFE. Don’t separate your life. Establish a set of principles that apply in every area of your life — something that’s going to work everywhere
Wally’s recommended reading: Tuesdays with Morrie

Conversation with Jack Canfield

It’s not what people say or do. It’s not what the economy does. It’s not what your boss does. It’s not what your children do. It’s what YOU do in response to what they’re doing that produces your outcome.
Even if you have a BAD game plan, but you take action you can still get a lot further ahead than having a good plan without any action.
You should involve yourself in a mastermind with 5 to 6 people who are making at least twice as much money as you are
Jack’s recommended reading: Dare to Win, Aladdin Factor (both by Jack Canfield), anything by Tom Peters, Jim Rohn, or Dennis Waitley

Conversation with Robert Allen

You have to get your money growing at 10% or more which means taking more risk, being more knowledgeable, and doing some mentoring with people who really know what they are doing with things like the stock market, bonds, and other passive investments.
Robert’s recommended reading: Influence by Dr. Robert Cialdini, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, The Richest Man in Babylon, Multiple Streams of Internet Income (his own book), and anything by Tony Robbins.

Conversation with Michael Gerber

The real work is to create a system through which your company can absolutely differentiate itself from every other company in the world because its able to do what it does impeccable, infallibly, every single time
The business is your product, not the thing/service you’re selling
You have to practice telling your story. Everybody wants to hear a great story so great entrepreneurs tell great stories. Storytellers are what make the world turn ’round.
Our life is our business, not the other way around. Most entrepreneurs make business their life and as soon as they walk away from it, it suffers. A successful business works without the owner.

Conversation with Jim McCann

The difference between people who make it and those who don’t is the people who make it know how to recover from setbacks and recover quickly.
Jim’s recommended reading: The Discipline of Market Leaders by Michael Tracy, The Making of a Blockbuster

Conversation with Jay Conrad Levinson

When it comes to marketing, your primary investment should be time, energy, and imagination. If you’re willing to invest those, you won’t have to invest as much money
Guerilla marketing say the way to grow your company is geometrically. What that means is to enlarge the size of each transaction you make. Have more transactions per year with each one of your customers. And then tap the enormous referral power of those customers. Follow up with your customers!
Business isn’t lost due to bad quality or poor service. It’s lost due to customers being ignored.
Don’t look around for businesses that are competitors that you have to obliterate, instead look around for other businesses that have the same kind of prospects and the same kind of standard that you do and look for companies with which you can cooperate.
Mediocre marketing with commitment works a lot better than brilliant marketing without commitment
When you lead with price and lower your prices and advertise discount prices, you attract the worst kind of customers.

Hope you enjoyed this! I’m reading several of the recommended books listed above this year and will try to share my notes from those as well!

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!