Everybody asks the same question all the time.

How can I get rich?

I get tickled by people who want to start at the top of the ladder. For some unknown reason, they honestly believe they are better than I am, since I had to start on the bottom rung and climb up one rung at a time.

When I mention the above, I often hear “Yeah, I could do that, but it will take too much time. I need money now. And I don’t want to just make a little money, I want to get rich.”

Sorry, you’ll have to start where I started. Do what you need to do to make a little money? Then do more and more of it to make more and more money. As you make more and more money, the greater the opportunities you will have to make even more money.

Nothing succeeds like success. Even small success.

Well, here’s how I did it.

I learned very early in life that the only way to make money was to “sell” something — either a product or a service — something people wanted or needed or do something for them they couldn’t — or wouldn’t — do for themselves.

I learned to “make do” with what I had until I could get what I needed to do a better job.

I learned that I had to do anything necessary (but legal) to get to where I wanted to be, even if I didn’t like doing it. Especially if I didn’t like doing it. You can do anything you need to do, until you can do what you want to do.

Start by doing what is  necessary, then do what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible. — Saint Francis of Assisi

I learned to never ask anyone to do anything for me that I wasn’t willing to do myself. And everyone who has ever worked with me has taught me about what they have done for me and how they did it. After a while, I could do it, too, but maybe not as well as they did.

Anyone can be a genius if they pick just one specific subject and study it diligently just 15 minutes each day. — Albert Einstein

I learned to pay for what I wanted. If I couldn’t afford it, I saved to be able to afford it. (Sometimes it seemed like forever.)

I learned that no matter how long it took to achieve my goal (whatever it was), it would have been just as long if I hadn’t persisted, but I would have accomplished nothing.

I learned that nothing is as easy or as fast as it should be. It only gets easier and faster when you know how to really do it — and learning how to really do it is just a matter of doing it over and over and over until you finally find out how it works. Of course, if you give up after the first (second, third, or fourth) try, you’ll never do it.

The secret to success is the constancy of purpose. — Benjamin Disraeli

I learned most of what I know from my mistakes and failures.  My successes never taught me anything. They were only based upon what I had learned from my mistakes and failures. (That’s why those who are afraid to make mistakes or fail never achieve the success they desire.)

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose. — Bill  Gates

I learned that my most prized possessions were my customers. People who, directly or indirectly, paid for my lunch every day. That’s why, unlike my contemporaries, I reply to my customers emails personally.

I learned that money is not an end unto itself. It is only a way of keeping score. The saddest people in the world are those who are forever chasing the almighty dollar and the vast majority of them have no real respect for money.

If your only goal is to become rich, you will never achieve it. — John D. Rockefeller

I learned to ask for what I wanted or needed and to graciously accept a “NO” as readily as a “YES.”

Yes, you can get rich, but you’ll have to do it yourself. No one will do it for you!

The more things you don’t want to do, the fewer and fewer things you will do until you are doing as most people do: Nothing but dreaming!

I can teach you how to do it, but you won’t get it until you actually start doing it yourself.

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This article was written by J.F. (Jim) Straw, also known as “The Five Hundred Million Dollar Man.” If you liked this article, then you’ll love Jim Straw’s best selling book Mustard Seeds, Shovels, & Mountains: How to Succeed Using Your Physio-Psychic Power because it is one of the few books that will actually show you how to succeed step-by-step. (See chapter 16.)