The Education of Millionaires - Michael Ellsberg [81]
David committed totally to passing the course—the first time he ever really committed to any educational endeavor in his life. Each day, he would head straight home to the apartment he shared with his brother after class ended at three, sit at a little desk, crack open his binder, and start reading a page. If he didn’t understand it, he’d read it again. And again. Sometimes he’d spend half an hour on one page. He’d then rewrite each page in his own shorter version. Every night until he went to bed, all day Saturday, and all day Sunday, with Friday nights off. “I studied four times harder than most of my classmates who were mature adults. Many were educated professionals with university degrees.”
David passed the course—he passed one crucial test by a single point—and got an entry-level sales job at Century 21. They started sending him to motivational seminars available to all the sales reps. “There was a guy at the front of the room giving a motivational talk on positive mental attitude. And of course, coming from where I’d come from, from the home I’d come from, and my educational experience—I had never heard those three words, ‘positive mental attitude,’ put together before in the same phrase. So you’ve got this guy in the front of the room saying that, with a positive mental attitude, you can achieve anything you want in life. He’s saying that, no matter where you come from, no matter what your background, if you work hard, if you do this, if you do that, you can achieve great things in life.
“I’m sitting there, and it was like a religious revival meeting for me. My soul swelled. I felt like I was the only guy in the room, and he was speaking directly to me. It was the first time anyone in my life had said, ‘You can do something with your life, no matter who you are, no matter where you’re from.’ I bought what he was selling, I went out the door, and I believed it, and I started consuming any and all motivational material I could get my hands on. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. For all the guys I know that have started with nothing, that book has probably led to more people becoming financially independent than any other book.
“I became a committed self-studier in motivation and success for the rest of my life. Books, seminars, workshops. In my parents’ view, life was basically a burden and challenge, to be survived at best. The stuff I was studying now knocked me out of that mentality. As a mature adult, I now see that much of this thinking, which is powerful and practical, is actually incomplete.” David has since given his life deeper meaning and direction with a strong personal faith, as a Christian. “However, I really do credit these investments in motivational and self-help psychology with helping me realize I could achieve what I wanted to achieve in life. It broke down some major mental barriers created in my childhood.” (See Success Skill #5, on investing in your own human capital and earning power.)
David began learning the craft of sales, first in real estate, then in life insurance sales. Soon he was earning upward of $100,000 per year, in his twenties, with no high school diploma. If you get good at sales, following all the steps I describe in this chapter, six figures is absolutely within your reach. Sales is the magic skill that opens doors and fills bank accounts.
However, David’s path to success was not free and clear yet; he still had a major roadblock. “As is common for sales guys,” David says, “I was looking at the top line, not the bottom line.” He was enjoying the money that was coming in, living a high-rolling life, and not really paying attention to where it went. Soon he was bankrupt.
“I was twenty-nine, and I said, ‘OK, I’ve got to get my act together.’ That’s when I read The Richest Man in Babylon by George Clason, a classic book on the importance of financial discipline and savings. I had no system, I had no planning, no structure, I was just this guy making money and spending it, figuring it would all work out in the end. I had no real discipline.