by Dani Johnson

I learned some strategies very early in my business career from a multi-millionaire. These strategies guaranteed my success and can do the same for you.

1. Don’t give any opinions or suggestions.
When I was invited to a board meeting with this multi-millionaire, he told me to sit down, shut up, and pay attention. “Once your stack is as big as mines, then you can offer your opinion or suggestions,” he stated. This was a harsh thing for him to say in response to a suggestion I wanted to make. But it got my attention, and this became one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my business career. So I offer it to you. Keep your suggestions to yourself and listen. Use every opportunity to learn from an expert instead of trying to size up to them to prove your worthiness or superiority.

2. Humble yourself, be teachable, and ask questions.
For 18 years, I’ve been studying successful people. Whether they were successful in business or in marriage, I wanted to know their secret because I knew that they had a lesson to share.

Wherever I go and wherever I find them, I’m not afraid to ask. If I’m sitting on a plane with someone successful in a career I’m interested in or need help with, I’ll ask, “What’s the secret to your success?” As a result, I’ve been a sponge for 18 years studying, getting coaching, and asking questions everywhere I go. 

How many of us don’t ask for help often enough?

What I’ve found, unfortunately, is that some of our egos are so big that we won’t ask for help because that’s admitting to having a problem. How pathetic! If we don’t ask for help when needed, then we’re living inside a big, fat, ego trip.

We have to get our egos out of the way, remove our little masks and behind-the-scenes lifestyle, and humble ourselves. Then we need to confess, “My business is in trouble. Can you give me some advice?” Or, “My marriage is in trouble and I need help!”

When you seek help, ask those with a proven record of success in the area of your interest or need. Ask experts, not someone who is reading and testing it out or some self-proclaimed guru whose only success is getting you to his seminar.

If you want to be successful in business, should you ask the janitor? Of course, not! You’ll interview him (or her) only if you want to be successful in the janitorial business.

Humble yourself, get rid of your ego, and start asking for help, then do what they do so you can get what they have. And don’t look at the circumstances and say: “Things are just hard for me. That’s the way it is! That’s the way it’s always been, and that’s the way it’s always going to be.” Find the answers to your challenges so that you can succeed in life. Make a decision to change. Either that, or stay in your rut!

3. Follow directions.
Have you reinvented the wheel 10,000 times since you’ve gotten started in business? Are you looking for a better answer because you don’t like the answer you’ve received? Are you looking for a different way because you don’t like what was shown you? Maybe you don’t like what’s being shown you so you’re trying to do it another way. That’s reinventing the wheel. If that’s the case, then you’ve wasted too much valuable time already, and time is money. Just follow directions, and get it done!

The multi-millionaire told me, “If you don’t do what I tell you to do, we’re done. If I tell you to read this script and you change it, we’re done. If I tell you to call ten people and you call eight, we’re done. If I tell you to go to a training seminar, and you don’t show up, we’re done. There is no mercy, Dani. If you don’t follow what I tell you to do, we’re done!”

4. Invest in your education if you want to succeed.
“Free” is not going to cut it. You need to invest in yourself if you want to make a higher level of income. Attorneys and doctors invest in their education, so you’ve got to invest in yours.

Ninety-eight percent of the population is always looking for a great deal and an easy way to get out of having to doing something. We’ve become a microwave society. But I will tell you that the millionaires I know don’t ever look for security. That’s what 98% of the population does.

Many of us are investing our money in the wrong thing. We’ve been sold to finance our dream vacation on VISA. We’ve been sold to go into debt in order to live the “life.” We’ve been sold many things that keep us broke, average, and controlled by others.

Our lives should be lived by design! So let me sell you on this:

• That you were not intended for average or mediocrity
• That you are not living your life the way you ought to and that there is something bigger and better out there
• You were designed for something bigger and better than what you are living right now
• Go home and transform your family; raise a generation that is not going after mediocrity but after everything that is intended for them
• A balanced life that is void of debt, despair, and confusion
• Not giving up your life for money
• A life that you never thought you could live!

Take these strategies and go out and knock over the world with one fell swoop. You can!