Cash in a Flash: Fast Money in Slow Times - Mark Victor Hansen, Robert G. Allen (2009)

Part II. The Second Key Ingredient: Inner Winner

Chapter 12. SHOW ME THE MONEY: YOUR FORTUNE IS HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT

In the last chapter, you imagined inheriting $100 million. Imagine that:

ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS $100,000,000

Here’s the secret.

That hundred million is not just an imaginary wish. You’ve already inherited it.

Yes. You’re already worth at least a hundred million.

“What?!” you say. “Where is it? Show me the money!”

You already possess it. It’s inside you and all around you. Now.

Your fortune is hidden in plain sight.

Sound crazy?

Remember the Post-it note game that we learned in chapter 6? Putting yellow Post-its on everything around you? “Important—Forever” or “Stuff—Temporary.”

All of the important stuff in your life is priceless—worth far more than a hundred million. The temporary stuff is just that—temporary stuff.

Of course, all of us would like to have a lot more of that temporary stuff. So the $100 million that we’re talking about—the fortune that is hidden around you—is not just philosophical. No, we’re talking about a real, monetary $100 million in cash. Maybe you’ve never wanted to earn that kind of money. Okay. Scale that number down. Strike off two or three zeroes. How much would that leave?

100,000,000

That leaves $100,000 to $1 million. Notice what you think when we use those numbers.

Did you think, “A hundred million! I could never earn that kind of money. But a hundred grand—that would be nice”?

Or did you say, “An extra million. I could go for that!”

Or did you say, “A hundred million. Yeah! Let’s go, baby! Show me the money.”

Well, look around you right now. Notice everything you own. Scan through your apartment, condo, town house, house, trailer—wherever you live. Make a quick mental inventory of all of your stuff.

Some of it is valuable. Some of it is worthless. Some of it is a garage sale away from moving out of your life. Some of this stuff you bought. Some of it was given to you. Regardless of its current value to you, each of these items was created by someone. Either you or someone else bought it (or made it). In most cases, someone made a fortune selling it. That someone could have been you.

Add up the profits made by the people who sold you the stuff that’s in your house right now and you’re looking at a minimum of $100 million dollars. Doubt that? Okay. How much profit did the company that sold you your carpets and flooring make in the past ten years? Got to be $5 million to $10 million, minimum. What about the entrepreneurs who sold you the appliances in your kitchen? Tens of millions. Your cell phone? Hundreds of millions… just off that one device alone. In fact, if you really tracked it down, the companies that were responsible for creating all of the stuff in your current lifestyle have generated billions in profit over the years.

Why can’t you peel off just a sliver of that for yourself? Not just imaginary money. We’re talking cash! In your pocket. Interested?

We did some of the brainstorming and writing for this book in a well-appointed conference room. There are dozens of things in that room: tables, chairs, lightbulbs, carpets, glass, light sockets, tiles, paint, paintings, picture frames, art, pens, computers, extension cords, flip charts, and so on. A fortune was spent to design and outfit that conference room. The fortune was sent to dozens and dozens of individual companies and entrepreneurs. Cash traded hands. Hundreds of millions were made as these sellers sold their wares to thousands upon thousands of other customers around the world.

Every single thing you see in your current living space made someone a fortune. You might be barely making ends meet at this time. Maybe you’re unemployed. Or deep in debt. But the stuff all around you (even if you live in a cramped apartment) made someone a fortune. It’s probably still making them fortunes. Hold that thought.

BUT HOW DO I TAP INTO THESE GUSHING
FOUNTAINS OF FORTUNE SURROUNDING ME?

Well, everything you currently own is one of the clues to your future fortune. Why did you buy it? What caused you to pull out your maxed-out credit card and pile on some more debt to acquire it? Why did it speak to you?

To help you answer these questions, let’s assume you have to move to a new place across the country and you can only take half of your current pile of stuff. You literally must throw away, give away, or sell half your stuff in the next seven days. Take some yellow Post-it notes and mentally label each item in your life on a scale of 1 to 10 as follows:

You’ll become aware through this exercise what you value. You valued it enough to spend hard-earned cash on it. You understand why someone like you would part with so much cash to get it. Where did you buy it? How much did you pay for it? Did you get a bargain price or pay top dollar? What would you accept for someone to take it off your hands?

Your highly prized stuff is very valuable to you. Still makes your heart flutter.

Did someone sell this stuff to you? Or did you search it out to buy it? Most of the things you value were obtained when an internal desire of yours was activated and you went seeking to get it. You Yellow-Paged it or Googled it. You were on the prowl.

Millions of people just like you are on the prowl to buy things they are attracted to. They love to buy. As an entrepreneur, you’re on the prowl for things that you can sell to people. If you’re going to sell anything, sell only what you love. If you don’t love it, find someone else to sell it for you. The first fundamental is to notice what you’ve already bought. Then sell stuff like that.

The fortune you want to create on the outside must flow from the fortune inside you. There is a fountain of fortune inside you waiting to be tapped. Here’s how you tap into it.

THE CACHE OF CASH

Do you know what the word cache means? The dictionary describes the word as follows:

1. A hidden storage space (for money or provisions or weapons)

2. A secret store of valuables or money

You have a secret cache of valuable resources already inside you waiting to be monetized.

What if we were to scan your brain and your heart to determine which assets are most cashable? What would we discover about you?

Just for fun, we’ve imagined a portable pair of spectacles similar to a CT scan, which we call Cache Scan glasses. They look like this:

Each lens identifies valuable assets that can be converted into fast cash. The left lens (from your perspective) deals with the assets in your mind. The right lens deals with assets in your heart. Imagine if you put these glasses on and, instantly, you were able to scan a willing participant to help that person uncover his or her hidden cache of cashable assets.

The process includes asking the subject ten questions around the central core of who he or she really is. There are five mind questions and five heart questions. The answers to these questions help you counsel the individual on where to invest time and effort toward the highest-probability monetary endeavor—in other words, how that person can generate some fast cash.

The Cache Scan glasses focus on five specific assets of your mind:

Knowledge
Skills
Successes
Failures and fears
Challenges

When it comes to a Cache Scan of the heart, the five hidden chambers are:

Desires
Passions
Talents
Wisdom
Connections

Here are the ten questions. Answer each question with your top three choices.

Many of these inner assets come with your programming the day you are born. Why do some people love to fish? To travel? To do genealogy? Eat ice cream? Some of these things come ready to use right out of the box. Some of them need to be developed. Regardless, there are enough inner qualities that everyone possesses to fuel success—if they just don’t get talked out of it (by their critical voice or the critical voices speaking through the mouths of other people).

In addition to these interests, desires, and passions, we come pregifted with amazing talents—gifts, abilities, tendencies—that are our unique combination of strengths. Some of these talents are obvious: being seven feet tall, being a parent of ten children, winning eight gold medals in one Olympics, winning the national spelling bee. Other talents we discover or uncover over years of experience.

One of the most famous stories in the Bible is the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:15-19). A man called his three servants and gave them each five talents, three talents, and one talent, respectively. The first two servants doubled their talents. He rewarded them richly. The final servant hid his talent because he was afraid of losing it. His lord summoned the “unprofitable servant” and rebuked him.

Your goal is to become a profitable servant, doubling your investment as quickly as possible. To be a profitable servant is to find something you love or are good at and to sell it profitably to other people who are searching for it in such a way that they feel served.

When you sell this way, it’s not selling. It’s serving. You love it. They love it.

Here’s the bottom line. All talents are cashable! You can turn any talent into money.

Most people have hobbies. Most hobbies are simply heightened interests fueled by latent talents. They could become sources of short-term cash and full-time cash flow.

There are a million ways to earn a million dollars, but only a handful of ideal ways for you to earn your “right livelihood.” What is your right livelihood? It is your purpose path—earning money doing things that you truly enjoy to serve all of humanity. The secrets to your right livelihood are already planted inside you.

HIT THE GROUND RUNNING

If you look through a catalogue of business opportunities, most of them will require study, training, and experiential learning. This will mean hours of assimilating information and acquiring new knowledge. Then you’ll be required to practice applying this knowledge until it becomes a skill. Like learning a new tennis grip, it will require the unlearning of old skills and relearning of new skills (i.e., getting worse until you get better), as with all skill training.

The quickest money is from what you already know, love, and do. Why? Because you’re familiar with it. You enjoy it. There won’t be a long learning curve. You’re at the starting blocks. You’re ready to run.

The overlapping of these four concentric circles is almost always a pure vein of gold. It’s when you use your current knowledge, skill, and passion to create products, services, and/or information that you’re inspired to create. That’s the sweet spot. That’s what we call leverage. All four of these attributes don’t always need to be present, but the more the better.

The process of acquiring knowledge, skill, and confidence can take years. You don’t have years. You have less than ninety days from now.

Wouldn’t it be much quicker if you didn’t have to learn any new knowledge or skill but could convert what you already know—and what you already know how to do—into cash?

We call this “low-hanging fruit.” This is the easy stuff. You already know it. You don’t have to practice to learn how to do it. You’re already good at it. You can pick the ripe fruit that is hanging right at eye level. It’s ready to eat, right now.

That’s where you start. What are you ready to implement now? No start-up time. No getting ready. Forget ninety days. You could do it in ninety minutes from now.

A little higher up the money tree are those fruits that are a little harder to reach—just beyond your fingers. You’ll need a short stepladder. This fruit refers to assets in your cache related to your innate yet undeveloped talents and gifts. You may need to learn more or study about those things you don’t know but have always been interested in. Go to more classes, courses, seminars. Then you’ll need to practice to turn that knowledge into skill. This will take longer than ninety days.

At the top of the tree, where few dare to climb, are the richest, largest, untouched fruits. You’ll be climbing in riskier places. This takes more knowledge and skill. The fastest route to profit is to be mentored by someone who already has the knowledge, skill, confidence, and track record of success for you to emulate. Let that person take you to the highest branches until you are skilled and confident enough to go there alone. Even as you become an expert, you should always work in teams. It could take months. Even years.

The focus of this book is the low-hanging fruit—making money faster.

So the questions we ask you are these:

What do you do?
Who are you?

How do you bring money in the door living your ideal lifestyle?
What magnetizes the fortune to flow toward you?
Why would anyone want to send you money?

Because you’re going to do something for them that they couldn’t get done any better, anywhere else in the world. Because that’s just what you do. That’s who you are.

Be that person.

As fast as you can.

THE MICROCREDIT MOVEMENT

But how is this done? How can you convert your internal “stuff” into money?

Our model for this is Muhammad Yunus, the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of the Grameen Bank. He has been working with beginning entrepreneurs for over thirty years, starting in Bangladesh—one of the poorest nations on earth. He shows poor women all over the world—over one hundred million of them—how to earn cash quickly. He shows them how to get above the poverty line so they can take care of themselves and their families.

Their need for cash is dramatically different from most of us in North America. They either earn money or starve to death. They don’t have ninety days. They don’t have nine days. They have real deadlines—they’ve got to bring money in the door tomorrow or their babies die.

His approach seems counter to everything we learn in this hemisphere about education. He teaches tens of millions of poor women “how to fish” so that they can become self-sufficient.

Yunus says, “We give loans to the poorest women in Bangladesh. They take the money and start tiny, little businesses with $30 or $40. They’re so small people feel reluctant to call them businesses. I say that’s a business no matter how you look at it. Just because the size is small doesn’t make it less of a business in her opinion. She moves from one level of business to the next level of business to the next level of business, until she is out of poverty.”

What does he teach these women? Much less than you’d expect. Counter to the many educational programs that teach valuable knowledge and skills to poor people in underdeveloped countries, Muhammad Yunus teaches them zero information about how to earn money.

When we first learned this, we were shocked. Doesn’t a person need to learn to earn? People think the answer to success is to learn how. That’s why there are so many how-to books. It’s probably why you bought this book. Then, why do Yunus and his microcredit organizations teach so little how-to?

He has discovered that the more his clients learn, the dumber they feel. That might sound counterintuitive, but that is the nature of knowledge. Knowledge is addictive. Often, the more you know, the more you think you need to know in order to get started.

Yunus doesn’t want any of his borrowers to be stopped by having to learn new knowledge and new skills. He starts them now with what they already know how to do.

There is one main requirement. Each woman must have enough self-confidence to attract four other like-minded women into a team of five. They become the support group for each other. The women in these groups brainstorm each woman’s cash-generating idea. Then, with only this infrastructure of social support, the Grameen Bank lends each woman enough money to start her business. The women have no other collateral for their loan other than a team to support them. The loans must be repaid with weekly payments, and 98 percent of these loans are repaid—a rate far exceeding that in traditional commercial banking.

These poor women start where they are with what they have.

In an interview, Dr. Yunus explained how it works:

Formal learning is threatening to our borrowers. People learn better, more easily, and more comfortably from each other. A poor person has lots of capacity, skill, which is unused—like making baskets, raising poultry, raising any other animal, or whatever thing they do in a family way. Once given a chance, whatever their favorite thing is, they can transform it into a business.

They do what they enjoy and at the same time they earn money. Women do sewing and make beautiful dresses; they love making dresses. They love seeing the dress they made bought by somebody who’s living in their village. She can say, “This is the dress I made.” She can prove to other families that she can do better than her friend in designing and coming up with new ideas in fashion. These things happen naturally. You don’t have to set up training schools for everything. Attending a school is good, but it’s only needed after you’ve exhausted your first level of skill—what you have after you have used up all your existing skill. Then they can learn new skills. But their basic skill is so much more immediate. They don’t need training.

Each human being has tremendous potential locked inside. We never give them any chance to find out what they know—what they have inside of them. Microcredit allows them to reveal themselves to themselves.

That’s our advice to you. Start with what you have, where you are. That is your low-hanging fruit. That is your “first level of skill,” as Yunus calls it.

Yunus is an example of an enlightened entrepreneur. To learn how you can make a fortune and make the world a better place through principles we call Blessonomics, visit www.cashinaflashthebook.com.

LET’S PICK SOME FRUIT

What is your low-hanging fruit? What are you already good at?

So go back to your Cache Scan list of cashable assets.

If your life depended upon generating some immediate cash, what one resource would you draw from in each category?

Combine the ten ingredients into one great idea. If you had to create something in the next ninety minutes that could be generating cash in the next ninety days, what would it look like?

Bring that idea with you into the next chapter. We’ll show you how to form a Dream Team who can help bring your ideas to life.