The book stores are packed with books on the subject on how to succeed. Many authors and gurus feel that they have all of the answers that lead them to be successful. What many do not realize is that those gurus did not follow the advise they are espousing in those books. The market is riddled with “No money down” Real estate courses, which are sold to the saps at three in the morning. These creators of such programs try to convince you that if you purchase their programs, then you too can gain what they have gained.

In The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetimepg 91 we read the following:

DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO

“A paradox of practice exists when someone promotes a money making strategy but that strategy is not what made him or her rich. In other words, they’re not practitioners of their own advice. These people effectively teach one wealth equation (the Slowlane) while they get rich leveraging another (the fastlane).

When I see financial powerhouse “Suze Orman” instructing people to “dollar-cost average” their mutual fund portfolios, do I listen to her? Hell no. I laugh. When “Cramer” advocates stock in Leman Brothers because he says it’s a good buy, do I listen? No way.”

You see, unfortunately, there are many gurus making money selling you on information that is a bunch of hokus pokus; things that just do not work in the real world. Trying to find legit sources of information to educate yourself is like searching for a needle in a hay stack; it very difficult. Plus, many people are like children, only wanting to hear fantasies and not reality and facts. Applying yourself and making real money is not easy. That is why most people fail.

Throughout my searches, I came across a no nonsense, tell it like it is entrepreneur by the name of John T. Reed. This man is the real deal. He is a writer and a realestate investor with real world expirience. This gentleman will tell you what you need to know and not what you want to hear. Also, John T. Reed was already a success before he began his teachings and his writings. Everything he writes about in his books and newsletters are things he actually has done and is doing. He puts to practice what he is telling you through his writings.

My main focus is on his book, which I own, Titled “Succeeding.”  The book contains the actual things John did in his journey twards success.

SUCCEEDING BY JOHN T. REED

“All good non-fiction books are written in anger.” When I read that five or six years ago, I thought, “That’s not right.” At the time, I had written over 30 non-fiction books.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was right. So what was I angry about when I wrote Succeeding, my book that many buy to give to new high school and college graduates?

I was angry about the same thing I have heard many others complain about, including my own sons. School is supposed to prepare you to succeed in life. It does in part, but most of what you need to know is NOT covered in college. They just teach math and science at best and a bunch of navel gazing and political philosophy, if not ideology, far too much.

As I matured in the 44 years since I graduated from college, I figured out most of the stuff I needed to know only after my intense four years of study at West Point. And over those 44 years I also got to watch what they called ROW “the rest of the worldat my grad school. Being one of the bets as a student does not mean you will succeed thereafter.

A class valedictorian I know from a selective college got laid off in a devil-take-the-hindmost down-sizing. My West Point classmate who had the top rank at graduation, the guy leading the parades there that year, retired from the Army as a lieutenant colonel, more or less the lowest rank possible after 20 years of being an officer. The captain of my high school’s all-female cheerleading squad was a divorced single mom within five years of high school graduation.

And it went the other way, too. My high school’s biggest social outcast moved to another state and became a successful politician. I was voted most quiet in my class and went on to become an outspoken writer and public speaker and the most prolific author in West Point’s Long Gray Line of now 70,000 graduates.

Rush Limbaugh was very shy and a nobody in high school. But his most recent contract was for $400 million. Steve Jobs was another high school nobody. He dropped out of college the first month he was there. Then he built, starting from scratch in his stepfather’s garage, the most valuable company in the history of the universe, Apple, Inc. In spite of being fired from that company and away from it for 13 years, then dying at the relatively young age of 56.

Clearly, mastering classroom studies is not a guarantee of success. Nor is being the most popular and respected member of your class. So what the heck is the correct formula and why aren’t they teaching it in schools? It’s in my Succeeding book. I’m sure that book is not the final word. Heck, it’s in its third edition which means that I changed my mind about some things and added some others. But it is my current best shot and a far more useful and real-world book on the subject than any others I know of. I originally intended to buy my sons one of the success books I read in high school like Norman Vincent Peale’s “The Power of Positive Thinking” or Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich” or a new book like Tony Robbins’ “Unlimited Power: The New Science Of Personal Achievement” or “Awaken The Giant Within.” But when I perused “Positive Thinking” and “Think and Grow Rich,” I found them out-of-date, quaint, superficial and more vague, cheerleading than practical advice. I researched Robbins and found he had never really succeeded at anything other than telling other people how to succeed. He is a motivational speaker and a TV infomercial advertiser.

Why isn’t the correct formula for success taught in schools? Part of the reason is that adult teachers are a bit embarrassed about how the adult world really works and do not want to admit it to young people. Thanks a lot, educators, for sending me on a moral charge of the light brigade into adulthood.

I think the best guess is that few have ever focused on the subject and the schools have been successful at growing and having a great sinecure for themselves by following a model taken from Prussia, of all places, in the late 1800s. Sit in a room full of desks and other students, listen to a lecturer, take some tests, do some homework, write some brief papers. Subjects: math, science, foreign language, history, political science, psychology, English composition.

Does any of that sound relevant to success to you grown-ups? You absolutely need many basics like math and a knowledge of the U.S. and world history. But I have seen no evidence that not reading Canterbury Tales would have stunted my career growth.

What subjects are covered in Succeeding?

Not selling yourself short

Know thyself

Selecting the goal that matches your unique strengths and weaknesses

The nature and importance of talent (it is required for some things, but generally overrated and not overriding)

Recognizing what you can and cannot change about yourself and that problems caused by things you cannot change require you to change your situation to a better fit, not to futilely try to change the unchangeable in order to get along better in your current situation

Finding the right medium for you. Would Rush Limbaugh be a success if he had not figured out that he needed to be an AM radio current events talker. A job that did not exist until he invented it?

The need to learn those aspects of your trade that anyone can master

The success-increasing power of the combination of being yourself and getting to the situation that yourself matches

The holistic importance of your own character and reputation and those of the people with whom you associate

The importance of making yourself scarceFor example, if you are really smart, it is stupid for you to go into a field where all the other smart people go. Go instead into fields where smarts matter, but are rare. I did not figure that out until after I did it, but much of my success came from taking my engineering and Harvard Business School training and mind-set to fields that need them but do not have them like real estate investment, sport coaching, self-publishing, and, yes, succeeding. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

The importance of choosing the right spouse and how to go about it. Did they cover that in your high school or college? I don’t think so. But it is the most important decision you make!

How about risk management? Did they cover that in your school? Business and finance are simple at one level. You gotta make it and you gotta keep it. The world is full of people who figured out how to make it, but who neglected to figure out how to keep it, and lost it as a result of that neglect. Where did I learn that? By losing $750,000 in Texas apartment complexes in the 1980’s. Let’s see if you and I can help your recent graduate learn that lesson more cheaply than I did.

How to educate yourself. School didn’t educate us adequately for success. My book does not tell you how to be, say, an orthodontist. But it does tell you how to figure out whether you ought to be an orthodontist, or whatever, and how to real-world educate yourself on the specifics after you make that choice. (reading, on-the-job training, networking, seminars, etc.)

How to deal with changes over time in you, in your family, and in the world around you. You cannot apply one formula on graduation day and ride it to a gold watch and pension. You change, the world changes, and those changes require you to modify your approach as you go along.

Working for yourself as opposed to working for others. Working for yourself, as I do, is great if you can do it. Perfect fit. But not everyone can. If your graduate cannot, he or she needs to recognize that they must be very careful to try to find the right fit rather than try to contort themselves to endure a bad fit in the wrong organization.

Bill O’Reilly recently said that his father confessed to one regret on his death bed: That he did not live up to his potential. Your 2014 graduate should not end up with that same regret.

The most common comment I get from readers of Succeeding is “I wish I had read this when I was younger.” Your 2014 graduate is young. That is another regret you can help your graduate avoid.

I originally wrote Succeeding when the first of my three sons was about to graduate from Columbia University. It was one of my graduation gifts to him and to his two younger brothers.

Since the first edition came out a decade ago, I noticed that many bought it around graduation time. A number of people commented they thought it was probably the best graduation gift they could find. Going with that customer behavior and sentiment, I started sending out an email each spring suggesting giving Succeeding to any graduates you know in May or June.

This is truly great Book. I suggest that all of those who are making a big decisionto changefor the better and want to accomplish their goals should purchase a copy of Succeeding. John T. Reed is one of those rare gems you find in a sea of pebbles. John T. Reed published applicable top quality information. I plan to purchase all of the information he has produced as I will use all that I learn from his writings. Visit his web site at: http://www.johntreed.com/.

Until Next Time.

God Bless.

I.A.A.M.