What’s Bigger in Your House?

By Lynn D. Spencer

Financial Services Editor

I recently attended a wealth seminar where the speaker came out on stage and asked the audience, “What’s bigger in your house, your television or your library?”

The words hit me like a ton of bricks and I quickly realized that much of my success in life could be attributed to the answer of that very question. Now you have to understand, even when I was broke, I never really watched that much TV. Unfortunately, I never really spent that much time reading or studying either. It wasn’t until I started studying success that I became successful.

For some of you, the thought of “studying” may invoke the same feelings as cleaning the bathroom or going to your in-laws. A necessary evil, but an evil nonetheless. My explanation for this reaction would be that most of us are raised in a system where studying and education are simply a means to an end. The way to pass the test, graduate from school, and move on with our lives.

But what kind of lives are we moving on to when we spend most of our “free” time watching TV. According to the A.C. Nielson Co., the average American watches more than four hours of TV per day. Assuming that statistic is even close to being accurate for you, how much more successful could you be if you watched 25% less television? What if you traded 1 hour of television for 1 hour of reading every day? That would equate to 365 hours of studying in one year. What could you learn in 365 hours? Henry Ford once said, “It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste time.”

From my experience, most people want to learn how to become successful. If you want to become successful, spend your extra hour per day studying successful people. Most successful people do not become successful by accident, and most of them didn’t do it overnight. They studied their trade, studied the successes and failures of others, and then took continual action to get where they wanted to be.

Continual action happens to be the second half of the success equation. Continual study will make you an expert, but profiting from expertise can only be accomplished through action. The last thing you want to become is the smartest poor person on the planet. In the brilliant words of Carl Icahn, “In life and business, there are two cardinal sins. The first is to act precipitously without thought and the second is to not act at all.”

Many of you might be asking yourselves where a good starting point would be. My suggestion would be to get on Amazon.Com and search out the best selling entrepreneurship books and start reading. Several of the authors on this list also offer seminars and other forms of education, and I highly recommend catching one of these events if they are ever in your area.

One of my favorite seminars is put on by T. Harv Eker, author of “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth”. In fact, for a limited time only, they have agreed to offer readers of The National Networker free admission to one of their upcoming Millionaire Mind Intensive Seminars. To find one in your area, go to www.millionairemind.com/fbdteam.

Because I am so passionate about financial and success education, I will introduce other opportunities to obtain solid education in my future articles as well, so “stay tuned”.

If you are not currently in the financial situation you would like to be, I would first ask you to look at your daily schedule and your daily routine. What are you actively doing to achieve your goals? How much time are you spending as a student of what you would like to become? As the speaker on stage alluded to, poor people have big TVs. Rich people have big libraries. Become a student again and never stop learning.

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What’s Bigger in Your House?