How do you think you’re rich? First of all, you have to have a sincere passion for what you are doing. You have to genuinely love your products and services. now there are some businesses that are hard to love, or so you would think. Once upon a time, my mentor worked with a businessman who had a plant in Tijuana, Mexico that manufactured nuts, bolts, nails, and screws. He told the owner, “I know he’s successful and has 80 to 90 workers in his plant, but are you excited about it?”

The owner said: “Enthusiastic resulting? When I see a new screw, I jump for joy.” So here’s a guy who makes fasteners, an industry I don’t see how anyone could love, but he’s excited about it. He’s constantly looking for new innovations in that same niche business. That’s the key to thinking that you are rich: you have to be passionate about your business, and believe in it as well as in yourself.

What you think regularly will materialize in your life. This can be positive or negative, so you need to watch your thoughts. Stay away from negative thoughts, or negative things will happen to you. This concept of thinking positive thoughts isn’t just a bunch of New Age nonsense; it is absolutely essential for success.

Now some people will tell you, “I’m from Missouri. I’ll believe it when I see it!” I think the best motto is, “If I believe it, I know I’ll see it.” Think about success. Think of happy business relationships. Whatever it takes to be successful according to your definition of success, focus on it and get excited about your business.

I’ve been in direct response marketing for 25 years, and sometimes people ask me, “Can you still get excited?” Of course I can! I’m always excited about it. The same is true for my mentor, who has been in the business for over 35 years. That emotion keeps you going; and I think as you get older, it keeps you young. I often tell people who are getting older, “Keep working on your business with passion and you will live longer.” My advice is to stay positive, stay focused, work hard, but work intelligent above all, and do not forget that what you think will come true in your life.

It never ceases to amaze me how people tell they want a certain result, but they refuse to think much about those goals and figure out what it will take to achieve them, much less go out there and actually do those things. Look: If you want to be successful, you have to do whatever it takes to be successful, whether it’s running ten miles a day or doing everything you can to learn more about your customer base so you can create more products that they’re interested in buying. . .

It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to make an Olympic team or win your first million dollars, what you focus on and what you’re determined to achieve is what you set out to do. You have to be honest with yourself. You can hope and wish that things were a certain way all you want, but unless you are willing to spend the necessary effort and dedication on change, don’t expect success to come your way. Despite some famous claims to the contrary, it is not enough to simply desire that things were different; you have to decide that you are going to do whatever it takes to get there.

The reality is that no matter what you are trying to accomplish in your life, without hard work, focus, and dedication to make it happen, there are too many forces at play that will make it happen. No happen. The physical law of inertia says that an object in motion tends to stay in motion, while an object at rest tends to stay at rest. It’s certainly easier to stay fit than to get fit in the first place, for example. In business, it is easier to be successful once success has been experienced.

Here’s a personal example: I’ve been a member of what I call “The 5 A.M. Club” since the late 1980s. I get up every morning at five, sometimes earlier, and try to go to work immediately. To have that moment every day when I’m totally focused on my business, when the phones don’t ring, the fax machines don’t ring, that’s magical.

Marketing is one of the two things in your business, along with innovation, that you shouldn’t delegate or abdicate to anyone else. Spend a significant portion of your day thinking and strategizing about how you can attract and retain more of the best buyers in your market. This is what you should put your passion into, what you should fall in love with. It’s the hunt, it’s the chase… and remember, it’s the ideas that make the money. Some people say to themselves, “I don’t have enough money to do this. I don’t have enough money to do that.” Well, it’s the ideas, the strategies, the methods that you’re going to try to implement that get the money flowing in the first place.

So catch a bigger vision for your company. Work on your business every day, thinking about it carefully, believing yourself to be rich. Be passionate about marketing. Once you see some of your ideas come to fruition and start producing tremendous cash flow, it becomes even more exciting, and you’ll end up investing even more time and energy into it.