This is the third and final installment of the Farrah Gray Exclusive. To read my take on the first six steps of Farrah’s Reallionaire: Nine Steps For Becoming Rich, please read Millionaire At 14: Just Exactly How Did He Do It So Fast?! and Watch This 14 Year Old Millionaire Put The 9 Steps In Action

Today’s video is taken from one of Farrah’s motivational speaking events. It takes some time to load but is worth every second of the wait. Farrah’s speech is filled with remarkable experiences and insights:

7. Dedicate Your Time To What You Know

In case you’re still wondering how Farrah Gray made his first million at 14, he did it by selling a food syrup company dedicated to children.

You may have asked the same question I asked myself the first time I heard that. Why Syrup? Ahhh.. This is where the seventh step of Reallionaire comes in.

I’ve got a confession to make : I don’t do this well. I’m what one would call a Jack Of All Trades. I love to try new things all the time but I guess when it comes down to it, I dedicate the bulk of my time to Personal Development.

Farrah Gray started the syrup company because he was a food lover. His grandmother, a first generation Black woman, was a great cook who once had a “restaurant” for the rest of the Black community, and one of her specialties was pancakes with what else but Syrup!

I think it’s quite obvious that Farrah loves the Syrup and so did the kids in his neighbourhood. If I’m not mistaken he said something about it being the most obvious path.

If you’re an avid reader you might remember sometime ago I referred to this as the path of least resistance. I’ve come to understand it as the intersection between the 3 things that Stephen R. Covey talked about in 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People - when you have all 3 for 3, the What, Why and How.

It’s at this appropriate juncture that I should mention the article I came across today by Brian Kim called “How To Find What You Love To Do” that I believe you’ll find very helpful if you are still searching for the answer to the question that the great people before us have asked: Why am I here?

It has been featured on CNNBC.com and although it doesn’t explicitly state the 3 for 3 concept, the exercises within are definitely working towards it and thus, I highly recommend it.

So, why dedicate your time to what you know?

1. Knowing something like the back of your hand makes you an expert. You probably don’t agree with me on this point because if that’s true, why are so many college graduates not getting decent jobs? But think about it for a second. I might know a lot on the topic of personal development, but I know nothing about gardening.

My school-mate Ryan on the other hand, has been featured on local TV and Newspapers because he knows a lot about gardening and decor - a field most know next to nothing about. He gets jobs coming in every second because he knows a lot about gardening - and oh! Did I mention he became a millionaire because of it?

2. Knowledge builds on knowledge. It is much easier to dedicate your time to something that doesn’t require a Basics 101 course. Don’t you think so? I’ve found over the years as I try to master a multitude of skills from Pro-Yo (Professional Yo-yo playing) to Dance to Soccer and Acting that there’s 3 levels to knowledge.

The first is having a basic and general understanding of the overall skill. The second is the ability to recognise that the seemingly separate parts of one skill all depend on each other for outstanding performance. The third is where one practises and masters the basics giving rise to the ability to effortlessly and instinctively give an outstanding performance - as if it’s hard-wired into the brain (it probably is.)

The time it takes to go from one level to the next gets increasingly longer, so why start out as a white belt when you can start at a red one?

3. Ease leads to fondness leads to passion. Have you ever done something that comes naturally to you and the more you did the more you liked it? Maybe because a few people commend on your talent while others give you public recognition by telling about you to their friends and the next thing you know it, the limelight’s fixed on you at the dinner table.

What happened after that? I know what happened because the above has happened to me before. It leads to liking the activity even more, and after a while it becomes a passion. The compliments keep coming, and all this while your self-esteem keeps rising. You then start to dream and think BIG, and BAM! The law of attraction starts to work for you - and the rest as they say, is history.

4. If you love what you do, the money will follow. When people dedicate their time to what they know and love, I noticed that they radiate this aura of energy off that says, “I LOVE what I do, and I want to share the love with you”. That’s very attractive! And like I said before, people only do business with people they like.

My friend, Liz Strauss from Successful Blog just wrote about 25 Ways To Love What You Do So That The Money Follows if you need some help in this department.

8. Love Your Customer

1. Without the customer, you have no business. The customer’s obviously the most important part of the business. Like I said in yesterday’s entry, there’s no use having the best business in the world if nobody knows about you and buys from you. Customers are the lifeblood
of your business and you have to take care of them.

2. People only buy from people they like. I remember the time when I went to the Singapore Expo for an IT Convention to buy a webcam to shoot my videos with. The first stall I went to had outstanding products with great prices but the people tending to it didn’t even ask me the quintessential,”How may I help you?” so I walked on.

The next stall’s salesperson seemed friendly and she attended to me with a smile. However, when I started asking questions and asking her to clarify some things for me (it was a $200 purchase!), she started being rude to me as could be heard from her tone of voice. I said thank you and left.

The last stall’s salesperson was the kind I hated. You know the ones who approach you the moment you step into the room, and when you said, “Just looking” continues to follow you around the room. He was that guy.

But he was a bit different in that he didn’t silently look over my shoulder to see what I was looking at. He asked questions like, “What do you intend to do with the webcam?” and, “What’s your budget?” He was taking an interest in me. He wanted to solve my problem. And it came as a no surprise that I eventually bought the webcam from him.

9. Never Underestimate the Power of a Network

1. Dependence to Independence to Inter-dependence. Stephen R. Covey’s work is one of the most practical and useful that I’ve come across. He said one thing in ‘7 Habits Of Highly Effective People’ that has stuck with me since last year.

Covey said, “It doesn’t take much to realise that inter-dependency is much more mature than independency and dependency.” Stephen Pierce had the same message at the Young Achiever’s Congress I went to last year.

We don’t have to look far. The eco-system is a great example. We’ve all learnt about how inter-dependent the eco-system is. Take out the insect at the bottom of the food-chain and the carnivore at the top of the food-chain dies. As much as I’d like to think I can do something alone, it’s becoming increasingly clear that I can’t without the help of others. My friend Alex Shalman even has an article on The Ultimate Guide To Networking With Bloggers that’s on the front page of the No. 1 resource for bloggers on the Internet, Problogger.net. Alex stresses that “this is not just a guide for networking with bloggers, but with people as a whole.” It’s really juicy, so you might want to check it out.

2. The mastermind group gives rise to master minds In Napolean Hill’s ‘Think And Grow Rich’, the principle that jumped at me was the mastermind principle. When he talked about the Ford Motors company, he talked about how Henry Ford had the best group of people money can’t buy working for him. And as we know, Ford Motors created the modern engines of the cars we use today.

Imagine you are a football coach. Wouldn’t you want to have an all-star team? It’s something like that. Correction: It’s exactly like that, only that the Zidane or Ronaldinho of your team would be the experts in your field. Just imagine if you could team up with Tony Robbins, Jack Canfield, Donald Trump, Dr. Joe Vitale and Bob Proctor to work on a project together. Are you beginning to see the power of the mastermind principle?

P.S. The reason why some of these Gurus are becoming richer and richer and impacting more and more lives is because they practise this principle. Did you know that the book I recently wrote about, “You’ve Got To Read This Book!” came about because some of the biggest names in personal development came together in one place to brainstorm on ways to touch more lives and make the world a better place?

3. You are only 7 steps away from anyone in the world. You’ve probably heard of the fact that everyone of us are all linked by at most 7 steps. Although I’ve heard of this many times, I still find it quite astounding when I found out I was linked to Brian Tracy.

Let me explain. The other day, I met up with a friend of mine, Halim who had a friend called Sean Toh. As we were talking, Sean told us that he has some mentors and some popular friends in the States and then he said, “One of my friends is Brian Tracy”. You should have seen my face! I probably looked like I just saw a talking car.

Are you beginning to see the implications of this 7 steps rule? Most people say,”You can never be rich because rich people only mix with rich people.” I say start befriending everybody. For all you know, you might be one step away from meeting Donald Trump.

SaiF Improvement For The Day

Dedicate Your Time to What You Know

• Knowing something like the back of your hand makes you an expert.
• Knowledge builds on knowledge.
• Ease leads to fondness leads to passion.
• If you love what you do, the money will follow.

Love Your Customer

• Without the customer, you have no business.
• People only buy from people they like.

Never Underestimate the Power of a Network

• “… inter-dependency is much more mature than independency and dependency.”
• The mastermind group gives rise to master minds.
• You are only 7 steps away from anyone in the world.

What’s Next?

Talk back to me:

1) In the book Reallionaire, Farrah gives a bonus step. I’m not going to reveal the bonus step. Instead I want to ask you what you think should be the bonus step. You will want to leave a comment because I’m going to post the best answer on the next post.

2) I would also love to know what’s the best and insightful advice you’ve learned from other Millionaires like Donald Trump or Robert T. Kiyosaki or anyone else you admire. Look forward to hearing from you!

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