How to Create Wealth on the Fast Track as if Your Life Depends on It

Practicality dictates that everyone's results will vary as we are all unique and different. Basically, it takes hard work to make a substantial income in this business, and some people will make no money at all. The earnings of an Empower Network affiliate will be 100% dependent upon their skills, work effort, commitment, leadership capabilities, and market conditions. Common sense would suggest that in most opportunities, one would find exceptional individuals performing well above average, while others perform under the average. Empower Network does not guarantee any level of income or your success.

To see our full income disclosure, please visit our website at www.empowernetwork.com forward slash income dot php. Hi, this is Rob Ford, and I am so excited to be hanging out here with you today on this inner circle call. You know, I was one of the original 40 to 50 people that were in that dark, dirty hotel room when Dave and Dave had this crazy idea to launch this program called Empower Network and pay 100% commissions or more. I was one of the original 40 or 50. I was actually stuck in a dark corner of the room.

I couldn't even see the whiteboard presentation, but it sounded so good to me, so unique to me, that I signed up on the spot, gave Dave Wood my check, and said, call me when we're ready to launch. Well, here it has been about 23 months since I joined, and my wife and I have done over $732,000 in 23 months. So what I want to talk about today, just sit here for a few minutes, you and I, and have a heart-to-heart conversation about what does it take for you to literally create wealth on the fast track, as if your life depended on it, and more important, how to get past some of the hurts, habits, and hang-ups that might be holding you back, that maybe in the past used to hold you back, but no longer are they going to hold you back. You see, and let me tell you a real quick story about my life, and see if we find some points of connection here. Flash back with me to the year 1990.

It's December 1990. I'm 29 years old and homeless. I sleep on a urine-stained mattress I found on the side of the road and tossed into the back of my truck. If it rains, I can't sleep. I have to pile all my stuff in the cab, put myself in the cab, and I can't sleep.

I just cry. Now, fast forward to 2013, towards the beginning of October, where I'm cutting this audio. Today, Lisa and I work together from the comfort of our home. I'm one of the top 10 income earners. So the opportunity, the potential for profit is definitely here.

You know, I live in a house. I live in a village of McMansions. I'm surrounded by McMansions. I have a waterfall in my backyard. We have a spa.

We earn a very comfortable income. We attend church. We drive new cars. We give to charities. We travel when and where we want, and we spend lots of time with our family and friends and our business partners.

In fact, you know, one of the things I say all the time is I love to walk the beaches of the world together with you, with the people that we know. That's what life is all about. It's all about hanging out, having good times with family and friends, and getting past trying to work to build a living. So I'm going to ask you a very point-blank question.

Are you ready to make a change? Are you serious enough to get past yourself and to get started now? If you are, then with your permission, I'm actually going to challenge you to dump the excuses, make a decision and take action to secure your future and the future you and your family deserve, and to do it now. Because it's time, you're ready.

If you weren't ready, if it wasn't time, then circumstance and situation would not have put you in Empower Network, which is probably, in my opinion, based on my experience, and I'm 52 years old, I've been around the block a few times. In my experience, one of the most powerful ways for you to get financially free that you've ever seen. In fact, the potential is there. The training is there. The proven systems are there.

The leaders like myself and the other top income earners are there to teach you. Nothing is held back. Everything you need to produce the result you're looking for is there. And yet, like any other company, any other opportunity, the majority of people simply won't execute. They won't learn what they need to know.

They won't stay in long enough. They won't take massive action. And the majority won't ever make a profit. That's just the way it is. You don't need to be that person.

It's time, and you're ready. It's time to get past all the hurts, habits, and hang-ups that used to hold you back. And in the next few minutes, my goal is to show you exactly how to make more money easier using the Empower Network system than you ever thought possible. And you can count on it. We're talking money in the bank.

And so let's just have a conversation. You know, as I mentioned, my name is Rob Ford, and it is true, you know, back in December of 1990, due to a very bad business decision and a few even worse personal decisions, I lost everything. I lost my home, my family, my business, my income, and my self-respect. At the time, Lisa and I had built up a dental supply business. We were supplying dentists with syringes and gloves and prophy angles and all these kinds of things.

And the economy went a little south. And I just made a bad business decision. I invested a lot of our money. I actually mortgaged our home to buy massive amounts of inventory.

And then the prices dropped like a rock. So literally, we went from having it all. I mean, we weren't rich by any means, but we had a house. We had a couple cars. We had a young family.

Furniture. You know, we had it going on. But we went from having it all to literally living out of the back of the truck. You know, I had sent Lisa and our son off to live with her parents. And pride just wouldn't let me do that.

So I literally lived out of the back of the truck. Now today, Lisa and I work from the comfort of our home. In fact, we have been since 1996. Today, I have a team of over 11,000 active distributors in one network marketing business. A team of over 80,000.

A team of over 8,600. And yet another. And we promote another half a dozen affiliate programs on the internet as well. We use the internet and direct mail to run our business. We drive new cars with personalized plates.

We give to charities, have money in the bank, travel when and where we want. And honestly, when I made the decision to give up my excuses, to get past myself, it took about four years working part-time to achieve financial security. Now, what do I mean by that? Financial security, what is that? Meaning, we now had, after four years, we now had made more than enough money to pay the bills, feed the dog, and had plenty left over to do what we want with whoever we wanted, even if we stopped working.

To me, that's a lot of money. To me, that's financial security. You know, there's people out there, maybe they're CEOs of a company, maybe they're attorneys or doctors or surgeons or dentists, or maybe they work for the state or work for the government, but they work. You know, if they were unable to work, whether that be a tragic accident, suffer an illness, or maybe they just got old, or maybe the company downsized, but if they were unable to work, the money would stop coming in.

And to me, that's not financial security. Financial security means we do whatever we need to do to create a passive income, or a quasi-passive income. So even if we stop working by choice, or because we're forced to, by circumstance and situation, we still have more than enough money to pay the bills, feed the dog, and do what we want. So to me, that's financial security. And it took us four years after rolling up our sleeves and making the decision to do that, and we've done that for well over a decade now.

So please understand, it's not my goal to impress you with all of that, but to impress upon you that you can do this. You know, I've paid my dues, and I learned a few lessons along the way, and I hope to share some of those with you here today. And, honestly, it just doesn't matter how things look, or where you might find yourself right now. Right here, right now. It doesn't matter.

Maybe you feel like you don't have enough time. You're already stretched in your life, which is fair. Most of us have full-time lives, full-time careers, or full-time spouses, full-time parents, full-time soccer moms. We have a career. We got our hobbies.

I mean, life is just busy. So maybe you're kind of stretched thin. You find you don't have enough time. Or maybe you're in a position where you feel you don't have enough money. Debts are piling up.

Maybe you're in too much debt. Maybe you're simply too tired to care. Maybe you're fearful of making a wrong decision. Is this the right thing for me? Should I upgrade to the next level?

Maybe you're fearful of making a wrong decision, of looking bad. Maybe you're fearful of retiring, of retiring in poverty. Or maybe right now where you find yourself is emotionally and spiritually bankrupt. It doesn't matter how things look or where you find yourself right now. Things can and will change for the better when you decide you've had enough.

When you decide to take back control, when you decide you may not know everything, but you know enough, you know enough to get started now. See, it took me five years to get off the pity pot after I lost everything back in 1990. Five years. Literally, I mean, sure I held, you know, I did some jobs. I had a whole bunch of jobs.

I bought another house. I reestablished credit. I reunited with my family. I started reading a ton of motivational books. You know, you've heard the old saying, leaders are readers.

And I took that at face value. So I read everything I could get my hands on when it came to motivational personal development and how to make money. And I purchased as many how-to-get-rich-quick systems as I could get my hands on. Now, back then we didn't have the internet, but we had magazines. And at the back of these magazines would be these ads, these classified ads or even full page ads.

You know, how you could get rich working from home, how you could get rich in mail order or whatever it was, get rich in real estate, no money down real estate. So I did all that. New jobs, new house, reestablished credit, reunited with my family. But you know what? So I was going through all the motions, but emotionally I was burnt toast.

You see, my drive to strive, my drive to strive for more, was gone. Still for appearances, I went through the motions. I joined Amway, which is a network marketing company. And I quit after a few months. Then it was onto Excel, another network marketing company.

And I quit after a few months there. Then it was no money down real estate, then day trading stocks and bonds. I stuffed envelopes, I ran classified ads. I invested $5,000 in water filters. I even went out and bought and placed vending machines, ball things, and even lost a small fortune in the 900 number business, where people could actually call a 900 number.

They would actually be charged for whatever you were selling right on their phone bill. It was a great idea. I was a little late to the party. And I lost a lot of money in that one, because not only did we have to buy the business, but we had to do TV ads. And producing a TV ad is very expensive.

Well, that did teach me a lesson, that I learned. Now please give me your belief. What I am going to teach you is an example of a lesson that I carry forward today.

And the lesson is that there were many people, even back then, there were many people making a quiet fortune in all of those businesses. Every single one of them, there were people making money. They were all proven business models, just like Empower Network. Empower Network is a proven business model that has worked. And of course, that doesn't mean that you're going to do that.

Take a look at the income claims, you know, the income disclosures. But there are people making tens of thousands per month in Empower Network. It's a proven business model. All of those businesses were proven business models. The reason none of them worked for me, and catch this, the reason none of them worked for me is I didn't work any of them.

I dabbled. I got organized. I got ready to be ready. So when I was finally ready, I would be ready to get started. You see, I was comfortable with the idea of success, but uncomfortable taking the actions necessary to make things happen.

After all, if I really tried, if I really got serious, I might fail again. And failing is painful. Failing is embarrassing. Failing sucks. And in fact, for me, it was lesson learned.

It's better to be safe and do nothing than to be sorry, trying and failing. Now, let me ask you right now to do a body check. Notice how shallow you're breathing right now and the tightness in your chest. Relax. Just take it deep.

Take a deep breath and relax, because we're talking about my pain and my fears right now, aren't we? We'll get to yours here in a minute. So just breathe. Just relax. One of the guys that I've studied over the years, Tony Robbins, Anthony Robbins, in his book, Awaken the Giant Within, Tony says, everything we do, we do for a reason.

So what is this force that is controlling you even now and will continue to control you for the rest of your life? Pain and pleasure. Everything you and I do, we do either out of our need to avoid pain or our desire to gain pleasure. That's what Tony says. So like you, I have this entrepreneurial spirit, so I love to check out proven business opportunities, and to rub elbows with successful people.

In fact, one of the reasons I really love going to the Empower Network events is just hanging out with everybody. You're hanging out with all the leaders, and you realize they're no different from you. We have fat leaders, and old leaders, and young leaders, and crazy-looking leaders, and long-haired leaders, and people that just came out of the army. People just like you. And so it's really cool to just hang out and rub elbows with successful people.

You see, me and you enjoy the idea of securing true time and financial freedom. But what was happening with me is the second I considered getting serious, really honestly serious about our project, fear. Fear of failure would stop me dead in my tracks. Fear of failure and fear of success. You see, I was comfortable, though unhappy, being mediocre.

And the thought of stepping out of my comfort zone shook me to the core. I've been there, I've done that, and I didn't like the result. You know, failure was painful, and success brought too many responsibilities and too many opportunities to mess things up. Besides, when I was growing up, when I was a young buck back in rural Michigan baling hay and milking cows, I was told I would never amount to anything. Nobody in our family ever did.

And so who was I to think I was any better than them? Just sit down and shut up. Children are meant to be seen not heard, don't you know? And wasn't I always the last one to be picked for team play in school? You know, go to the gym, picking sides for kickball, I'm the last pick.

Picking sides for flag football, last pick. Picking sides for baseball, last pick. And that just about says it all, doesn't it? I was born to follow, not lead. So who am I trying to kid?

Why risk it? Why rock the boat? You know, let's get real for a minute, shall we? What I want you to do is right here, right now, recall a time when you wanted to move forward, but didn't. Perhaps you wanted to start your own business, but didn't.

Perhaps you wanted to go all in, but you haven't. Perhaps you were at a party watching people having fun. You actually wanted to get up and enjoy yourself, but you didn't. Why not? What fear or pain prevented you from taking action back then?

You know, what you need to do is dig deep right now. And again, recall a time when you wanted to move forward, but you didn't. What fear or pain prevented you from taking action? Dig deep and listen to that inner voice. Do a body check, see what's going on.

Locate the fear. Locate the pain. And mark each of those emotional blockers that's going on in your body right now. What's the brain chatter saying? I call it the monkey mind.

What's the monkey mind saying? When you recall that time when you wanted to move forward, but you didn't, and you're looking for the reason why you didn't, what's going on in your brain? I'm too old.

I'm too young. I'm too fat. People laugh at me. I don't really know enough. What if I make a mistake?

People will talk about me. I'm a slow learner. I don't deserve it. I feel like a fraud. Money is materialistic.

I'm scared I'll fail. I don't know what to say. I'm not educated. I don't have enough time. Boy, I'm way swamped.

I'm too busy. I'll be embarrassed. I'm too clumsy. I'm too ugly. I'm no good at sales.

I'm too shy. I don't have a list. I'm not good enough. English isn't my first language. I feel like a hypocrite.

I don't want responsibility. I'm scared I might succeed. You see, the beliefs that control you, and yes, I did say control you, come largely from childhood programming and experiences. These beliefs, then, are reinforced over the years, through years of self-talk. You say the same thing the same way to yourself all the time.

And for you, they become true. Not necessarily true, but true for you. Which is exactly what I did most of my life. I had a very low self-esteem and self-worth. Very low.

And I did it to myself through self-talk. Years and years of self-talk. What do you say when nobody's listening? What do you say to yourself when nobody's listening?

Because those beliefs that control you, again, control you, come largely from childhood programming and experience that you have then reinforced by years and years of self-talk. And they've become true for you. So here's how it goes. If you're not achieving the results you want out of life, if you are not achieving the results you want with Empower Network, if you are not achieving any result you want, whether that's to lose weight, make more money, become a better spouse, become a better parent, you must first discover the beliefs that are holding you back and then change those beliefs. You got to erase the bad programming before you're going to have room to put in new programming.

Now, one powerful way to change your belief is to question the validity of those beliefs. And this works because beliefs are really nothing more than a feeling of certainty. You feel certain, positive, absolutely assured of a certain thing. So you believe it. Like right now, I'm sitting in a chair.

When I walked in the room, I had an absolute certainty that when I sat down, the chair would not break. The chair would hold my weight. So I have a belief that the chair will hold me up. It's a feeling of certainty. Well, if we question your limiting beliefs, you actually sit down and question them.

You will eventually doubt them because you can't keep asking questions without seriously doubting, you know, creating some doubt about that belief. You doubt those beliefs, you create uncertainty. And uncertainty equals one less limiting belief. That makes sense? See, a belief is nothing more than a feeling of certainty.

So if we question those beliefs, we will create doubt. Doubt creates uncertainty. We no longer have a limiting belief. Give you an example. Maybe one of your pet arguments, your pet excuses is I'm too old.

Well, let's question that. Compared to who? Compared to whom? Too old for what specifically? How about if one of your arguments is I'm not educated.

I didn't finish school. I'm stuck on stupid. Compared to who? And do you know of anyone who has produced a desired result who was not educated? Do you know anybody?

Well, you do now. No, I actually quit high school in the 10th grade. I went on to get a GED later and then decided to go to college. Didn't like, I chose accounting, which turned out to be very, very boring. So I quit that.

So I'm a high school dropout, then a college dropout. Then I went to ministry. I went and did a seminary to become a pastor. I did graduate from that, but I decided not to be a pastor because I chickened out again. I didn't want the responsibility, excuse me, the spiritual responsibility of being a teacher and a leader when I didn't feel grown up yet enough at that level.

So, you know, I was a loser. I quit school. I never made it through. So I can't say I'm educated. And yet we've done well over $700,000 in Empower Network.

So do you now know of anyone who's produced your desired result who's not educated? Pick me. How about if your argument is money is materialistic? Well, who says that? Who?

Who says that? And are you so sure that's true? Do you know any spiritual people who have made a lot of money? Did I just share with you that I went to seminary to become a pastor, teacher of the word of God? And today, because we do make a lot of money, I give a lot of money to charity.

Some religious charities, some humanity charities, some charities for children and pets and all kinds of stuff. Is having more money, to give to the less fortunate, a selfish thing? Money is materialistic? Who says? Couldn't you do more things if you had more money, more good things?

I'm too clumsy. Really? Well, do you intend to juggle your way to success? You know, if you want to become a professional juggler and join the circus, then maybe that's a valid argument. If you want to make money by blogging, if you want to make money sharing the incredible profit potential of the Empower Network, if you can answer email and click a mouse and write a few sentences on Facebook and Twitter and your blog, if you can make bank deposits without too much of a challenge, clumsy doesn't matter.

I used to actually trip upstairs. You know, today I bought, well not today, but today I live in a house that's got one floor because I was clumsy enough I kept falling both up and down the stairs. You can make money and be clumsy, that's a silly argument. What if I make a mistake? Ooh, that's a big one.

What if you make a mistake? What if? What's the worst case scenario if you made a mistake? Could you live with it? Have you ever made a mistake and found yourself to be even smarter, stronger, and more assured of yourself because you learned something new?

And you now know that you won't make that mistake again. It's not a big deal to make a mistake. Now back in 1990, I made a huge mistake. I put a second mortgage on my house, invested $70,000 in borrowed money to buy inventory. I then later could not sell for the same price.

Within 90 days, we filed bankruptcy, we lost our home to foreclosure, and I found myself literally homeless. So that probably was, you know, probably one of the worst case scenarios. Could we live with it? We did. Was it embarrassing?

Of course it was. Did we live through the embarrassment? Of course we did. In my case, I have to say that we came out the other side smarter, stronger, and more assured of ourselves that we would never make that mistake again.

In fact, since then, I've never personally borrowed money to build a business. I've never personally gone into debt to build a business. We do advertise, we do buy equipment, and we'll use our credit card to do that, but we pay that credit card off at the end of the month. I've just learned that debt's not a good thing, and since then, we have done everything in our ability to keep the debt load small until the business could actually fund itself. So it's worked really, really well for us.

So, what if you make a mistake? What if? Now, what's the worst case scenario, and can you live with that? If so, go make some mistakes. Make them.

Get them over with. You see, all personal change, all personal breakthrough begin with a change in beliefs. So, how did I change? How did I go from being, you know, all tore up and fear, you know, fear of failure and fear of success? How did I do it?

I questioned my beliefs. I literally picked a time every day for many, many days, many weeks, few months, sat down, and investigated my thinking, investigated my feelings, investigated my beliefs. I listened to myself talk, and then began to question that talk, question those beliefs, question that sense of certainty I had. I questioned them hard, and what I realized over time is I was mostly afraid of what might happen. I was mostly afraid of what people would think of me.

I was mostly afraid of losing something I already had. See, we had done it before. We had bought a house, was doing a business, you know, stand-up person in the community, stand-up person in our church, and then we lost it all. It was embarrassing, and I would have probably much rather not had it ever than to have it and to lose it.

So, you know, I had these fears because I'd been down that catastrophic road before. So, I was actually mostly afraid of what might happen. Fear, false expectations appearing real. I'm playing forward this dismal story and creating fear.

But then, you know, I finally got to a place where I made a decision, a real decision. And as I shared with you before, the reason I didn't succeed in any of those other proven businesses, like Empower Network, wasn't because there was anything wrong with the business. There was a lot of people making money in each of those businesses. And I was not successful in any of those businesses.

But the reason it didn't work for me is I didn't work any of them. I read about it. I studied it. I listened to the CD tapes.

I would watch the DVDs. I would read the book. I would get my forms ready. I studied the forms and practiced filling them out. We would do all this busy work, but never really took the actions needed to produce a result.

So, I finally made a decision, a real decision, that I would pick one proven business model. And I would commit, literally draw a line in the sand. This is it. I would commit to producing a great result with that one business model, period. No turning back.

No second guessing. No distractions. And no more excuses. And if I heard myself talk, start to second guess, I would question that second guessing. If I would find myself getting distracted, looking at a different opportunity, I would forcefully get rid of that distraction.

If I hear any excuse or justification for not taking action coming out of my mouth, then I would get past it. I worked on it hard. Pick one thing and commit to producing a result, period. Failure is no longer an option, period. You take responsibility for producing the result.

Now, back then, I actually chose mail order, direct response. We called it mail order back there. And I actually bought a little booklet from the back of one of these magazines for $29.95. And I read through that little 32, 40 page booklet and it made a lot of sense to me. My wife was upset that I couldn't afford it and that I was buying a $500 system, which back then, we couldn't afford.

Now, keeping in mind, I had spent a lot of money, 900 numbers, no money down real estate, I mean, everything you could think of, I spent money and did nothing with. And so we really could not afford this $500 system, but I bought it anyway. That's the proven model I picked. And then I did something strange for me.

I actually followed the instructions, just like with Empower Network we have the eight core principles. Those are the instructions. I followed the instructions even when I didn't feel like it and even when I was uncomfortable doing it and even when I was scared to death.

I followed the instructions, because I made a real decision, and I made it a point I would not second-guess. Oh, I hope I made the right decision. I hope Empower Network is really right for me. I hope this is it. No second-guessing, maybe I shouldn't have done Empower Network, maybe I should have done that MLM thing my brother was talking about.

If you're second-guessing, then you're not committed to producing a result. You know, it's that whole idea of painting yourself in a corner. Stop second-guessing. If you find yourself second-guessing, that's your clue you really have not committed emotionally, financially, mentally committed to making Empower Network the final hurrah, to have Empower Network become your first class ticket to success. If you're second-guessing, or if you're chasing rabbits, you get an email that says, oh, this new thing just launched and you can make a million dollars in 30 days.

And you're considering, you're reading the sales copy for any other reason than learning to write good sales copy. But if you're even remotely entertaining the idea, then you are not committed emotionally, mentally, and financially to this one thing. Now, I'm not saying you can't promote other things, but if you have not got to the point where you are generating leads, you are getting signups, you are getting upgrades, and you have an automated or semi-automated system, whether that's blogging, Facebook, social media marketing, video marketing, paid advertising, solo ads, co-ops, whatever that may be, if you don't have a very solid marketing funnel in place for Empower Network, you have no business looking or chasing anything else. Because anything else is going to put you in the same exact place.

You've got an opportunity, yet another opportunity, and no marketing funnel. And yet, to date, again, I'm 52 years old, I have never seen a product sell itself. It's just not going to happen, despite what you might read, despite the hype you might hear, a product, a service, a business opportunity will never sell itself. You have to market that business. You have to blog.

You have to tell people. You have to attract people. You need to learn how to attract the person most likely to buy or invest into whatever it is that you're marketing, once they come to know it exists. And until you've done that for Empower Network, you have no business, zero business, getting involved in anything else.

If you are, then you have not committed to producing a result no matter what. And chances are, you won't produce a result in anything until you make that commitment. So as I shared, even when I didn't feel like it, and even when I was scared to death, and even when I was uncomfortable, I followed the instructions. Now, when you hear people say that, hey, I make money working from home, I make money working from the comfort of my home.

For some reason, we think that means I make money without working from home. That's not true. You know, when I followed the instructions for 18 months, what this product did is, what it required you to do, was build a product. So I actually spent about a year writing a book. I had never written a book before.

And then we spent some time producing videotapes. I had never produced videotapes before. And I had to figure out how to package them, and then how to get them printed and duplicated, and how to ship them. All of this effort went in. I never made a dime for about 18 months.

And then 18 months after the product was done, we started marketing, and started spending money. The first year, we didn't make a dime, and it wasn't from lack of working. You know, I was literally, from 8 to 5, I was creating a living. I was doing my job. Then from 5 to midnight, for over a year, I sat down and wrote a book.

So I worked 4, 5, 6 hours a day for a year without ever making a dime. Without any assurance, really, that it would work, because we had never done it. But I had confidence it would work, because I was following the instructions. I was following a proven model.

I did not leave any step out. Whatever the instructions told me to do, I did. Even if I was afraid, even if I was uncomfortable, even if it scared the crap out of me, I did it anyway. And if I had to become better at it, then I just did. I did whatever was necessary to get better.

Now, that was back in 1996. So in 1998, we discovered the internet. And that was great. I mean, what I found is having money is much better than not having any money. And having the time to enjoy it was even better.

But now, it was kind of what I call quasi-residual. We just kept running our ads, and people kept buying the product. So now, and then, of course, we would fulfill it, and we'd have customer service issues and things like that. But now, we were putting in 2 hours a day, not 8 hours a day, and the income was better. So it was a lot of work in the beginning.

So when you hear, work from home, think work hard from home. Do what you have to do in the beginning. And eventually, once you get good at what you're doing, once your marketing funnel is in place, you'll get your time back. So 1998, we discovered the internet. We added another $20,000 to $30,000.

We're living high on the hog again. You know, I got my self-esteem back. We're making money. We're back in the house. We're driving cars again.

And then, life threw me and my family a curveball. And I'll never forget the day the doctor walked in, cleared his throat, and said, there's a new chemotherapy treatment available that's just been approved by the FDA for human testing that may buy you some time. But if it doesn't work, I'm sorry, you're looking at two years tops. Talk about an instant brain change.

I mean, one minute, I'm fighting for top search engine placement, SEO. I'm fighting to get a discount on my full page ads in the magazines. And the next minute, I'm fighting for my life. Can you imagine? Can you imagine you're doing good?

Life's good. You know, you've worked hard, but you're starting to get some of the rewards and life's getting better every day. And for us, what was happening is the income started to come in pretty significant. So I wanted to get life insurance. So I applied for life insurance.

And we were applying. I don't even really remember. It was a quarter million or a half million dollar life insurance policy. So we had to take a complete physical, including blood work. And when they got the blood work results, that's when the doctor called me in.

And they had actually found cancer markers in the blood. And the cancer was very active and terminal, or so they said. So, you know, that wasn't a great day for me. It really wasn't. But an amazing thing happened.

An amazing thing happened is I came to the horrible realization that if I were to die or to become unable to work in any way, that I would leave my wife and two sons virtually penniless. I'm literally destitute and penniless. Because the majority of our income was totally dependent upon my ability to trade my time, training and expertise for dollars. See, my family supported me in the business.

But I was the business. I was the author. It was kind of like Oprah, you know, if Oprah were to suddenly not be able to do her show or do her magazine, there wouldn't be no Oprah business. You know what I mean?

It was kind of that way. I was the authority. And if I were unable to work or produce, I would leave my wife and son destitute and penniless. Destitute because we didn't have any medical insurance. And it would cost a lot of money to die, quite frankly, because of all the therapies.

In fact, I ended up going through nine months of therapy. And we didn't have any health insurance. So we had to pay for that out of our own pocket. And it took me many, many years to recover from that debt, by the way. And we would leave them penniless.

And so they would be upside down, belly up in the fishbowl on my way to dying. I would leave them destitute and penniless. So let's think about that for a minute. Let's take another minute to get real. Just me and you, right?

Here is your question: is your income limited to the number of hours you can work every day, is the majority of your income dependent upon trading time for dollars? And if that's the case, what would happen to your family? If you were to suddenly suffer a crippling injury or failing health, if you could not work for whatever reason, economic turndown, you got laid off, you got outsourced, you got sick, you got tired, you got old, you had to retire, whatever. If you could not work, how long would it be before you lose it all? If you can't pay your house, you know, 90 days, see if they throw you on the street.

But if you could not work, how long would it be before you lose it all? How much money do you have in the bank saved up? Could you pay all of your bills? For a year, two years, three years, how long would it be? Heaven forbid.

You know, the chemo made me sick. And though I felt weak and tired most of the time, I immediately got busy redesigning my business in order to produce a residual income, a passive residual income that would not require my presence or expertise once set up. You know, I was scared for myself. I was scared for my family. And worst case scenario, I had less than two years to pull a financial rabbit out of the hat.

I had to create a miracle. I mean, I could literally be dead and the money would continue to come in. Even worse is I didn't have any energy. None. I was throwing up all the time.

I lost my hair. So I had to build it on a very part-time basis. But let's get real again for a minute for you. Are you running out of time? And I say that because I'm 52 years old and I know a lot of the world right now is coming up on the tail end of the baby boom years.

You know, people are retiring, they say, at a phenomenal rate now. I've got a lot of family and friends that are 50, 60, 65 years old that are still working, that are losing their jobs and not being able to find employment. And they don't have a pension. They don't have any savings. And they still got probably a good 20, 25 years of life left.

What are they going to do? And then when the economy turns south, like it did back in 2008, and people lose half of the equity in their home and their 401k turns into a 201k, what are you going to do? Are you running out of time? I mean, even if you never fall ill or never suffer a tragic accident, what about retirement?

You know, so ask yourself the question, given the choice, you don't have to go social norm, retire at 62 or 65 or whatever. When would you like to retire? Three years? We need to invest, we retire comfortably.

Portfolio income. We have money making us money. This is usually generated from paper assets like stocks, bonds, mutual funds, things like that. Then you have passive income. This is cash flow generated from hard assets such as real estate and businesses.

You can own a business and be an absentee owner and never have to trade time for dollars. You earn a percentage of the income. Rental real estate. My wife and I have a house where we don't have a mortgage and we rent that out. Every month automatically.

That's a passive income coming from a hard asset. We own that property and somebody is paying us money every single month. We don't have to trade our time for dollars for that. That's a passive income. Real estate, businesses, hard assets like that.

Robert Kiyosaki actually defines a business as a system that creates income without the owner having to spend time working the system. That's literally what you have within Empower Network. In the beginning, yes, you have to work the system. You have to blog. You have to do the eight core steps.

You have to make things happen. You have to build the funnel. You have to study. You have to suit up, show up, and get in and get busy. You may have to put in four, six, eight hours a day for the next three, six, twelve months to build a marketing system that can then carry you without you having to put time into that system.

Today, I can literally shut my computer off, close the computer, hit the off button, and then I can go to work. Not open it for three months, and the income will continue to come in because we've already invested our time and our energy to build a system. Just like we did when we were selling the real estate stuff, I could step away.

Now that the system is built, I could step away, hire people to do what we did, and off it goes. Well, it's the same way here. There's a lot of teams out there that do everything, advertising co-ops, there's a lot. The Empower Network system by itself, you send people to this system, they opt in, the software program, the autoresponder follows up with them, there's nothing for you to do. The only thing you need to do is drive traffic to the system, and you can pay people to do that. You can advertise to do that, you could actually pay somebody to blog for you to do that, or you could do SEO like I do, get your blog post to rank, and then you get traffic, leads and sales completely on autopilot, you can walk away if you want to.

So the worst kind of income is earned income, because it's highly taxed, that's number one, and you know you've heard the saying, it's not so much what you make, it's what you keep, and here in our world today everybody wants to tax you to the poor house. So it is highly taxed, and it does require your personal involvement, trading time for dollars. There's very little, if any, residual value for your work. Now, there is some residual value in some occupations, like insurance. You go sell an insurance policy, if they renew, you earn a perpetual commission or something. So there is some things out there, but not too much.

Most jobs, if you don't work, you don't get paid, that's kind of the way it is. You know, basically you work, you get paid, you start over from zero and you do it again and again and again, until you become sick, old, or just incapable of doing it, and then you die broke. Now, passive and portfolio income is good income because it's created independent of your time and effort, and this income is not limited by how many hours you can work in a day, or even if you're able to work. If you go and invest a million dollars, it doesn't matter if you get out of bed or roll over in bed, it's still going to create that six percent return on investment month after month after month.

So the secret to financial success really is to create a system, a system where you put in some initial effort and then you get paid for that effort again and again and again. That's the secret. That's what you have with Empower Network. You have a proven system, run by people who are some of the best marketers on the planet today. Step-by-step instructions, a proven path of success. There's dozens of people making tens of thousands of dollars a month, some making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. Proven potential, proven system, you just got to put in that initial effort, and it will be a lot of effort. There's nothing easy about what we do. It's simple, but it's not easy. You got to put in the time.

Trading time for dollars is a poor plan. I mean, if you think about it, how many senior citizens, how many old folks do you see working at McDonald's or greeting you at Walmart? Do you think they planned it that way? I don't think so. No, I think they planned to work hard, save for their future, and retire comfortably. But it didn't work out. It didn't work out because the plan is faulty. Most people don't make enough money to really cover the bills at the end of the month, let alone to save a chunk of money to do this passive investing. Or life comes along and throws you a curveball, and you have unexpected expenses that wipe out your savings when the economy turns south.

I have lots of family and friends that lost their job, you know, tapped their 401k plans just to put food on the table, and now here they are, 60 years old, and they're broke. No financial plan, no pension, no nothing, at 60. The plan is faulty. Because if you actually want to retire someday above the poverty line, you must, and I underscore that, you must generate a steady stream of passive, portfolio income. And the sooner you get started creating that passive income, the sooner you will be able to escape the rat race and begin living the life that you and your family deserve.

So let me ask you, if not Empower Network, what? And if not now, when? If you have yet to decide, if you have yet to draw the line in the sand, if you have yet to stop being distracted, if you have yet to financially commit to going all in, if you have yet to go through setting up your system, if you have yet to commit to the eight core steps, if you have yet to make a blog post every day and promote it, if you have yet to pick a leader, a model of success, determine what they do, how they do it, and start doing the same exact things, even when you don't feel like it, even when you're scared to death, and even when it makes you uncomfortable. If you haven't done that, what? And if you haven't done it yet, when is now a good time to get started?

Honestly, the sooner you get started, the sooner you'll escape the rat race and begin living the life that you and your family deserve. You know, most of us go through life, and I can say this from experience, most of us go through life looking for a shortcut. You know, hoping beyond reasonable hope that there's some kind of secret shortcut, some secret method, some secret thing, that if we just find out about that thing, it'll be easy. There is no shortcut. Empower Network is the shortcut. Your decision to get it done this time is the shortcut. Your decision to draw that line in the sand is the shortcut. And to go all in emotionally, mentally, financially, this is it, is the shortcut.

And until you get in that space, until you say that your desire for success is bigger than your excuses, all these well-worn excuses we've worn like a blanket all of our lives, until you're ready to put away that baby blanket of excuse, pull up your big boy pants, roll up your sleeves, and put the work back into work from home. Not fiddle, not get ready to be ready so that when you're ready you'll finally be ready. You know, not wiping your nose six times a day, not studying and training six hours a day and doing five minutes of work, no. Half hour of training, two hours of work. Until you're ready to do that, it's not going to happen.

And you know, if you don't mind me being frank, if that's where you are and you're not willing to change, why don't you just stop, get your two hours back, and go enjoy your life in front of the TV, or golfing, or whatever it is you're doing. If you're gonna waste time, you might as well go waste time spending time with your family and friends and the people that you care about most. Not fiddling, not play acting, not acting like you're busy just for the sake of busy. If you're not doing anything to get the job done, and you know exactly what I'm talking about, because there's things that your leader has told you to do, there's the eight core steps, there's the instructions that lay out for you what to do.

They say go all in. Have you, or have you argued for why you can't? They say advertise on Facebook. Have you, or have you argued for why you can't? You say English is not my first language, so I can't blog. Really, you can pay people to blog for you. I can't afford it. Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours. You keep arguing for why you can't, I guarantee you never will. You start arguing for why you can, and I guarantee you will. But you need to make that decision, you need to draw that line in the sand, you need to make it happen now.

So again, you know, what's your plan? What's your plan to win, or plan to fail? What's your plan? You know, it's been a little over, I don't know, 12 or 13 years now, and the doctors can't find any trace of the killer critter anywhere. But the secure residual income that I created back then turned out to be less secure than I could have ever imagined, because on December 19th, 2001, our online web hosting business was hacked and we lost everything. And I found myself no closer to retiring than when we started before I got sick.

And that same feeling of fear and panic and the absolute dread I felt that day in the doctor's office for the safety and security of my family, you know, once again washed over me. And I knew right then and there that something had to change. I was tired of the do-over. I was tired of the fear. I was tired of being financially insecure.

So something had to change. It had to change in a big way. And let's get real here again for a minute, just me and you, right here, right now. Are you personally up for a challenge? You see, the biggest challenge we all face is our own self-doubt and our tendency to preserve and protect what we already have versus creating more.

It's self-doubt and laziness that defines who we are and what we've become. Did you catch that? Our biggest challenge is self-doubt and our tendency to preserve and protect what we already have versus creating more. I guarantee you, if you are not all in, you can get all in, despite your best argument. You know, if you needed, let's say you have a job, I don't know, but let's say you have a job or a career.

And your ability to pay the bills and feed the dog and keep the roof over your head depends on that job. I guarantee you'd whip out a credit card, you'd go take a personal loan, you'd go to, you know, payday.com or whatever the heck you had to do, you'd come up with the $3,000 so that you could get to work. And that's just to pay the bills and feed the dog. You know, so having no money is no excuse. That's just ridiculous.

I just don't believe it. I don't buy it. You know, basically, that's just dumb. If you argue that money is holding you back, it's just not going to happen.

I kind of went side-drive there. But the reason is, you know, we want to protect what we have. So I don't want to take the $3,000 I've saved up for the last five years and invest in this because I don't know if it'll work. Well, again, you're not committed. You know, you need to come to that place where you absolutely know it can and will work for you, just as it can and does work for dozens, hundreds, thousands of other people.

You are the only difference that makes the difference in this equation. It's a proven process. It's a proven program. But we tend to want to preserve and protect what we have versus risking and trying to create more. It's also self-doubt and laziness.

You know, we all have our patterns. We watch our favorite TV show. We do our favorite sport, golfing, hobby, whatever it is. And, you know, it's uncomfortable to learn. It's uncomfortable to do things new.

It's uncomfortable to pick up the phone and call a lead. It's uncomfortable to write a blog post. It's uncomfortable to write a headline. It's uncomfortable asking people for money if you've never done it before. So it's easier just to stay in our comfort zone, stay a little bit lazy, fiddle around and never get anything done.

So it's self-doubt and laziness that defines who we are and what we can become. So you need to decide, one, to stop doubting, start committing, and stop being dang lazy. Now, go without sleep for six months, and then you can sleep wherever you want for the rest of your life. After all, you know, it's kind of easy to stay the same, but it's not so easy to change. It's time, though, to dump the excuses.

It's time, though, to make a decision and to take action towards securing the future that you and your family so richly deserve. And I propose you do it right here within Empower Network. I can think of no other program that has a profit potential as this program does. I'm not even in the top 10.

I don't even know if I'm in the top 20 income earners within Empower Network. That's a pretty significant chunk of change. And I'm nothing special. You know, I can do it. I dropped out of high school.

I quit college. I graduated from seminary and chickened out of a career. You know, I make my living typing and blogging today. I flunked English in high school. Isn't that something?

I had a low self-esteem. You know, I was raised in a family where my dad was an alcoholic, and we didn't have a lot of money. We were poor. I was the kid picked last in school. When we did go to parties or social things, I was the guy in the corner looking in, watching everybody else have fun.

I was the shy guy. Total shy guy. Now today, we speak at some of these events in front of 6,000 people. Things change. It doesn't matter where you find yourself or how you feel today.

Things can and will get better when you make the decision for that to happen. So I encourage you to do that right here. You make this decision right here today to get in and make it happen. You can do that. You know, so if you're ready to start making incredible things happen, today's the day to stretch just that tiniest bit beyond your comfort zone for an extended period of time to create the income and lifestyle that most people only dream about.

Only you can do that. Only you can make that decision. Only you can make the decision to stop looking for shortcuts and realize you are the shortcut. The decision is the shortcut. Empower Network is the shortcut.

And I believe you are in that place. Otherwise, you still wouldn't be here listening to me rambling on and on about it. And I also realize that you might have a few reservations. You might have some major conflicts going on inside yourself right now, and that's fair, because that's a clue. That discomfort is a clue that something big is happening, and it's time for you to choose.

It's time for you to choose. Most people choose mediocrity. What about you? I'm excited about the possibility of seeing you on the leaderboards.

I'm excited about seeing you at the next event. I'm excited about walking the beaches of the world together. Me and my family. You and your family.

Laughing and enjoying life. Be blessed. Great marketing. This is Rob Ford. I'll see you guys at the next event.

Although you're listening to a private recording in a nondisclosure Empower Network customer training, the principles and strategies in this audio can be applied in any business. Although these techniques, philosophies and strategies may have worked for others, no one can guarantee that they will work for you. We report real average earnings, updated daily, at EmpowerNetwork.com forward slash income dot php.

The purchase of this or any other audio is not required to earn money in our affiliate compensation plan, and you can decide to not continue to buy these forever, at any time. We hope, however, these ideas and strategies will assist you in building a profitable, long-term business. Success takes hard work, determination, skill, and consistent effort. Please refer to our average earnings at EmpowerNetwork.com forward slash income dot php.