Don’t just React, Respond. Stop kneejerking your way through Life, with Tony Rush.

Folks, obviously the income examples discussed are extraordinary. The income claims presented are not intended to serve as a guarantee of income. Instead, they're designed to give you an idea of what's possible. Success in this business requires leadership, hard work, and dedication. Since we want to help you make an informed decision, we've gone above and beyond with our income disclosure document.

If you want to see the average earnings, please visit the page at www.empowernetwork.com forward slash income dot php. I am always humbled by those kinds of introductions. I was standing in the back thinking, who the hell is she introducing? I thought I was next, you know. But thank you.

Have you enjoyed Tracy Walker this weekend? I just want to hang out. Can we do that? All this pacing and walking around just makes me tired. Let me go look at you.

Y'all are a good looking bunch. Have y'all had a good weekend? This last segment made me just basically throw away whatever it was I had planned to talk about.

Because Sharp and I were standing back there at the production table and listening to what we all just witnessed. You get that this is not about blogging, really.

You just kind of get that. I mean, like, at every one of these events, and we've done quite a lot of them now, and I've been in the industry a long time, and what's funny is, no matter what you're actually selling, in our company, obviously, we're selling this amazing product. But you come to an event like this, and it catches you off guard.

If you're new, I mean, brand new, like you've still got the plastic wrapping on you, you're so new.

Let me see your hands. Yeah. So, you know, I was in D.C. last week, and had an amazing version of this event. You guys are far better looking than the people in D.C., though, by the way.

But I did have a, there was a lady in the lobby. She was very confused. She came up to me in the lobby, and she said, you know, I'm upset. I'm frustrated.

I was like, what's wrong? And she said, well, I brought my laptop. I said, well, good. I brought mine, too, you know, in my hotel room at the moment. But she said, well, I thought, because I go to all these corporate seminars all over the world for my job, I just thought for sure we'd be sitting at a table, and you're going to tell us where to point and click, and we're going to be following along, and I was like, oh, honey.

Oh, honey. That's my new phrase, by the way. It's Sharp's. If you ask Sharp a question, he'll say, blah, blah, blah, blah, blog beast.

My new thing is, oh, honey. I said, that's not what we do. This is a leadership factory disguised as a business opportunity. And one could say disguised as a software company or a blog company.

So, as I was standing back at the production table back there and listening to these amazing stories, it really highlights to me again that we're in the transformation business. That's what we really do. You guys, does that feel good to you? Try that on for just a second. I'm in the transformation business.

Because if you're brand new, it does fake you out a little bit because you come in and you hear these amazing stories of people on stage, but you kind of, after a day, you're sort of like, did I need my laptop? Like this dear lady in D.C. who's probably still upset, in fact. It was going to last a while.

You could just tell. She just may be an upset person. But as you spend time in this community, you start kind of figuring out that this is about becoming the best version of yourself. And we talk a lot about money.

And let's be honest. We all came here for the money. I mentioned yesterday during the panel, when I came to Empower Network, and Tracy kind of gave you a short, cliff-notes version of my situation when I came here, I was here for the money. I was not necessarily looking for transformation in those terms. I wanted the money.

I want the pictures of dead presidents, and I want a lot of them. And if I don't get them quickly, American General's going to come haul my car away, you know. And so it does catch people off guard when they wander in thinking that we're a blogging company or a software company or an internet marketing company. And these things are all true. But just like you can be a dad and a husband and a valued church member and a valued community member and a member of the Kiwanis, we all have different descriptors that, you know, you're not just a mom.

You're not just a wife. You're not just somebody's best friend. All those are true. And we are a software company. We are a blogging company.

And we do make a lot of money. And this is really, at core, this is about changing people's lives. And the interesting thing about changing people's lives is that you can't really, well, I mentioned it yesterday, you can't really help somebody get to where they want to go until you help them solve the most immediate issue, right? We talked about, if a guy's thirsty and you want to talk to him about anything, you better have a spare bottle of water. Not one that's been slobbered in, of course, but a fresh one, right?

And so money is the attraction here. People come to Empower Network because they love hearing about Tracy Walker's made this amazing income and where she's come from and how Paulo works four hours a day and has this amazing income that comes in. But ultimately, once we get people to having some results in their financial world, a sneaky thing happens. They catch us. Somebody asked me, what's the catch?

And we're really open about the catch. The dirty little secret of Empower Network is if you will actually do what we teach you, with consistency and with focus and with purpose, and if you'll stop knee-jerking your way through life and get your foot off the brake and just actually do what we teach you, you can create some amazing financial results. Now, it's not about clicking and lead generation and converting, but are we not selling to our children when we try to convince them of the benefits of saying no to drugs? Are we not all parents in the sales business? No?

Yes? Yeah. You can take one look at my wife and see I am a far better salesperson than you think I am. Yeah. I mean, you think, really?

She's married to him? Yes. I'm smarter than I look. But I'll tell you what I mean. Let me give you an example.

Because I think this is important. What we do matters because I could just as easily be doing something else if not for David Wood and David Sharpe's commitment to this vision. I could easily be working at a job today. Because I was burned out on making money from home. I was calling leads every day and doing all the stuff that we really don't like doing in a home business. Has anybody ever written a list of all 200 people you know?

And how many actually did the list? Let me, because I didn't. Yeah, I mean, you make the list, and you're sitting there and you can't think of anybody, you know? And you're like, what was the name of that kid that was in the crib next to me at daycare? You know, you're just anybody.

And then, of course, you call up your friends, you got this fancy new script in the starter kit with your fresh new vitamin company, you know? And you're like, okay. And you get on the phone and you say, okay, hi, Tom. This is Tony. It's like, dude, why aren't you talking so funny?

It's like, nevermind, prospect's name, I've got a business idea I would like to run by you. Would Tuesday at seven be better or would Thursday at nine work for you? He's like, what's wrong with you? What are you doing?

You know, so I did, so all the hassle and, you know, God knows, all the phone calls. Where's Kevin? Kevin Connect and I have, we laugh about this nearly every week. I'll call him up and I'll say, hey dude, you got time to do a three-way call? He's a six, but I think he's really a nine.

He just thinks he's a six. All that stuff, on a scale of one to 10, where would you rank your level of interest? You know, all of that. God, I'm going to have nightmares tonight, Kevin. It's amazing how quick the language comes back though.

Hi, do you have time for a quick three minute conversation? Anybody ever said that a thousand times in a week? So I was burned out on all the stuff that's normally associated with making money from home. And if not for David and David deciding to do this, I don't know where I'd be. I had decided I've got to figure out how to make money because I'm not willing to do this anymore.

And so when we say that people come here to make money, they do. But because David and David created this opportunity, this, as I like to call it, this playground that we get to play in, I've been able to create an amazing lifestyle for my family. And I mean, you're talking to the former bookstore clerk at Waldenbooks. Randolph Mall, Asheboro, North Carolina. I made 6.25 an hour working at the bookstore.

I didn't go to college. If I had to go get a job today based on my skills, I am very equipped to stand behind the counter at the mall. I can do that. No, really, that's not false modesty. That's really all I could do.

I could sell shoes or I worked in a record store. I worked at a wastewater treatment plant one time. That was interesting. Has anybody ever worked in a wastewater treatment plant? They don't like it when you call it the crap factory.

They don't like that. They'll write you up for that twice. And so, if not for this, this industry has given me a lifestyle and a level of freedom that I would have never, ever imagined for myself. So one could say, well, Tony's made all this money, but I'm more interested in talking about how what we do changes lives. And that's why our last segment, this Q and A out in the audience, did it move you like it did me?

Yeah. And I'll share this with you. I have three sons. Two of them are here with me this weekend. My oldest one is 17.

His name's Will and he stayed home this weekend because he was at a theater competition. Came in first place. Singing, yeah. As far as I know, he doesn't sing in the house. He doesn't sing in the shower.

I've never heard him sing. And he came in first place at a theater competition. So really proud of him. But a few years ago, and this is just a sidebar, but it'll illustrate what I'm talking about. A few years ago when he was probably about 15, and every hormone in the world is raging through a 15 year old boy's body, right?

And it's that classic Petri dish for where dad and son are supposed to just butt heads. Right? Guys in the room who butted heads with your dad, raise your hand. I did.

I did. Needlessly. And in fairness to Will, none of our boys have ever given us a minute's trouble. They're wonderful. They're amazingly talented guys.

I'm very proud of all three of them. But Will hit a tough spot. He hit this spot where it was like everything was just dramatic. I understand parents of girls may have that occasionally as well.

But it's like, hey, can I go to Brandon's house? Well, not tonight. Oh my God. Oh, my world's coming to an end. You know.

I can't go spend the night with my friend because mom and dad said no one time out of the last 20, you know, or whatever. Or, hey, Will, would you mind taking out this trash before you go to bed? Oh God, I'm just, they just make me, I'm slave labor. You know, there should be laws against the way I'm treated. Don't they know who I think I am?

You know. But there was this, I don't remember exactly. And I'm kind of glad I don't remember because at the time it was just awful. And it was something important. And it just had to be dealt with.

Being just all around a better person is transformational, not just because of what it lets you spend, but because who you become in the process of reaching your goals is more valuable than your goal. I'm going to say that again: who you become in the process of reaching your goal is far more valuable than the thing that you were aiming at. Do you guys get that?

In this particular case, it was one of those things where Will and I were going to have to have a talk and it was not going to be pleasant. And I thought, well, why does it have to be a head-butting thing? Why must it be the classic stereotypical dad and son screaming at each other kind of thing?

And I remember walking in his bedroom and I closed the door and I said, hey, we need to talk. And I said, but here's the thing, we are going to talk. I'm not going to talk at you. I want you to talk to me. And Will and Peyton had, they had a double bed, they shared a bedroom.

And I sat on one bed and Will sat on the other bed. And I said, here's the deal. While that door's closed, let's just be real. Whatever you're thinking, whatever it is you feel like you can't say, I want you to say it. And I'm going to listen.

And I'm not going to make you wrong for what you're saying. I want you to be able to just say what is from your perspective. And then I want to listen to that. And I want to hold it in my hand and look at it and say, well, I've never thought about it that way. And then I want to say, well, here's what it looks like from my perspective.

Because I've been where you are. And I've been a little further down this path that we're both on. And I want you to listen. And I want you to consider what I'm saying. Just allow me just the possibility that I might not be the stupidest man on the planet.

You know. And the funny thing happens. We actually had the most authentic conversation that I ever had with my son. And stuff got said that I just wouldn't have thought of. I didn't see it from his angle.

And I said things that he would not have heard if I had been delivering it in the kitchen with pointed finger. And I overheard him telling Jessica later that night. He said, that was like, what dad did was like, I'm not going to do that. It was like a magic trick. He said, I was so angry when he walked in.

He said, I mean, I was boiling mad. And by the end of it, he said, we hugged and I kissed him and I just felt better. I learned that at Empower Network. Because here's the thing.

It's not about making money. It's about living your life on purpose. Not falling into these ruts. And when we've had these conversations where we're all talking about how we're going to be the best version of who we are, we're going to have to live a better life.

So, we're going to have to be the focus of our lives and not just be the same as how we are. And that's just the way it is. This is what I'm just going to have to deal with. And it's what I'm going to have to deal with this week over the next couple of days. Okay, so, I'm ready.

I'm ready. All right. We're ready. Okay, so, thank you for that. This is the most concentrated group of big thinkers anywhere on the planet today, right now.

This is what we're doing. Because the concepts that we talk about, authenticity, is what allows... I had the tools from Empower Network that I used to make a lot of money, and I could use those same tools to create a solution for my son, so that we didn't become a stereotypical thing where my son won't speak to me, and I'm mad at him half the time. Because of what I learned here. Just open, authentic communication.

Now, is open, authentic communication always easy? How many people appreciate straight talk? Until you get it. Oh, look at all the hands go down. Anybody ever...

Oh, by the way, Sharp's got me watching Kitchen Nightmares. Have you ever seen that? Gordon Ramsay. I don't watch a lot of TV, but I like Netflix.

And, yeah, I mean, he just, for those of you who haven't seen it, basically it's like a makeover type thing. He goes to this restaurant, and it's just awful, and it's in chaos, and it's nasty, and the customers hate the food. And they're six months from going out of business. And then Gordon goes in and basically just says, hey, your food's crap.

And it's interesting, because there's actually some really good leadership lessons in that show, because he's not saying, you're crap. He's saying, your food is crap.

Which, now, people tend to equate the two, these chefs. They tend to think, well, if you're saying my food's crap, you're saying I'm crap. No, no, no, no, I'm not. This is the difference between a person and a behavior.

We can improve the behavior. We can deal with behavior separately than a person, which is what I do with my son. But sometimes what you need in your life is somebody who just will come along and say what is. You've heard it sugar-coated a thousand times and you didn't do anything with it. How about let's try it without the sugar-coating one time and just see how that works?

Somebody who'll just come along and say, you're not serious. You need to stop play-acting. Or, hey, you need to get off your ass and stop being so lazy about your parenting. You've got a window of opportunity with your children to create magic.

You know? And they'll be grown and gone before you know it. And what you do here matters. Same thing with spouses. You know?

Same thing with physical health. So, you stand back from this thing that we call Empower Network and it's easy on the surface to say this is about blogging. Or this is about making a lot of money from home. And it is. It's also about you becoming the most powerful version of yourself.

Something that you don't even know is there yet. When I woke up, it was the realization of how much I go through my day just reciting my lines.

You understand what I mean by that? Sort of you got your idea about Republicans or Democrats. So, when somebody asks you, hey, what do you think about this particular political issue? Well, you just reach over into the index file and you pull up what's the Republican thought on that? And it's like shorthand.

Well, here's my response. You know? It's a shortcut. It's lazy thinking. It's like, let me just take this position and I'll just apply it to every situation.

Or Democrat, either way, right? So, what you wind up with is a lot of people who go through life and they just sort of knee-jerk their way through life. So, I want you to try this on. The first time I heard it, it really ticked me off.

If you need it, it'll tick you off, too. I'm not hoping that you need it, but in an audience of this size, there's always going to be a fair amount of people who probably need this. And it is this: your life, right now, the way it is right now, is a result of your best thinking. You chose this.

The last part stings a little bit, doesn't it? By the way, I learned that from John. John Lavinia, who spoke and opened the show yesterday morning. Did you enjoy John? Yeah.

Your life is a result of your best thinking. Your best thinking has produced what you've got right now. So, if you want to know, and by the way, I'm a pragmatist. I'm very practical. My thing is, if you want to know what your mindset is about money, you want to know what your financial philosophy is, it's easy.

Go look in your checking account. If your checking account sucks, it's because your financial philosophy sucks. We don't have to spend hours with Dr. Phil to figure that out.

Right? I mean, if you want to know what your physical health situation is, look at your medical chart. Look at your weight. Look at your sugar.

Right? So, if your best thinking has created your present situation, how do we get a better situation? I heard change your thinking, take action. It starts with just changing your mind about a few things, doesn't it?

Being willing to be wrong. Like that day in my house, I was about to knee-jerk my way into a bad situation with my son that could have really damaged us for a long time. But instead, the willingness to stop and get outside myself and say, hmm, you're about to knee-jerk your way into trouble. You need to apply some actual, active thinking about what's going on here and don't just react, but respond. There's a difference between reacting and responding.

What you want to get good at in your business is responding, not just reacting all the time. Okay? Now, where does our thinking come from? I have unlimited energy on this. I could talk about this for hours.

This to me is the core of human transformation. If you want to know how to get from where you are to where you want to be, I promise you, 90% of the work is in what I'm about to tell you. Are you guys interested in this? Okay. It's not about where to get the good leads.

That was funnier than that. I mean, I know my jokes aren't that funny, but some of you came here for that this weekend, didn't you? Be honest. Are they going to tell us where to get the good leads? Yeah?

Vic and I laugh about this a lot because at every event, you'll have somebody come up, and here's what they do. They always have the same body language. It's like you've got some top-secret briefcase back in your hotel room or something. Because they'll come up, and they're like, hey, how you doing? And you chat.

And they talk, chat. Hey, I really enjoyed the Inner Circle. Hey, thanks a lot. I appreciate it. And then they're like this.

They go, so, where do you get the good leads? I always feel like it's a drug deal going down. I feel a little bit like I'm supposed to say, well, I don't have any, but I know a guy. The first leads are free.

The first ones are free, aren't they? Yeah. I think that's how that works. I don't know. No one ever proved anything.

I didn't inhale. Audience members of a certain age will get that. Unfortunately, I am one of them. I knew what you meant. But like I said, some people came here this weekend because I want to know where do I get good traffic.

I'm here to tell you honestly, I would tell you the exact same thing I would tell my own sister if she asked me, what's the secret? Tony, if there's one thing that you can tell me that will help me when I get home, turn these next 50-something days into the best 2013 possible, what can I do between now and New Year's Day to create magic in my business? I would tell you where to get leads and what to say in the emails is probably 5% of it at best. Unfortunately, all that stuff is taught in our products.

So the 15K formula, I've got a session. Anybody seen my part of the 15K formula? It's one of the better parts of the 15K. I just say that because Aaron Rashkin is in the room somewhere. He's in the front.

Oh, hey, I didn't see you there. What was funny is that when we were actually doing the itinerary for the 15K formula, I didn't know you were going to teach email marketing. And he didn't know I was going to teach email marketing. So I get my little keynote out. And two hours, you know, I pour everything into this.

And then, oh, hold on, you want to take my picture? It's always good for a cheap laugh. But Aaron and I didn't know. So we basically taught the same thing.

And actually, his is awesome. Give him a hand. If you enjoyed Aaron Rashkin, yeah. It won't matter. I'll have to buy him a drink later.

But seriously, all that stuff is taught in the 15K. But the hardest work you'll ever do, arguably the most productive work you'll ever do, is what I'm about to tell you. And it's not a single sentence. I'm going to have to draw you a little picture here for a second. This is going to sound touchy-feely for a second, but I promise I'm going to clarify it.

Who you are is not really who you are. It is a way of being that you have chosen. Okay. This is a little vague and slippery. But hopefully we can get this and get some traction on this.

Some of you have already nodded along with me. Who you are is not really who you are. It is a way of being that you have chosen. And you probably are choosing it habitually. Every day when you get up, it's like a costume.

It's like my sons, all three of our boys are in theater. And they have their costume, right? And with that costume comes certain lines that you're supposed to recite in the play. Everybody with me so far? All right.

This theater analogy is working for me. So let's stick with it. So let's say you are the lead role in your own movie. So it comes with a costume. And it's the one that you're wearing today.

I'm not talking about a physical costume or a certain set of clothing or hair color or anything like that. I mean your general way of being. Right? And that costume comes with, here's your script. So I'll give you a real life example.

My father-in-law is, what is he, honey? Sixties? Yeah. Okay. And used to, if you said to him, hey, do you have a Facebook account?

It was uncanny. He would immediately say, what's this? It was the body language and everything. He would immediately, I wouldn't even know how to turn a computer on. We all know some folks like that in our life.

Of a certain generation. I wouldn't even know how to turn one of those things on. And after you see it for a little while, like in different conversations, you're realizing he does that same motion and that same swing of the head and that same delivery every time. He's not actually talking. He's like a damn Chatty Cathy doll that somebody pulled a string, you know?

I wouldn't know how to turn one of those. You guys, when you were a kid, you had the little... Never mind. People of a certain age will understand. And some of you are like, pull a string?

Did you mean push a button? So that's an example. So, can you think of somebody in your life, certainly no one in this room, who you sort of, you see them in a certain situation and they always have the same sort of quick lines. Okay?

Now here's what I want to offer you. We all do it. This is not an us versus them scenario. We all do it. I do it.

We all do it. It's almost like, okay, let me describe what the costume is. The costume is not made of fabric. It's made of all your habits of thinking and your decisions and your beliefs about things.

And your past experience and what you quote unquote know to be true. Right? All that gets wadded up and it just kind of becomes our identity. And so we get up every day and we go out into the world and we've got this identity. And this identity is our best thinking.

And it's what's creating everything in your life right now. So if you want different results, all of a sudden you have to start challenging some of what you've been hauling around all these years. It's the hardest work you'll ever do. It is not for wimps. This is not a job for wimps.

If you're a wuss, do not take this on. It will defeat you. Okay? You've got to attack this thing like this project. You've got to tackle it like a warrior.

Because mentally you're looking at it and you're challenging all these old ideas and things. I'll give you another example. A man walked in the kitchen one Thanksgiving and his wife was making a ham and she cut the ends of the ham off before she put it in the pan. And he said, why do you do that? And she said, I'm not really sure.

I think it's something to do with the moisture or evenness of temperature. I'm not sure. That's just how my mom does it. Well, when mom shows up for Thanksgiving, they decide to ask her. They said, mom, why do you cut the ends off the ham when you cook a ham for Thanksgiving?

And she said, you know, I'm not sure. She said, my mother told me to do it that way. And I've always cut them off because I assume it has something to do with the browning and it keeps the meat, you know. But when grandma gets here, we can ask her. So grandma shows up and they ask her and she says, I had a small pan.

You know? Yeah. So the question then raises an interesting question, doesn't it? What are we cutting the ends off our ham? What ham are we cutting the ends off of today?

You know? Why are we approaching certain areas of our life the way we do, like a turnip, instead of the other way? Nowhere is this more evident, to me, I think, than money, because we all came here for the money. Everybody's interested in money.

We want more of it. But part of this costume that we've got, it almost certainly carries a lot of limiting beliefs about money because everybody knows money is the root of all evil. Gotcha. Well, that doesn't make sense either, though.

Can't you all think of different forms of evil that have nothing to do with money? Child abuse? Genocide? I mean, there's lots of forms of evil that have nothing to do with money at all, nor the love of money. So even that, and I was anticipating the correction because I get that every time I speak in an audience, but I'm telling you, that even of itself is part of this costume, the belief that all evil has something to do with money, even if it's just a love of it.

So then we have, well, money doesn't grow on trees. I may not have a lot of money, but at least I'm, okay, what was it? Healthy? Honest? At least I'm honest.

Happy? Content? Nobody's that honest, sir. Spiritual? I may not have a lot of money, but at least I love God.

Which sort of, and it just so happens that a lot of our limiting beliefs do kind of come from certain political or religious models. Not good, bad, right, or wrong, but you have to be aware of them because it's part of our costume. You guys get that we're all walking around with some software in our heads that we didn't install, right? Has anybody ever, Lavinia and I were talking about this at lunch, anybody ever bought a PC, not a Mac, but a PC, you buy a PC and for some reason it's just not as fast as you thought it was, and so you take it to somebody and they look at your computer and they're like, well, good God, look at all this stuff you've got on your computer. Here's AOL.

Nobody uses that anymore. You've got this, that, and you've got Quicken, and you're thinking, what? I didn't install any of that. And yet, is it affecting your use of the computer? Yeah.

What was the word you used, John? Bloatware. It's not software. It's bloatware.

So these Windows PCs ship with all this extra software on there, and it loads up every time you use your computer. It's sitting there ready in memory, a lot of it, and it's slowing you down. So what if you've got some software that's slowing you down? I'll tell you one of them that I had, was a big one for me. Who am I to get rich?

I didn't go to college. I'm not a bad person, but I'm not as good as I could be. Or here's one, and this was sort of mine, too. In a way, it wasn't crippling, but it was there, and I did have to address it: who am I to get rich?

My daddy worked hard all his life. Anybody feel a little bit weird? And be honest, if you've dealt with it before, or now, have you considered what it means to your family if you get wealthy easily while somebody else worked their butts off all year to earn a tenth of what you're making? We got a few hands. Thank you.

Yeah, more hands coming up. I was that way. But who does that serve? Does it serve anybody for us to play small? No.

But does it hurt for us to play small? Yeah. It does. Deservability's a big one. So, just a footnote for anybody that needs to hear it, you deserve to be wealthy.

Yeah. You do. And I don't mean that in some weird motivational speaker kind of way. I mean, you deserve to be wealthy. And you do, too.

Okay? Every one of you, you deserve to have more money than you know what to do with. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. You do.

And here's the thing. Do you have to be particularly educated to do it? No. I'm not. Do you have to be hyper-intelligent to do it?

No. I'm not. I'm really good-looking, sir. And sarcastic. But really, isn't this part of the whole costume that rich people are a certain way?

Don't we have that, isn't that part of our installed software? So, let's look at where do these ideas come from? Well, let's say they come from the media. So, let's pick a few. Now, I haven't been to a lot of movies lately.

But let's pick, like, some of the superheroes are always a big deal, right? It's kind of funny, too. All of the major pop culture stories always deal with orphans. I don't know if you guys have noticed that or not. It's a quick and easy way for the filmmaker to get instant sympathy for the audience.

So, Harry Potter's an orphan, Superman's an orphan, Batman's an orphan, Spider-Man's an orphan. They're always orphans. There's a handful, a very small handful, Harry Potter was actually wealthy, although he didn't live like it. He had a vault full of gold that his mom and dad left him, but you never see him use it in the books. Bruce Wayne was wealthy, but only, he could only live that way when he was trying to pretend not to be Batman, so he was just out blowing money like a rich, superficial jerk all the time, right?

So, he actually was wealthy, but he used his wealth as a way to make you think he wasn't Batman. How could he be Batman? Look at him, he's a pompous ass, right? So, then you think, okay, well, who are the other bad guys? Well, Malfoy, his family was rich in Harry Potter.

Lex Luthor's a billionaire industrialist, right? Dr. Evil. Or they're always, Titanic is probably the biggest example of this.

Great movie, entertaining movie, serious mind viruses in that movie. All the wealthy people are evil, or shallow, or vapid, or completely useless. I mean, just waste of skin, you know. Every single rich person on the boat was a jerk. And of course, Rose meets Jack.

And of course, he's what? Broke as a convict, you know. He actually won his tickets in a card game, didn't he? So, and his whole thing is like, hey, come on down to third class. I'll show you how life should be.

And they're down there stomping in the cow manure, and everybody's happy, and all the parents are wonderful, and they love their children, and here's this older couple that's been married for 200 years, and they are just always just love, and fun, and music, and it's a surfboard on a rainbow. Right? But meanwhile, up in where the rich people are, it's like, don't use, that's the wrong spoon. And they got this pretty little girl sitting at the table, and she's just getting just railed over for using the wrong soup spoon, you know. It's like, is it any wonder why we get confused about money?

Because this is what the media programs us to, money's, there's not a lot of it, that's for one thing, we all know, right? Not a lot of money, is there? True or false? False. Oh, you guys are good.

Now, if we could go find 1,500 people off the street, they would say something different, most of them. They'd say, oh, money's hard to come by. There's not enough, or here's the thing, well, I can't get wealthy, because if I get wealthy, then that means I'm causing somebody else to be poor. Like it's a pie, and if I get a little bigger piece of a pie, that means that Robert Mercado gets a smaller piece of pie. And none of that's real.

That's all made up. The truth is, there is more than enough abundance out there for all of us to be multi-millionaires. All of us. And I think the reason that people don't see it that way is because they don't understand that money, it's a cycle. If I decide to go and buy Jessica a diamond bracelet, does that money just evaporate?

No. Ken Kirkland at Kirkland Jewelry now has the money that I used to buy that jewelry. And he's gonna go build a fence around his property, okay? He built a new fence in front of his house. Every time I ride by that fence, I thought, yeah, I paid for that fence.

That's my fence. But, okay, did the money stop there? He didn't build the fence, did he? He paid somebody to put the fence in. So the fence company owner has some money, and he had to pay employees, and those employees are gonna go to the grocery store and buy a loaf of bread.

And now the grocery store owner, he decides, I really hate being in the grocery business. Let me get online and see if I can figure out how to make some money from home. And he turns around and buys a blog beast from Chris and Susan Beasley. Right? So that's how it works.

Money's not going, I mean, somebody's like, well, there's no money. I'm like, really, how does that, was there like a big fire at the money factory? And all the money's gone. Or aliens came and abducted all the money.

Right? Or some evil syndicate has, no, I'm just kidding. But we have all these weird beliefs about money. It's like, well, there's not a lot of it. And so we're conflicted.

On the one hand, you want more money. Right? Yes? I thought I was in the wrong room for a second. You want more money, right?

Okay, so you want more money, and you're willing to do what it takes to get it as long as it's ethical and it's moral and it doesn't cause you to compromise your values. Yes? Yes. Okay. Oh, but darn, I've got this mind virus that says if I get too much money, I'm going to become one of those evil, mean, nasty, greedy capitalists.

And nothing is more powerful than the automatic thinking of this costume. It's called self-sabotage. And the insidious part, you ready for the really scary, evil part of this whole scheme, is that you don't even know you're doing it unless you come to Orlando, right? Unless you are in conversations like this one.

Because what ends up happening is, I'll give you an example. I think it was Joel Osteen. He's an American pastor out in Texas. I think it was him. He made the comment one time.

He said, I'm going to assume it was him. I think it was. He's in the car. He's like eight years old. And he's in the backseat.

His mom's driving. And they're at a stoplight. And he looks over and sees this amazing house. And he's like, mom, look at that amazing mansion. And who knows why she said what she said.

Could have been an innocent remark, not thinking, whatever. But what she said was, yeah, that's a nice house. But honey, sometimes a lot of the people that live in those big houses aren't very happy. And just like that, software gets installed. Just like that.

And then you find, here's a guy, 20, 30, 40 years old. Every single time he gets ready to buy a house, something's just not quite right. Just can't quite go through with it. Or worse, maybe won't even go to the open house to look at houses. Why would I get a big house like that?

I don't need a big house. This mobile home's fine. This apartment's okay. Yeah? And here's a guy who would actually be unstoppable in terms of who he could impact in the world if he simply chose to be more successful.

And he would get all the rewards that go along with it, like a big nice house. But he's got this mind virus that was installed without his knowledge. And it's actually keeping him stuck. This is why personal development and being in this audience and being around the conversations that we have at events like this, it's why it's so important. If I had to choose to be, I just don't miss events.

If I had to choose to be in Orlando or skip all my meals for the next two days, I would've come to Orlando. Seriously, yeah. You guys feel that way? Which we don't. That actually leads me to another mind virus which we tend to look at things as either or.

Either or. Well, I can either have this or I can do that. And I'll give you an example that I get a lot. Oh, he bought a new Mercedes. Why, just think of how many hungry children that you could feed if he had just used that money and given it over here.

As if you can't do both. As if one cannot drive, I drive a Mercedes and we give away a lot of money. It's not either or. You can do a lot of things. Multitudes of things, right?

Which, by the way, here's a little interesting prosperity tip, too. If you have a hangup about prices, this is kind of a sidebar to my topic, but I thought it was interesting. Matter of fact, it got me and Lawrence Tam and Steele Rutherford kicked out of a Louis Vuitton store in Miami last month. We heard about that. Did you guys hear about that?

The dream team did. Yeah? Okay. So I'll just tell you what happened. It was funny, because Steele is like our chief videographer at the home office.

He does all the amazing videos. And anyway, so Tracy and Kilo and me, I think, and Lawrence, this is like four of us, we're going to go to this luxurious shopping mall in Miami. And Steele said, hey, I'm going to ride along and bring the camera so I can get some footage of you guys just walking around in a nice, luxurious environment. We hadn't been on property 20 seconds and some little security man came over. You're not going to be able to film anything here.

And Steele's a pro. Steele's like, oh, I'm sorry, I'm not filming anything, but what do I need to do? Do I need to get a permit? And he said, well, yeah, you can go apply to the administrative office for a permit. He actually talked like that.

And he had a red safari helmet on. Remember that, Tracy? He had a weird, anyway. And then he followed us. He would follow us around just hoping to see Steele raise the camera.

So Steele went to the office to see if he could get a permit, and they wouldn't give him one. You have to apply, like, 10 years in advance or something. So, but he has nowhere to put it. So he has to carry it. So every God-blessed store we walked into, sir, you're not going to be able to use that camera in here.

It's like, is this like where the nuclear codes are stored? Is the secret recipe of Coca-Cola here? KFC's 11 herbs and spices recipe is held in this department store. We don't want you taking video of it. Anyway, it was an interesting day.

But here's what's, Lawrence and I were having this conversation in the Louis Vuitton store when we picked up a shoe. And the shoe was $600. Well, not that shoe. The other one was free. You get two.

But, so it's a $600 pair of shoes. That wasn't that funny. But I appreciate it. Some of you are hard up for entertainment. So it's a $600 pair of shoes.

And I said, well, here's what's interesting, Lawrence. Because Lawrence and I, I'll be honest with you, I've never made this much money before. Virgin territory for me. Okay?

It's weird. So, and Lawrence being the frugal Asian, as we have affectionately dubbed him, you know, it's weird for him too. So, we go shopping and it's like, well, I like that shoe, but $600 for a pair of shoes. It's interesting, isn't it? And he's like, well, yeah, because it's like, I don't know.

And then, of course, I can justify anything. I can invent the most creative. And you'll nod along. You're like, wow, those are cheap. You should get them.

I could come up with the most amazing reasoning for why this pair of shoes is actually, I should probably get two pair. How many colors do they come in? You know. But I was standing there talking. I was thinking, well, listen, Lawrence.

And I wasn't trying to sell him on a pair of shoes, but this was an interesting perspective. This is a $600 pair of shoes. What is that, 1%? Move the decimal. Yeah, so this pair of shoes represents 1% of someone's monthly income.

By that rationale, they should not spend anywhere near $40 on a pair of shoes. So whose shoes are actually more expensive? It's interesting. I don't have any judgment about it either way. I'm just pointing it out.

I had this realization when a friend of mine, he made about a million dollars a year, $100,000 a car. And it's like, well, his car costs one, 10% of his annual income. So by that rationale, most people should be driving a Yugo. And if you're driving a Honda Accord, your car actually costs more than Nick's Mercedes, you know.

So anyway, that's sort of the sidebar, but it ties into this whole idea of how do you think about money? Because if you have any vestiges of old mindset clogging up your head, I promise you it changes the decisions that you make in Empower Network. Like if you were just riddled with mind viruses about money and how there's not a lot of it and who are you to be wealthy, do you think that person can make very, very powerful decisions about any money at all? Yeah.

They get it. They start going backwards. This is when we see lottery winners a lot of times. They win a lot of money. Two years later, they're broke.

You've got to address this stuff, not only in order to make a lot of money, but in order to keep it. Does that make sense? Okay. Now here's the good news, and I'm coming in for a landing. Sharp likes it when I say that.

Here's the cool thing. When I say it's the hardest work that you'll ever do in your business, that was a little misleading because it's not actually difficult to do. It just requires a lot of attention at first. If you've never done it before, it's difficult to actually look in the mirror and see what the state of reality is here. Like Gordon Ramsay walking into a kitchen and pointing out to the chef, dude, food's crap.

You know? It was tough. When somebody said, hey, Tony, you are choosing where you're being. I was living, Jessica and I were living in a concrete block house. You guys know what concrete blocks are?

Like a cinder block, I think is what they call them too. The whole house is made of this. The house was actually broken in half. Literally. If you spilled water in the kitchen, it would run that way.

But if you spilled water in the bathroom, it would run that way. And no heat. The last winter that we were there, I had not paid the heating oil company the previous year. You know, meant to get around to that.

Year later, had not gotten around to it. Couldn't pay it on time to save my life. And so, you ever been in a situation where you just feel like the box you're in just keeps getting smaller and smaller? So that was, we hadn't been married long. Humiliating.

Because of course I had promised Jessica, if you would just marry me, it would be fun and sun and music and beaches, the world. It would just be your finest decision in the world to spend your life with me. And here now, three years later, I'm in a broken house. Falling a little short of my marriage promises there.

And here's the thing, one day I was coming home, because I was a big fan of personal development. I felt like such a fraud. I was reading Think and Grow Rich. I knew all about the science of getting rich by Wallace Wattles. I had Bob Proctor's You Were Born Rich book.

I was listening to Randy Gage, his album set called Prosperity. I was listening to that. I mean, I could recite some of this stuff to you. And yet, I couldn't pay my bills. And then, one day I was coming back from Asheboro.

We lived about 18 miles out in the country. And I passed this neighborhood, and it looked like a Hallmark commercial, is what it looked like. It looked like it was this new neighborhood. It wasn't even a really nice neighborhood, but it was this neighborhood. And all the dads are coming home at the same time.

It looked like some artificial. All the front doors are flung open. And the wife steps out with a baby in her arms, in her little yellow dress. And there's like a little canary in the birdcage in the front window. And the little girl is running across, Daddy.

And I'm driving the Broke-mobile down Highway 42, just thinking, what is wrong with me? They're not smarter than me. I'm not short on ego, but I'm not stupid, but I'm acting stupid. Why am I acting stupid? Why am I just so fundamentally unwilling to do what it takes to get out of what I'm into?

But I've been saying that every day. I've been saying that day after day after day. But this day was a little different, because I got ticked off. And I walked in the house, and I said, we're moving. And Jessica said, we're moving?

Is that right? That'll be a neat trick. You know. And I was thinking, here's the thing. I mean, it was resolve.

It was the determination that John just talked about a little while ago before we broke for lunch. Determination. Something happened. I just got down to the bottom, and said, I'm not living this way anymore. And all I knew, and I don't know how I knew it, the only thing I knew for certain, was that if I lived to be a hundred years old, I'm not going to be living in this house when I die.

So, I know nothing about my future, except that I'm going to move. I just know that I'm going to move. I know my family loves me. I know my kids love me. I don't know anything else, but I know I don't have to stay here.

And I don't care if it takes me five years, or ten years, I'm going to start packing. It was the only thing I could do from where I was with what I had. And magic happens. I kid you not. It was absolutely amazing.

We got boxes, and we just started packing everything that we did not need on a day-to-day basis. Little trinkets that sit on the bookcase, or books, I packed every book that wasn't something to do with success or personal development. And soon the front living room there in that little house was just clogged. You couldn't even walk through there. Box after box after box of stuff.

Baby clothes, just everything. Anything we didn't need because we were moving. And the craziest thing happened. Just started making money. Money started coming in.

Here's the funny thing. I was in this little home business that didn't have a pay plan worth anything, really, at all. And no changes to my marketing. No changes to what I was doing. No change to the company, the product or the pay plan.

Nothing changed. But I changed. And just like that, I went from zero income in my business to suddenly making hundreds of dollars a day. And I thought, you know what? I have been play acting this whole think and grow rich stuff.

I've been play acting. I've had an intellectual approach on personal development. But when I finally reached the point where resolve says, hey, I'm coming through, and nobody's going to stop me, I am not staying here.

Yeah. And literally, within like six months, we were living in a house that we'd been told it would be impossible for us to get into. And we were making, I remember sitting in a Macaroni Grill. They put the paper down and they give you the crayon so you can just draw on the table while you're waiting on your food. And we sat there and I was like, hey, honey, look, 200 here and 300.

We've made that one week, which may or may not sound like a lot of money to you, but it was life changing. It was vindication. I can do this. And all that was ever lacking was me believing that I could do it. That's all.

That's all. So fast forward a few years, we made a lot of money and then we lost a lot of money until, what is it, October? Yeah. Okay.

It's Orlando, right? Okay. Two and a half years ago, I was beating the phone, calling leads, doing all the stuff I talked about a little while ago. And I just couldn't do it anymore. I could not do it anymore.

I was unwilling to put another person in my business and ask them to do something that I hated doing myself. And I just shut down. And I probably scared Jessica to death because we didn't have a plan for me shutting down. There was no plan for me to stop bringing in money. I just quit.

And I spent the whole summer of 2011 reading books. Oh, no, I mean like fiction. Like Stephen King books, you know. I realize I might have been giving you the wrong impression that I had taken time off to do some intellectual, no, I was reading fiction.

I guess in hindsight, I don't know that I was depressed, but I do understand a little bit more about depression than I did. I understand it's not about being sad. It's about just feeling apathetic. Feeling like you just don't have the ability to impact anything that's going on in your life. And in October of 2011, the red light is flashing in my bank account.

And once again, it was as though I had never made any money. We were in a nice house and we had a nice car, but we were as broke as way back when I was in the concrete block house. And two and a half years ago, I took, I found all the change I could find in the house and went to the Coinstar machine at the grocery store. And I had enough money to get, like, $60 worth of change and was able to buy a loaf of bread, some sandwich meat. And Kevin and Melissa and I have been friends for years. They were aware and we've gone through a lot together.

They've had their own similar story as well. But what brought me out of that was remembering that I'm more powerful than I think I am. And who knows why things happen at the right place at the right time. And somebody sent me a link to Empower Network. And I saw this ugly website.

Almost a secret, you know. And I got started. And here's the other part of the equation. I was humble enough to say I need to forget what I think I know because this costume is what I think I know about making money. And it's my best thinking and it has produced my current results which are crap.

So I was actually willing to be wrong about what I know about making money from home and being open to learn from people like Lawrence Tam and Tracy Walker and David and David, people who were here in the very beginning. And I remember... Where's Alex? Alex C? Where's Alex?

Is he in here? Hey, man. Do you remember me sending you that note on Facebook one time and I said, what's a solo ad? Do you remember that? And you know what?

At the time, you and I sort of knew each other and you knew me as somebody who knew how to make money. Do you remember that? He was a customer of mine. He bought training CDs from me. But let me tell you...

I'm hopefully the biggest student in the company. I can learn something from everybody here. But I'll tell you, as much as anything else, I'm inspired by you guys. Truly. Because I know what it meant...

I know what it took for some of you guys to get here. It wasn't just buying a ticket. It's a ticket plus driving or gas or airfare, hotel and taking off work, arranging for somebody to keep the kid. I mean, it was an investment in yourself.

But here's the thing. The fact that you're here, the fact that you're in the room right now is all I need to know to know that you guys are gonna absolutely crush it in the next year. Yeah. That's all it is. You guys are already doing what I've talked about.

Yeah. Are you ready for it? Right on. So let me close with this. And stay standing, if you will, because I'm gonna...

I think I'm bringing Tracy up next. But let me offer you this. The hardest stuff that you've ever done, I mean, the hardest stuff you'll ever do in your life you've already done. And I talked about this in Denver.

Somebody came up to me in the back and said, you gonna tell the Cheerios story? And I won't go into it now. I'm gonna bring Jerry up in just a second. But I see we got some Empowered Kids back in the corner.

I love walking through there, by the way. Have you guys noticed our kids back over in the corner? There's a lot of really cool guys back there. There was Nicole Cooper's little boy, Carson, I think's his name. And I was having fun throwing him up in the air today.

And I was watching him. And anybody here who's a parent, you'll know that when you watch kids, a human being is just the most badass thing on the planet. I mean, there's just nothing that we will not try our hand at, right? And you look back at what we've accomplished as a society, we've either eradicated every disease we can think of or are in the process of trying to do that. You don't hear of anybody in America really dying of measles and mumps anymore, you know. When you think about the mere fact that you guys can shoot a video where you're standing right now and actually share it with millions of people all over the world, we'd have got burned at the stake for even thinking of that 200 years ago, you know. I mean, we live in a magical time, a golden age that man has dreamed of for thousands of years, to be able to live where you and I are today. But the cool thing is that as human beings, as kids particularly, you watch children learning how to walk.

I mean, when do you stop learning how to walk? They don't. They just try until they get it. And it's the same thing about feeding yourself. That's a big deal, actually.

You know, a kid trying to figure out how to get a Cheerio on a spoon and then get that toward them without spilling it, and then you got to open your mouth at the same time. I mean, it's a big deal. Learning English, which I'm still learning, but, you know, learning a language. Can you imagine as a child sitting and listening to all these adults, all this racket, and trying, almost effortlessly trying, though. You never see a kid all ground up because they can't figure out.

They just effortlessly keep, oh, I understand that if I make this sound, I get a little something extra in my sippy cup. Right? And here's the thing. It was only about when you're six or seven years old that suddenly somebody said, hey, you need to play a little smaller. Maybe it was a parent or maybe it was a teacher, whatever.

Hey, get your head out of the clouds. Come back down to earth. And here's the thing. The dirty little secret of personal development is that most of what we teach you guys about personal development is just trying to undo the crap that we got taught after the age of five. Okay?

Kids have got it all figured out. So my invitation to you today is I want to just be the one guy today who actually got quite a lot of us here and the leadership council and all of our speakers to take a stand for you that the life you want also wants you. And you deserve it. And you can do it. And the only person keeping you from getting it is you.

But there's really something really powerful standing in your shoes right now. And it's time for some of you guys to step up and start being who you really are, which is an amazingly badass person who can design your life on purpose. Okay? Guys, thanks for letting me hang out with you. Enjoyed it.

Folks, obviously the income examples discussed in this video are extraordinary. The income claims presented are not intended to serve as a guarantee of income. Instead, they're designed to give you an idea of what's possible. Success in this business requires leadership, hard work, and dedication. Since we want to help you make an informed decision, we've gone above and beyond with our income disclosure document.

If you want to see the average earnings, please visit the page at www.empowernetwork.com forward slash income dot php.