What started off as a quick 15-minute Saturday project turned into a 1 hr+ of new material on how to make more, have more fun and give more back! I asked you guys a few days ago for questions and some of the answers were quite eye-opening in each of the 3 areas.

With the elections going on in the U.S. tomorrow – the big idea behind the Maverick Manifesto is FREEDOM!

Freedom to write your own ticket regardless of what’s going on with the crazy economy, the next person in the White House or any external factor!

Here are a few things I covered:

• How to truly really create a Work/Life balance that actually works!
• Figuring out the right questions to ask so you get back the answers you need.
• What you really need to know in order to work once and get paid over and over and over again.
• Why you’ll never say “I can’t afford this” ever again…write your own rules for paying for what you want.
• How to make sure you turn up the ‘FUN quotient’ in your life and not get burnt out! (Plus: Exactly how to shatter the biggest excuse to waiting for more money to have fun!)
• Easy ways to bring fun into other people’s lives who you care about – and create real meaningful experiences.
• The painless rule to “automatically” giving back now instead of waiting & lots more!

Check it out and I would love to hear your comments.

I’m looking for some thoughtful insights and you don’t even need to agree with me – but I’m interested in the conversation that arises here. 

Last weekend, I embarked on one of my craziest adventures yet. A HALO skydive (High-Altitude Low-Opening). It’s on my BIG Life List and that’s another big checkmark. Plus, we were able to (with your help) raise over $32,000.00 for the Branson School of Entrepreneurship in South Africa. (Side note: I believe you can still donate if you have not yet.)

I’m still waiting on the video but as soon as that’s ready – I’ll post it up here. I figured, I’d give you the recap and a few pics in the meantime.

My buddy and co-author for “Moonlighting on the Internet”, Rob Olic, and Maverick Business Adventures™ founding member, Mike Filsaime, were the only guys brave enough (or stupid enough) to come with me down to Mississippi. I’m now the 40th civilian to have done a tandem HALO skydive (Filsaime is #41 and Rob is #42).

Just a quick background on HALO skydives – they were designed during the 60’s as a military maneuver to insert troops behind enemy lines undetected. That’s because the paratroopers jump from 30,000 feet (the cruising altitude of a commercial jet) so on radar everything looks normal. What’s more, the temperature up at 30,000 feet is about 25 degrees below zero (so damn frickin cold!) and you have to wear a full oxygen mask for two reasons.

1) Because at that altitude you’ll remain conscious about 30 seconds without oxygen
2) You need to pre-breathe pure oxygen for about 40 minutes to purge all the nitrogen out of your system to avoid getting the ‘bends’.

Good stuff, right?

Needless to say the week leading up to my jump, Missy, was freaking out a bit. Rationally, skydiving isn’t really riskier than the other stuff I’ve done – but emotionally it gets a lot of people worked up. After checking on our life insurance and talking to the jumpmaster I got a green light.

So the 3 of us arrived on Friday night in New Orleans to hang out with a few friends, eat some good food and take in some local music. Our local guides, Chris Daigle and Chad Mac, did not disappoint. Dinner was awesome and I had frog legs and pork belly. And for dessert a little green tomato pie. I know it sounds a bit freaky – but it was awesome. Afterwards we headed to the House of Blues to check out the Radiators. That just wasn’t our scene. The band didn’t seem to have much energy that night. So we went to plan B and checked out a local group called “Soul Rebel”.

This was like a 180-shift – the place was rockin’. What a live performance! You can check out some of their music here – I believe the genre is something called “Brass Funk” – but it’s really eclectic. They’ve got a bunch of brass instruments and then combined with jazz, reggae, hip-hop, etc.

We didn’t have a late night (unfortunately) because we were all trying not to have more than a few drinks for our big jump on Sunday. So we crashed out early (for New Orleans standards anyway) at 2 AM. The next morning we packed up and headed East for Lumberton, MS. (I believe the population is like 400 people – so insert your own joke here.)

That’s where we met up with the team responsible for keeping us alive. Most of them were ex-military and the whole deal certainly had an air of a military operation to me. As we were hanging out on the ‘compound’, I hear a man walk up and start asking, “Mike Filsaime?….Yanik Silver? I thought that was you guys!”

Pretty funny. Michael Worthington lives there and his daughter runs the snack bar at the skydive center. He’s a customer of both of us – makes you realize how wide the Internet Marketing really is now. Michael and his wife, Pauline, were great and took good care of us.

A little side note along the same lines – last May in Vegas for the Zero-G Maverick adventure, we got picked up by our limo driver and his jaw just about dropped when Brad Fallon, Mike Filsaime and I walked out of the hotel. He told us he had a StomperNet CD in his limo right now and was a huge fan and customer of each of us. In fact, he said he had driven people Steven Spielberg, David Geffen, etc and was most excited to have us in his car. 

Onward…

We spent the rest of day getting fitted for our equipment consisting of a flight suit, oxygen mask, helmet, goggles, gloves, oxygen bail out canister and communication system. Pretty hard core stuff. Then we got trained on what to expect while up there, hand signals, how to switch from the onboard O2 regulator to our portable bail out canisters, how to jump out of the plane, etc. Phew!

We finished up around 5pm and decided to check out the latest Batman flick “Dark Knight”. Wow! I think it’ll land in my top-10 for movies for sure. I really loved it and without being too morbid, Heath Ledger’s performance, as the Joker, just stole the show. I heard a lot of reviews of the movie and this lived up to the hype and then some. We all hit the sack early because we had to be up by 5:45 AM to head to the airport.

I had no trouble sleeping and I guess Mike didn’t either because we had to bang on Filsaime’s door to wake him up! After a quick muffin – we drove out to the airfield with just a tiny bit of trepidation building in all of us. For me, the day before when I was being fitted for my Oxygen mask – I felt just a slight hint of claustrophobia. About 15 years ago when I went scuba diving for the first time, I felt that same way and slightly panicked. I was concerned I couldn’t just bounce up to the top of the surface without doing some damage to myself – but I put that fear aside and started getting geared up.

At 7:30 AM, the local NBC reporter came to do an interview with Mike and I about the jump and the ‘fall-a-thon’ to support the Branson School of Entrepreneurship.

We were sitting pretty tight, shoulder-to-shoulder. I couldn’t see Rob but I could see Filsaime who was a bit across from me (he’s the first guy on the left in the pic below) . The only person you can talk to is your tandem instructor because you are hooked into your comm unit with them.

With everyone else, you can only make hand signals and gestures. Mine were off the one-fingered variety at Mike and they taught us in training you are supposed to respond in kind to make sure you brain is working and you aren’t suffering from hypoxia.

I could watch my tandem partner, Ben’s altimeter rising and at about 7,000 feet I started to feel like I couldn’t take another 30 minutes to get to altitude. But I relaxed and just focused on my breathing – which isn’t that reassuring because you sound like Darth Vader – and that’s the only thing you hear in your head.

I kept watching the altimeter….

10,500….14,750….21,800….28,500…then the action started!

We had to switch off from the bigger Oxygen compressor inside the plane and move onto our portable bail out canisters. And then 30 second later – Ben and I started moving towards the door. Mind you, I had a view of the door – the entire way up so I could see just how far up 28,500 feet is (Unfortunately the FAA is not letting them jump above 29,000 ft anymore).

I faced the door and waited for Ben to hook me into the tandem harness – while praying that these 4 little clips would hold us together. But I didn’t have too much time to consider that because the door opened and we rocked back and forth twice and hurled ourselves out!

Mike later told me that’s when he started freaking out a little because it was like a James Bond movie. One second I was in the plane with him and the next second I was a half mile away very much out of the plane!

That first feeling is unreal because your body and mind are trying to come to grips with what just happened. But then I settled into a calm freefall. (I guess calm is relative since I believe we were traveling at 200mph – but it felt calm anyway.) Here I am in freefall:

On the way down you are supposed to equalize the pressure in your ears – but I couldn’t find the right spot on my nose piece to hold my nose shut so my ears killed. They got better as we kept falling. It was really interesting to start off in a freezing cold section of the atmosphere above the clouds and then we literally fell through a line that took us from cold to very warm. Here’s a view of us from above where you can see the ground:

Overall, we had 2 minutes and 15 seconds of freefall (more than double the normal skydive) but it felt like 30 seconds to me. I couldn’t believe it when I felt the upward jolt from the parachute opening up. We fell from 28,500 ft and opened up at 5,000 ft. I could relax and take in the scenery as we came down for a landing at the dropzone.

After the 3 of us landed we had a quick exit interview with NBC. (You can see my hair looks all screwy.) Of course, after high-fiving Mike and Rob – I quickly gave Missy a phone call to tell her I was alive and well!

After hanging out for a bit – we headed back to New Orleans for a little Cajun celebration and the beer definitely tasted a little better than ever going down!

Thank you…thank you…thank you!

Our HALO Skydiving ‘fall-a-thon’ is a success.

Yesterday, I got notice of a $5000 donation from one of my Maverick Business Adventures members that puts the total raised at $15,749.00 — so that’s over $30k since Mike Filsaime and I are both kicking in $7500/each. Great news and even better news for the students at the Branson School of Entrepreneurship in South Africa. Even though we hit the goal that doesn’t mean we can’t crush it.

I’m here in New Orleans getting ready to go to dinner and then head over for training tomorrow at the dropzone. Would love nothing better than to see even more donations come in. Plus, there’s still the Amazon kindle up for grabs. Read the previous post for rules and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter for up-to-the-minute updates on our HALO skydive. (We’ll see, but it looks like we might get picked up on TV from local news programs.)

One more thing, my friends Michel Fortin and Slyvie Fortin, are running their own charity campaign to support breast cancer. Sylvie is a breast cancer survivor and I’m sure you know many people affected by this terrible disease. In fact, my mother had breast cancer and ovarian cancer. She was a real warrior who battled cancer for 10+ years before finally passing away 3 years ago. (And in the process baffling all her doctors several times!) Michel and Sylvie will be cornering a bunch of online experts and putting on an incredible teleseminar as a special gift for you donation (actually it’s just a pledge). Check it out here.

Wish me luck…next time you hear from me there will probably be some cool video and pics up here of our HALO skydive. And of course announcing the winner of the Kindle.

I just tweeted about this

Kindle contest update. Most creative promotion of the charity HALO skydive page gets the Kindle.

Send people over to this page (me and Mike don’t make a dime – 100% of the donation goes to the Branson School of Entrepreneurship in S. Africa). Only rules are nothing illegal and no spam. Get creative and have fun. There are only 4 days left for the charity ‘fall-a-thon’.

Post a comment with what you’ve done here or reply back to me on Twitter. I’ll be announcing the winner after my skydive. If you want to check out more about the cool prize – you can see it here. I love my Kindle. It’s pretty slick from the wireless access where you can download ebooks in seconds to the crisp way the print shows up on the screen. I’ve seen other ebook readers and they all kinda suck compared to this one. Plus, you can send documents to be converted to your Kindle, highlight, do clippings and much more. It’s $359 right now on Amazon.

Okay got it? Let’s see what you got…

You’ve probably heard of “Walk-a-Thons”, right?

You know where you sponsor someone for every mile they walk, right? Well…you know me and I can’t just do a typical fund raiser…it’s got to be a bit more Maverick over here.

So we’ve come up with a “Fall-a-Thon”!

Next Sunday, July 20th, my buddy and fellow Maverick Business Adventures member, Mike Filsaime, and I are jumping out of a perfectly good plane at 30,000 feet. (Oh yeah – that’s the cruising altitude of a commercial jetliner and double the normal skydiving altitude).

Why?

Aside from it being another item to check off on my “Big Life List” – it’s also to support the Branson School of Entrepreneurship in South Africa. Their mission is to:

• Identify and nurture individuals with entrepreneurial potential
• Develop potential entrepreneurs in a practical, relevant and holistic way
• Provide students with real-world business skills and mentorship
• Promote entrepreneurship as a desirable career option and
• Support start-ups and micro-enterprises with skills, mentors, services, networks and finance arrangements

Every single penny of your pledge goes to support the education and programs here because 100% of the Virgin Unite (Virgin’s charity arm) overhead is borne by Sir Richard Branson. In fact, this school is the first time he has lent his personal name to any project. I have come to truly appreciate you guys as some of the most generous people on the planet. But as a little ‘incentive’ Mike and I wanted to show our thanks by putting together $524.89+ in special gifts just for supporting the two of us. In fact, a fraction of a penny pledged will qualify you for these resources (many of which are unavailable for sale anywhere else).

Our goal is to raising $1 (or more) for every foot we fall and are committed to matching funds up to $15,000.00 from our own pockets! So if you donate $100 we pony up the same c-note.

After personally spending time with Branson and the team from Virgin Unite in Necker Island – I’ve been even more inspired with what they are doing. We firmly believe entrepreneurial innovations and initiatives are going to help alleviate the biggest social issues. At Virgin Unite they call it – “Driving Business As a Force for Good”. With your donation – you can feel fulfilled knowing you’ve really made a difference to young, up-and-coming entrepreneurs in a part of the world that badly needs it.

Mike and I do not make a single dime from this so please support this anyway you can and tell a friend. Thanks!

*
In other news, I’m excited to announce 2-time Super Bowl champ, Carl Banks, is coming to Aspen for the upcoming Maverick Business Adventures™ “Rocky Mountain High” Experience Aug. 13-17, 2008.

Carl was a member of the Giants teams that won Super Bowls XXI and XXV.

But that’s just one part of Carl’s life. Staring during his playing days, Banks started designing clothes for his teammates. The clothing became so popular that he began to distribute them to major retailers and soon joined G-III Apparel to distribute the GIII/Carl Banks line of clothing which was a partnership that became highly successful. So successful that sales for this apparel manufacturer, licensee and distributor for 2007 added up to $518,870,000.00.

He won’t simply be there for a quick hour or 2. Carl will actually be with the Mavericks whitewater rafting and taking part in the adventure together.

What’s more, following white water rafting there’s another big surprise for members…

Carl is going to be firing up the grill and hosting a down home BBQ at our lodge! That’s right, we’ll get to chow down on his new “Famous 58″ line of barbecue products, already successfully sold on HSN.

There’s just one spot left for the adventure.

Don’t forget our celebrity icons are just the ‘cherry on top’ because the actual Maverick members coming are really some of the world’s most successful (and sharing) entrepreneurs. They are recognized as the top of their respective professions ranging from online pioneers, INC 500 companies, multi-national manufacturers, heads of financial institutions, renowned experts to International real estate developers and restaurateurs.

Fact is, a connection with any of these guys, to the right person, is worth a small fortune. And it’s exactly these kind of unique experiences that can provide the deeper, more meaningful connections than just meeting someone in a seminar or at the bar.

*

Final thing – I also just read a really interesting report from Chris Guillebeau – he piqued my interest with the way he lives his life and runs his business from remote location – while truly giving back! I’m working on interviewing him for a Secret Society interview soon.

I hate to say it but “I told you so…”

I’ve been talking about Frank McKinney “Palm Beach Experience”  for awhile and telling my friends, Mastermind members and subscribers they had to be there. I had about 10 of you guys take me up on it and for the people there, including me, it truly was life changing.

Yes, that gets thrown around a bit too much – but let me just recap the weekend and give you a few solid take-aways.

First, a quick background. Frank McKinney is truly a Maverick real estate “artist”. He builds 8, 9 and even now 10-figure oceanfront properties for the ultra wealthy on spec (meaning no buyer). Even more amazing is the man is like a modern Robin Hood. He takes many of those profits and channels them to the desperately poor and homeless in Haiti. It’s part of his Caring House Foundation Project.

A couple highlights from the event….

First off, I stayed at Frank’s house in one of his guest cottages, and for some reason I couldn’t sleep. So I ended up awake at 4 AM and decided I’d make a cameo appearance and go for a 5-mile jog with Frank and some of the other crazy attendees who got up that early. I figured this would be the only time Frank would see me awake at that hour unless we passed each other when I was going to bed and he was getting up. This is the guy who just came back from the 135 mile Badwater Ultramarathon. and I probably haven’t run in 5 years. Surprisingly I didn’t even notice the mileage because I was talking business & life with a bunch of people as we were running. Frank videotaped the entire event (including this run) so I have real proof for Missy.

After hitting the showers we all boarded luxury motor coaches to check out Frank’s meager beginnings in real estate investing with his first $50,000 fixer-upper. A lot of people will see someone as successful as Frank McKinney and never believe he started in the exact same place everyone else does…at the beginning. He told us he passed up several deals because he was so scared to part with his “hard earned” money. He was nearly shaking when he pulled the trigger to buy his first house in one of the rougher areas of Palm Beach County.

Then we traveled forward in time and up (significantly) in price touring 3 mansions worth over $75 million. Truthfully, I’ve never been in a house valued at more than probably $7-$8M. It really was something to sit there for a moment and truly visualize yourself being able to afford one of these magnificent properties. In the brief time I’ve known Frank I’ve learned some powerful things from him but during an off-comment I picked up something huge.

Frank said at every house he creates “conversation pieces”.

Now stop and think about that for a second. To me that was profound. A quick example will help here. In one of the homes (actually John Ferber’s who you’ll hear about in a second) we toured there was a floor to ceiling custom fish-tank and the actual bar top was an adjoining tank. You could be sitting there at this bar and watching the tropical fish through your Jack & Coke. Plus, when you were behind the bar it looked like you were walking on water because there was a clear plexi-glass floor with a thin layer of water and a shark head image. I wish I took a picture. It was pretty damn cool!  You walk into the house and you have to talk about this feature.

[Update: I got pics from one of the other attendees]

It got me thinking about what I could do for Maverick Business Adventures™ that would create conversation pieces. People want to be able to ‘show off’ just a little bit to their friends and get that ego stroke.

Moving on…

Lunch that first day was on the site of Frank’s $135 M spec house. Yes, that means a 10-figure house without a buyer – I have to give the guy credit. In his book (that’s well worth reading) he talks about flexing your risk muscle and strengthening it. He’s done that in spades here. [Side note – you can listen to a special interview I did with Frank here. He talks about this success secret and several others.]

Right next door to his $135 spec house is his current $30 million ‘green home’. Currently the world’s largest green home. If there was any house on this tour that I wanted – my heart had a little flutter for this one. But I’d need to sell a few more ebooks to cover the mortgage on this bad boy. ;) 

Here’s a pic of the model in the meantime: (One of the conversation pieces on this house is you can drive into your subterranean garage and there will be a clear wall where you can see into the pool above. Cool!)

The next morning there was a special VIP breakfast with coach Don Shula. Here’s a few moments of his inspiration and a quick pic:

 
For lunch that day we boarded a yacht to make a 2 ½ hour cruise down the Intracoastal Waterway to arrive at the Governor’s club. That’s where Rich DeVos, co-founder of Amway and owner of the Orlando Magic, shared his insights.

I loved it! He is Frank’s personal mentor and I could see why. I took a few key notes with his presentation. A couple of the biggies for me were:

1. Become the biggest cheerleader in your organization
2. Plan your yearly calendar with family events first
3. Buy a huge yacht and then an island so your family (kids, grandkids) can’t get away and they are ‘forced’ to spend time with you.
 
I grabbed a quick pic with Mr. DeVos before we had to sprint back to the boat.

On the return trip John Ferber, co-founder of Advertising.com, talked about how he survived and thrived through the dot-com bubble. Oh did I mention the guy sold his business for $500 Million to AOL? Pretty sweet. John and I exchanged cards in the buffet line and he’s definitely got a sense of humor. He named his company “Vandelay Industries”. (Any Seinfeld fans out there get it?)

This was the guy Frank said I had to meet and as luck would have it we ended up sitting right next to each other because my first seat got taken by an attendee’s husband.

I took a few minutes of his presentation to share:

[Side note: I must mention again Frank videotaped the entire event so my little snippets aren’t  even close to what was shared there and it’s worth getting the recordings when he makes them available.]

That night all the guests took part in Michael Israel’s “Art in Concert”. Really cool! The guy painted 6 original portraits on the spot with rock music going. I’ve never seen anything like it. The guy is an amazing talent - you can see some video of what he does on his site.

Of course I just had to purchase one of the pieces during the auction especially since it went to a good cause to benefit the Caring House. I called Missy after the auction and used a little “compare/contrast”. Here’s how the conversation went:

Me: “Hi honey – just checking in and letting you know I bought a few things at the auction.”

Missy: “I knew you would.”

Me: “Yeah, I spent $100k. It’s okay though – it all went to charity.”

Missy: “Shut up!”

Me: “Okay. It was $50k.”

Missy: “Right…how much?”

Me: “It was $20k.”

Missy: “Um….I have a charity for you. It’s called Zak & Zoe’s college education.”

She was kidding obviously. I think.

The auction raised over $140,000 for Caring House Project Foundation.   And after the auction there was a “Midnight PJs, Pizza & Popcorn” session where attendees and co-host presenters could hang in a casual environment. We left at 1:30 and barely had time to hit last call down the road. Mike Litman was buying shots for the whole bar in honor of me selling my “dot-com” business. I told people it was my ChicksinChickensuits.com site. I said there were a lot of people with weird poultry fetishes.
 
I was hanging out with Mike and Frank’s brother, Bob, until 3:30 AM. Believe it or not, he was considering going running the next morning….errr….in 1 hour. I told him to count me out! Of course, he didn’t make it up either. 

The next morning we finished up with a question and answer session on the beach. It was killing me because 50 feet away was a beach volleyball net – but good thing the guys playing pretty much sucked or I might have been really tempted.

Not sure if Frank will ever do an event like this again – but if he does I’ll be the first one to sign-up. Oh, and if any of you buy the $30M green house I sure hope I get an invite to your party!

* Update I’ve added 2 more books that I somehow missed *

I’ve always believed your life is changed by the books you read, experiences you create and the people you meet. One of my earliest mentors (in print & audio) was Earl Nightingale and he said, “If you want to become an expert read for 1-hour per day for 3 years on your given subject. If you want to become a world expert read for 1-hour per day for 5 years.” Well, I took his advice to heart and early-on I wondered what would happen if I read 2 or 3 hours per day?

Today I still strive to get through at least one book/week sometimes more (or sometimes less like when Zoe is screaming her head off). My library is filled with hundreds and hundreds of books. In fact, when we moved houses this summer – getting built-in bookshelves done before we moved in was a top priority.

I agree when Brian Tracy says rich people have big libraries and poor people have big televisions. Though I might amend that to rich people have big libraries that buy them BIG televisions.

It’s always tough when you have so many great books to pick out a handful as the “all-time” best but here goes…

Drum roll please…

“Top-10” Most Essential Business Books for Successful Entrepreneurs:

#1: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Not really a business book but probably one of the biggest influences for top CEOs and entrepreneurs who have cited this numerous times. I’ve read this several times and even threw out calling our daughter Dagny – but Missy didn’t go for that. I loved Atlas Shrugged for instilling the philosophy that productive value should be compensated and revered instead of these individuals being coerced into self-sacrifice because of their talent and other’s “needs”. It really cemented the argument in my mind that the more laissez-faire approach to governing is ultimately best for a free marketplace and productive society. Yes, this is a thick read but well worth it.

#2: Influence: The psychology of persuasion by Robert Cialdini, PhD

I’ve read it at least 9 times and it will truly help you understand the psychological triggers to a sale. Very powerful stuff. Written by a self-proclaimed “sucker” and professor of psychology to help consumers avoid being taken “in” by marketers – this instantly became a classic for us marketers to apply each of the psychological tactics to success. This truly is a power that should only be harnessed for good. If I was to start at zero again and if you stripped away all the knowledge from every book I’ve read – I would start by reading this one and get it all back!

#3: How to Make Millions with Your Ideas: An Entrepreneur’s Guide by Dan Kennedy

Yes, even though this was published in 1996 and some of the new-fangled technology sections like broadcast fax are out-of-date – this is a top ten for sure! I’ve spent probably $150k or more with Dan and every product or resource I buy from him gives me back at least a 10-to-1 return. This is one of my favorite Dan books (along with #7 on the list) but you really can’t go wrong buying any of his books. When I first stumbled onto Dan I was so excited because he finally provided more of the true ‘nuts & bolts’ I was looking for. Sure, he’s grumpy and not the most sociable guy – but his information is priceless no matter what type of business you are in.

Side note: I also strongly recommend getting Dan’s newsletter. You can get a free 3-month trial here. (Fair disclosure – I do write a damn good column for it on Internet marketing each month)

#4: “Tested Advertising Methods” by John Caples

Absolute classic for any direct marketer or anyone that doesn’t want to waste a dime on untrackable ads. Devour this one and also look for Caples’ other books that are out of print. A true professional who generously published his directly-traceable results for everybody to benefit from. Many people might think there’s nothing to be gained from a book written decades ago – WRONG! Everything Caples reveals applies online in spades.

#5: Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins

Yes another “old time” marketing book but the gems in here are absolutely brilliant if applied today. Remember, human nature does not change – just the ways to activate our buying does. This is a short read and available online for free in many places since it’s in the public domain. Hopkins was one of the true advertising pioneers and this little guide really distills the essence of why you cannot use conjecture or opinion but actual tested, scientific methods to discover what your customers/prospects want.

#6: 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss

I have to admit it, I love Tim’s book because this is the book I wish I wrote. Tim’s a friend of mine and we met over our love of marketing, living life to the fullest and extreme adventures. There’s a reason this book has literally taken on a life of it’s own and achieved best-seller status so quickly. To me, it’s because the concepts in here are so compelling.

I’ve given away a ton of copies of this book and a lot of people have actually gotten pissed at me for giving to them. One of my hockey teammates said that to me again a few nights ago. He’s gets really mad when he looks at it on the nightstand because he’s not living his life the way it could be using the ideas in this book.

This book is designed to get you to stop and think if you are really putting the right things in the right priority. Tim has a concept of the “New Rich” and that’s people who have time to do the things they want & they’re passionate on. There’s some exciting concepts about life design, dumping the email habit, outsourcing and creating online “muses” that pay for it all.

#7: Rich Dad’s Cashflow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki

A lot of people might say “Rich Dad/Poor Dad” is more influential but I would argue this second book in the series really hits the concepts explained there harder. If you’re looking for a book to shake you or someone who needs it out of the typical 9-to-5 mindset – this will do it. The Cashflow Quadrant is all about creating enough passive income to pay for your needs and truly creating financial independence. It’s a simple concept explained by Kiyosaki’s drawing depicted on the cover.

On the left-hand side are the people who trade time for money. That’s the “E” or employee quadrant and the “S” or Small business quadrant. Then on the right-hand side are the people creating passive wealth by being “I” – Investors or “B” Business owners (who work on in their business not in it). While Kiyosaki’s books are pretty short on specific details – I think the philosophy and mindset is way more powerful and important.

#8: “Magic Words that Bring You Riches” by Ted Nicholas

There are 3 main people I’d give credit for opening my eyes to the enormous power of direct response marketing and helping me achieve financial independence before I was 31. And one of those is definitely Ted Nicholas. I cannot begin to tell you how many dozens of times I listened and read Ted’s material over and over again. He’s one of my all-time marketing heroes. Ted took the guts of his $197/year newsletter on direct marketing and distilled it into this single book. When I checked this morning there were a few used copies available on Amazon but you can now find it as an ebook or real book on Ted’s site.

#9: No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs by Dan Kennedy

Yes, Kennedy makes the list twice. Let’s face it, for entrepreneurs we’ve got no greater asset than our time. And even if you’ve read a 100 other time management books I guarantee you’ll get something out of this one. Here’s Dan’s unique & ruthless approach to time management that might give some people pause. I don’t follow all of Dan’s advice here because I’m a little too nice at times but reading this book will really let you understand that you create the rules at all time. You decide how you want customers to work with you, people to contact you, etc. Fact is, if you don’t set the rules – then someone else will for you by default.

#10: “Winning Through Intimidation” by Robert Ringer

I know the title of this book is a bit off putting and that’s probably why Robert renamed the latest edition. I love the way Ringer objectively looks at other people’s success advice in here. For instance, the advice of “work hard and you’ll succeed”. He asked himself what “working hard” really means since one person’s definition of working hard is a 18-hour shift while someone else might have a totally different notion. Ringer threw out typical advice like this to work on his own theories for figuring out success.

Plus, there is one chapter in here “the Leapfrog theory” that is essential reading. It explodes the myth of “working your way to the top”. Basically this is a waste of time to keep the status quo. You can leapfrog over any competitors by proclaiming yourself at their same level – but you’ve got to be able to back it up with the goods. For some reason people are always waiting to be anointed the “expert” – it doesn’t happen. And Ringer’s book is packed with even more hard-hitting realities for street smart entrepreneurs.

Like I said it’s super tough to pick just 10 so here’s a bonus selection. I kinda cheated since this isn’t a book but an audio program.

Bonus: The Strangest Secret & Lead the Field by Earl Nightingale. I can’t even begin to count the times I’ve listened to these programs. Earl was really the first person who game me ‘permission’ to think and behave differently. He talks about how the top 5% of achievers don’t do the things ordinary people do and that’s why they are extraordinary. Or they are willing to do the things the other 95% aren’t willing to do (like read/listen for hours per day honing my expertise).

#11 Unique Ability: Creating the Life You Want by Catherine Nomura, Julia Waller, Shannon Waller

Not sure how I forgot this one – probably because it’s not on my bookshelf now. (I think it’s somewhere in the dozens of boxes still left to be unpacked) This is my absolute favorite book about simply focusing on what your unique abilities are and then bringing in others who are strong in areas that are not unique abilities. Now “Unique Ability” is different than simply finding your strengths like the book “Now Discover Your Strengths” (which is also quite good for their online test).

Unique ability is not only about something that is a strength for you but something you love and that gives you more energy when you do it! Critical difference. You could have a strength but you don’t necessarily want to keep doing that activity. This book walks you the process of discovering your own unique abilities. Highly recommended. (At some point I’ll do a post just on this concept and share with you my own ‘unique ability’ statement I’ve come up with from this.)

This book is put out by Dan Sullivan’s company “Strategic Coach” and they have an excellent group of other ‘knowledge’ products. If you can find it the CD set “Pure Genius” is remarkable.

#12 – 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management by Hyrum Smith

Another ‘MIA’ book from my bookshelf after the house move so it got overlooked. This book has probably had one of the most profound effects on my inner values starting in 1998 when I got introduced to Hyrum’s company, now-called “Franklin Covey”. This book really made me examine what my value was and most importantly in what order should those values be. I look at them nearly every day when I get up to make sure my decisions are on track with my inner compass. This isn’t a half-hour read and then you’ve ‘got it’. I spent some time really considering what type of values and life legacy I’d like to leave. Excellent exercises.

There you have it. That’s my list updated list– what do you think? What did I leave off? Have you read any of these works and how has it influenced your life? Leave a comment – would love to hear it!

* * Important Charity Help * *

One more thing – I couldn’t imagine not having these books and resources I’ve learned from over the years. The wisdom of the most successful ‘doers’ & experts distilled down into the pages of a simple book. I’m passionate about helping others hopefully discover the joy and excitement of books that change their lives and inspire them to new heights. That’s why I’m proud to be helping my friend Tim Ferriss with his charity project at DonorsChoose.org where teachers request assistance for their teaching projects.

I’ve picked quite a few ‘entrepreneurial’ related projects to help fund and I hope you’ll join me. I’ve committed to donating $10,000 of my own money to support this. Now I’m not expecting a donation that large (we’ll certainly take it) from you but I’m hoping you’ll consider donating $50 or $100 to help fully fund some of the requests from teachers. Here’s the page to donate.

As I’ve mentioned before we donate 5% of our gross profits to various charities I support. And if you go back to the 9 Inner Secrets of Success – there’s something magical about giving that keeps repaying you in multiples.

I just wanted to mention a few upcoming events and opportunities for very worthy causes.

1. Frank McKinney’s “Palm Beach Experience”

This exclusive event, offering a once-in-a-lifetime experience unlike any other, will take place November 14, 15, 16 and 17, 2007. I’m co-hosting this and you’ll get a chance to tour amazing multi-million dollar mansions and rub shoulders with some of the most exceptional individuals – including Rich DeVos, co-founder of Amway and owner of the Orlando Magic.

All event proceeds will go directly in support of Frank’s charity, Caring House Project Foundation.

Plus, if you hurry – there are still a few seats left for a very special breakfast with legendary Miami Dolphins Coach, Don Shula. All the details are here for the event. This is definitely NOT just for Real Estate investors.

I’ll be doing an upcoming call with Frank on October 3, 2007 so stay tuned. My friend Bret Fogle just finished up a cool webinar with him and you can watch it here.

2. SuperTelethon

Stuart Tan from Singpore is holding a pretty audacious fund raiser for Make-A-Wish Foundation. He wants to do a 36-hour straight teleseminar with 30+ experts. I’ll be on at 8 pm ET this Thrusday Sept 13th. More info here.

3.  Heart Kids Blog

My friend Dr.Mani is a heart surgeon who uses innovative online marketing to help kids born with heart defects. 

On Saturday Sep.15th he is blogging non-stop for 24 hours to raise funds for the ‘heart kids’. Every $3,000 raised means an additional operation can be funded – so please try and help, in any way you can. (I’ve previously donated to this very worthwhile endeavor).

4. “10 Million Clicks For Peace“ – Probably one of the most ambitious charitable ventures is from my long-time friend, Rick Beneteau. He’s got such notables as Archbishop Desmond Tutu (Nobel Peace Prize winner), Jack Canfield, Deepak Chopra and Arun Gandhi onboard to better the lives of millions of people around the world.

I’ll be sharing more about this as it gets rolling.

* Updated *

5. IM Against Poverty – Harris Fellman is leading the charge here

As part of the World Internet Challenge, they set a goal to raise money for a specific charity during the 4 days of the World Internet Main Event (September 13, 14, 15, and 16, 2007).

Harris’s team is trying to raise $110,000 to fight poverty in the world. worth checking out because of some of the great giveaways.

P.S. People have been asking about “Maverick Business Adventures” updates. They’re coming and so are more videos.

Okay spoiler alert – for those of you pacing the floors wondering if we won the whole tournament I’ll spare you anymore agony – we didn’t!

Actually we got knocked out in the first qualifying match 18-21 and 19-21 (ugh!). I guess it could have been much worse but I really thought we should have won that match.

I hadn’t played more than 3 times this entire Summer and I was making some really stupid mistakes on easy serves. Usually my passing and ball control is pretty good but I must have been pretty nervous because I shanked a bunch of balls. Really I played more to “not lose” than to “win” and that’s not like me.

Though in consolation I did get 3 or 4 service aces, couple big digs and a few kills out there. Here’s a little game footage.

And check out a couple of the game pics here:

Notice AL-B and I sporting the limited edition Internet Lifestyle jerseys. I had so little time to prepare but I thought since InternetLifestyle.com is sponsoring us we need some shirts. I used Zazzle.com and got my stuff delivering within 2 days. Pretty impressive. The funny thing is I didn’t double-check AL-B’s last name and only put one “n” there in Hannemann. So we used a handy sharpie the night before to make a quick change.

The promoter from the AVP Cincinnati event loved our story about coming together on IM and joining up for this tournament. He suggested I make a $1000 donation to buy tickets for local Special Olympics athletes to come watch the tournament. It was a great idea and that’s exactly what I did.

Actually Al-B and I both share the same views about giving back. He runs the “DIG for kids” charity and I promised I’d support that this year. In fact, we made a deal for next year (if it happens again) that I’ll make it really fun and do something like donating $100.00 for every point we score, $250.00 for every dig I make and something crazy like $5000 for every block I make. Hopefully, I’ll get to redeem myself in another tournament next year.

It was pretty interesting walking around the event and having Al-B keep being asked who his new partner was when I was standing right next to him. The other guys didn’t even consider I’d be his partner until he pointed me out. You should have seen the double-takes.

I did feel sorta, kinda like a pro for a little bit and the experience was very cool. The night before the game I stopped at Walgreens to pick up some ACE bandages to wrap my knees since I have two partially torn ACLs. I really didn’t need to do that since as a pro I had a full-on medical and therapy room there at my disposal. I got the best tape job of my life there. Wish I could hire those guys to come to my weekend pick-up games.

Official AVP Pro?

And here’s the commissioner of the AVP, Leonard Amato, welcoming me into the fold (his signature is on the yellow & white beach balls):

And as the newest AVP superstar I get to hang out with my new best friends Kerry Walsh and Misty May, Olympic gold medal winners (Check out how much taller Kerry is than me):

Overall, it was a very cool experience and glad I was able to take off at the last-minute for it.

I briefly mentioned this in the last post but #2 on my “BIG List” of stuff to do, have or experience was “Play semi-professional beach volleyball”. I really didn’t think it would happen but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to write it down. Well, Al-B said I would be technically be considered Pro now (even though I wouldn’t consider myself one). Here’s me in my official “Player” badge (zoom in) with Al-B and then another pic with Dan from volleyball.com

Another time – I want to share a little more about the “BIG List” and why I think it’s so important.

Now since I not only got this one checked off (but went above and beyond) I decided to add a few more to the list on the plane ride home including another sports one of “Get my name engraved on the Stanley Cup”. Hey – why not? Let’s throw it out there! Part of my list is up on InternetRoadTrip.com and I’m now up to 91 items – which I’ll probably post most of them here at some point.

There’s really no harm in writing down your own “BIG list”. What do you want to be, have, do, experience, etc? If you feel brave enough post 10 of them here.

Have you ever noticed that if you’re in the market for a particular type of car or you’ve just bought one – you SEE them everywhere? An exception is a rare exotic – but I have been seeing more Astons lately.

Putting something on your own ‘radar’ helps our brains start seeking & searching for the answers you want. (Same thing with asking the right questions.) Right now I’m in mass gathering mode for the Maverick Business Adventures project and I’ve been adding stuff to my file folder.

Check out this article from Fortune:

The first one is about how to access high-level VCs and big-time entrepreneurs (like Sergey Brin & Larry Page, founders of Google). It’s about Kiteboarding (or Kitesurfing) and how these players hang out taking part in this extreme sport.

Hello?….Brain…are you listening?

So this one definitely went into my file. I mean it makes total sense about building more meaningful relationships in settings like these. Case in point – on my Baja racing trip I took in 06, I had the chance to hang out & build a relationship with the CEO of NASDAQ-listed company. We talked about our different adventures and he gave me tips for Running with the Bulls. And during the Players Run road rally I made friends with all sorts of cool entrepreneurs.

If I look at most of the best joint venture deals I’ve done the relationships have nearly all developed outside a seminar room or office. (Okay, truth be told – they were mostly at the bar!)

And another article I dug up that I saved was about Jake Burton, founder of Burton Snowboards. (I admit it, I used to have a Burton snowboard T-shirt in middle school even though I’m a skiier – so I guess I was a poser.)

I really like this section of Fortune called “How I work” and inside the article it talks about how Burton really personifies being a Maverick entreprenuer. I really also loved how he gathered up his family and traveled the world for 10 months. Very cool! That’s inspiring.

On my mindmap I have people like Burton & the founder of Clif Bars, Gary Erickson because these are the kind of Maverick entrepreneurs I’d love to bring onto the trips to share and be a part of it. Plus, some of my friends like Frank McKinney, Cindy Cashman and Tim Ferriss, who are into adventures and incredible experts in their own right. Hopefully, the lure of a unique group of business mavericks and a charitable contribution to their favorite charites would make it worthwhile for these guys to come along. We’ll see.

Speaking of the charity contribution, that’s something I’ve been doing for a long time (Secret #9) and I want to keep it going with this business. We’ll contribute 5% of our monthy GROSS sales to charities chosen by our members.

Once you start keying in on what you want – I think you’ll start ‘seeing’ it everywhere. Plus, like we talked about in (Secret #6) the fact that a decision is made will start the wheels turning to help uncover resources and introductions coming your way. Hopefully this VERY public decision will get it moving faster. (I’m open to help here from you guys – let me know!)