summer vacation quotes for teachers

the gentleman i have the privilege of introducing,this next gentleman, he’s got over 35 years of business experience. he started over 15different companies on his own. he has negotiated hundreds, what’s the word? audience: hundreds! t harv eker: hundreds of million-dollar dealsand has helped raise over a billion dollars in capital for the companies that he's workedwith. cool or cool? audience: cool! t harv eker: check this out. in 1979, he starteda company with his partner. they started it with their own money, $500,000. right? theirown money, $500,000. twelve years later, they

sold the company, $1,600,000,000. cool orcool? t harv eker: do you think you might be ableto learn something from this gentleman? audience: yes! t harv eker: i think so, too. he is a phenomenalspeaker. he's been on the stage with brian tracy, with tony robbins, with t. harv eker,with robert kiyosaki. truly an amazing gentleman. you’re gonna love his presentation today.robert kiyosaki acknowledges him. how many of you have read the book rich dad, poor dad?alright. he acknowledges this gentleman as the inspiration for that book. based on thisgentleman’s teaching, robert put the book rich dad, poor dad together. this is robertkiyosaki’s teacher, and he's here to teach

you this morning. are you guys ready for somecool stuff? alright. >he loves taking the theory and like all thebusiness strategies and skills like from out here and all over and bringing them down intoconcrete terms so you can get started. how many of you are in business right now? andhow many of you would like to take that business to an entirely new level? alright. that'swhat he does. how many of you are not in business right now? how many of you would like to starta business, though? yes? starting from scratch is something that he does also. you know, taking any business or any personand getting them into, hooking them up with the strategies, the skills, all the technologiesthat they need so that their businesses will

zoom and soar is exactly what this individualdoes. and aside from being a presenter and starting mega-businesses and being a phenomenalentrepreneur and a teacher, he's also an amazing author. so, please, help me give a huge roundof applause for mr. keith cunningham! keith cunningham thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you.thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you.thank you. thank you! thank you! thank you! thank you very much! thank you! thank you!thank you! have a seat. have a seat. take a seat in a peak state. thank you so much.i am so thrilled to be here. i’m very appreciative of the opportunity.every time harv invites us to speak, i’m

always so grateful, and i’m grateful notonly for the opportunity to speak but i’m also particularly grateful for the fact thatyou’re here. i think that money and time have a lot in common. you can spend them oryou can invest them. you can spend your time. you can invest your time. you can spend yourmoney. you can invest your money. and i think one of the reasons that peopledon’t have the financial success that they would really like to have has to do with theskills that it takes in order to successfully invest your money and the skills it takesto successfully invest your time, and your being here for these four days with harv atextreme wealth is all about an investment in yourself, an investment of your time, andi love working with people who are willing

to invest, so thank you for being here verymuch. i’m gonna start today, i have three outcomesthat i want to have today to be about. outcome number one is i wanna be transparent, andwhat that really means to me is that i wanna be able to teach you the best skills and toolsthat i have available, the best skills and tools that i have available over the nexttwo or two and a half hours. my goal is not to tell you what works in theory.i think there are a lot of people who are really good at teaching what works in theory.sadly, it doesn’t work in the real world. i mean i think if you’re gonna get coaching,if you’re gonna get teaching, if you’re gonna learn from somebody, then for goodness’sakes let's learn from somebody who has actually

been there, done that. let's learn from somebody who is eating theirown cooking and not throwing up, and my experience is there are a lot of people who wanna teachyou something that will help them sell books and seminars and all that kind of stuff, butat the end of the day, you gotta learn something and you gotta learn critical skills and toolsin order to be successful with your life. so, the number one outcome that i have fortoday is to be transparent. second outcome i have for today is to cause you to run outof ink. run out of ink. in other words, for the next two or two and a half hours, i wantyou to take notes. if you hear something that's good, write it down. they’ve done all kindsof studies and what they found out is that

if you write something down, you will rememberit 500% better or your memory goes up 500% than if you don’t write it down. so, always, here’s the rule, write thisdown. write this down, what i’m about to say. think on paper. think on paper. get itout of your mind and get it onto a piece of paper. so the first outcome i have today isto be transparent, to teach you what really works in the real world. the second outcomei have is to teach you skills and tools to have you run out of ink, so take lots of notes. third outcome that i have today, just so youknow, is that at the end of my presentation i’m gonna be talking to you about an opportunitywhere you can continue your business education

with me, so i’m letting you know upfrontthat's something i’m gonna be talking about towards the end. the educational programs that i do, just soyou know, i have in excess of 615 different skills and tools that i’ve developed overthe last 35 years of being in business. think of it like a tool belt. i mean, i’ve gotthis tool belt that has over 600 different tools in it, so regardless of what the situationis that i encounter, i usually have a tool that will fit that particular problem. and the problem that i think most people haveis they don’t have a very big tool belt. in fact, most people only have one tool. youknow what the problem is if you all have is

a hammer? i mean, to the man with the hammer,everything looks like a nail. and so if you only have a hammer in your tool belt, you’reconstantly pulling out your hammer when what’s required is not a hammer, what’s requiredis a screwdriver or a saw or a level. so the idea is, today i’m gonna give youa half a dozen. that's about all i have time for in two and a half hours. i’m gonna giveyou a half a dozen of the best skills and tools that i have, and then i’m gonna talkto you at the end about how if you’d like to have more skills and tools, there's a wayto do that. i think what we’ve just handed out to youis a piece of paper, and on that piece of paper i think there are two sides to it. we’regonna look at the side of that paper that

does not have, it does not say rotoblock.rotoblock is gonna happen in a minute. we’re gonna look at the other side of that pieceof paper. and what it’s gonna say, what that piece of paper says, is it’s a game,and we’re gonna play a marble game. how many people in here have played the marblegame before? oh good, a number of you. so you’re gonna have an opportunity to playit again. how many people in here have never playedthe marble game? oh, good. you’re about to have a great time. and it’s gonna govery quick, and then i’m gonna pull some very important lessons out of the marble game.the way the marble game works is that i’ve got a sack, and in this sack there are 10marbles, and i’m gonna pull the marbles

out right now. six of these marbles are greenand four of these marbles are clear. what’s your name? jennifer, will you comelook at this please? you see six green ones? yes. you see four clear ones? good. watch. here they go. alright? they’rein the bag. alright, will you hold the bag for a minute? good. now, you can go sit down.or you can come stand up here and teach this. i’ll let you do it. alright. good. so there's 10 marbles. so what’sgonna happen is you’re gonna start off with $100,000, and we’re gonna do a series ofpulls. we’re gonna select a marble. in fact,

you’re gonna select a marble. i’m gonnawalk around the audience and you’re gonna select the marble, and if a green marble comesout of the bag, you’re gonna win the amount that you wagered; however, if a clear marblecomes out of the bag, you’re gonna lose the amount that you wagered. so, on your piece of paper, i think what yousee is something that says equity, and i think that number right now is 100, and then what’sthe next column say? it’s amount risk. so amount risk, and then what’s the next columnsay? win/loss, good, and then what’s the final column say? good. so total, and that'sgonna be a dollar amount. so here’s the way that's gonna work. watchthis. you’re gonna start with a hundred,

and let's suppose you decide on the very firstpull that you wanna wager, you’re feeling lucky so you say, “good. i’m gonna wager30,000.” then, i’m gonna walk around and you’re gonna pull the marble out, not me.you’ll pull the marble out and everybody will see it, and then if it’s a green marble,do you win or lose on a green marble? you win on a green marble. how much do you win? good. so let's supposethat we risk 30, we pull out a green marble, we’re gonna write down a w. how much didwe win? we won 30. so how much in the next line is my new equity? how much is…130,that's it. so now i’m really doing good and i say, “well, i think this time i wannabet 50.” and you have to place your bet

before we pull the marble. let's suppose wewin again. then, how much do i have now? one-eighty. sorry, i won 50. i won 50, so this numberright here is now gonna be 180. do you know what you’re gonna do? good.it’s gonna go very fast. it’s gonna go very fast. you’re gonna have to make thedecisions very quickly on what you do or don’t wanna do. the object of the game is to winas much as you can. if by chance you go bankrupt, then you’re out of the game until we’refinished, and then we’ll figure out what happened, okay? is that good? yes, ma’am. the marbles will always go backinto the bag, so we’re always dealing with 10 marbles. good. make your first bet. makeyour first bet. let me ask you a question,

jennifer. are you feeling lucky? yes, i am. she says she is feeling lucky, ladies andgentlemen. got your bets ready? here we go. here we go. first marble. green! it’s awinner. you won the amount that you risked. you won the amount that you risked. hi don.dan. dan, how you doing? i’m keith. get your next bet ready. here we go. next bet.dan, do you feel lucky? very lucky. he feels very lucky. here we go. a white.a clear. you just lost. put it back in the bag. you just lost. you just lost howevermuch you just bet. so get your new total.

now, keep in mind that dan said he felt lucky,and he just lost. now, here’s a rule i didn’t tell you. dan is gonna have to keep drawinguntil he draws a winner. dan’s gonna keep drawing. so dan, now how you feeling? not quite as lucky. dan is not feeling quite as lucky, so youmay wanna kind of gauge back on your bets. get your bets ready. here we go. here we go.here we go. it’s another clear one. another loser. that's two losers in a row. what’sthe odds of us having three losers in a row? holy cow! we’re due for a winner, don’tyou think? we’re due.

alright. so are you feeling lucky? he’s not feeling very lucky. if i were youi would kinda pull back on the size of my bet. get your bets ready. get your bets ready.here we go. here we go. another clear one! another clear one, ladies and gentlemen. threein a row. how could that happen? has anybody gone broke? holy cow! i guess some peopleare just gonna get to sit and watch. that's what happens when you go broke. when you gobroke you don’t get to play anymore. you just have to sit and watch, sorry. here we go. that's three in a row. now, letme ask you a question. don’t you think that we’re due for a green one? i do. i mean,if there was ever a time to back the truck

up, this would be it. i mean, let's load thisbaby up. i mean, what’s the odds of four losers in a row? i mean, how are you feeling?are you feeling lucky? he’s feeling lucky, ladies and gentlemen!here we go. here we go. here we go. here we go. here we go. it’s a clear one! it’sanother clear one. are you kidding me? now, how many people are bankrupt? a few more hands.okay. so, what is that? four? four green ones in a row? four white ones in a row. four clearones in a row, so that we have four losers in a row. what is it? what is she tellingme? no, they’re in there. look. look inside. look inside. yeah, they’re there.

are they there? are they there? are theresix green ones in there? there are, aren’t there? six green ones. i haven’t messedwith it. we’re good. are you feeling lucky? no. we got no way of knowing with this guy. thisguy’s in shock. make your bet. make your bet. here we go. sorry, he’s got to keepgoing till he gets a winner. here we go. here we go. here we go. here we go. a clear one!another clear one! that is five in a row! holy cow! how much money would you all giveme to go to somebody else? a lot. i mean, this is unbelievable. five bad onesin a row? are you kidding me? she just said

he never wins. here we go. here we go. herewe go. are we due? are we due? yes, we’re due! here we go. here we go. here it comes.here it comes. he’s using a different hand. a green one! yaay! okay, you just won howevermuch you just bet. you just won however much you just bet. how you feeling? i’m feeling good! are you out of the game? i’m out of the game. she’s out of the game. she can’t pull.patrick, are you still in the game? i’m in the game.

good. how are you doing? i’m doing good. who’s got more than a hundred thousand?who’s got more than 50,000? good? oh, that's a bunch. good. who’s totally out of thegame? okay, good. here we go. patrick, are you ready? i’m ready. are you feeling lucky? i am. i know we had a whole ton of bad ones. we’redue for a whole ton of good ones.

we are. how much you betting? one thousand. one—what a weenie. [laughter] i mean, if you’re gonna run with the bigdogs, let's play. i’m playing 60% of my… let's play. no, really, let's play. if we’regonna play, let's play. what’s all this puss-around mess? let's go.

let's go. come on. make a bet. ten grand. i don’t have it. how much you got? one thousand five hundred. you got one thousand five hundred? and you’rebetting a thousand? you’re a good man. here we go. here we go. here we go. here wego. are you ready? a green one! attaboy! attaboy! here we go. are you still in the game, chuck?he's out of the game. how you doing, jim? totally out. bradley, how you doing? doing well.

how much? ninety-four thousand. ninety-four thousand, ladies and gentlemen.give him a hand. that's pretty good. are you feeling lucky? lucky. he feels lucky. how much you gonna bet? three thousand. three thousand. you got 94,000. let's go.let's make a bet. fifteen, twenty grand. thirty grand.

thirty grand! thirty grand, ladies and gentlemen!here we go. here we go. thirty grand. he's gonna bet thirty grand. so you’re reallyfeeling lucky. i’m feeling lucky, too. go ahead and bet. here we go. blow on it. blowon it. rub it. here we go. clear one. not good. not good. not good. here we go. are you feeling lucky this time?you know, this is a time you would double down. i mean, you just took a hit of 30. let'sget it back, and then some. what do you think? let's go ahead and swing for it because ifyou hit it, if you hit it it’s good. how much you gonna bet? fifty. fifty. say fifty.say fifty, let's go. fifty. fifty.

fifty! he did it! here we go. here we go.let's pull it, bradley. here we go. here we go. here we go. green! attaboy, bradley! iknew it. we doubled down. that was good. that was good. how many pulls have we done? ten?ten. we’ve done ten. how are we doing, by the way? who’s got over a hundred? who’sgot over 200? who’s got over 300? who’s got over 400? how much do you have? four ten. four ten. four hundred and ten thousand. thisis the guy that won 12 grand last night. is that right? are you feeling lucky? he's feeling lucky, ladies and gentlemen.he's gonna pull the next marble. so how big

is the bet? two hundred. two hundred thousand. ladies and gentlemen,he’s betting half the pot. here we go. are you ready? obviously, he feels lucky. obviously,he knows what he’s doing. this is a very talented guy. green! i told you. there yougo. put it back in there. he just won 200. he’s up to 600. anybody got more than 600,000?who’s got more than 600? you do? how much do you have? six thirty-four. how much doyou have? six ten. are you feeling lucky? yeah, i am. he’s feeling very lucky. how much you gonnabet?

about a hundred. thousand. hundred thousand. and you feel lucky? i mean, if you feel lucky,you go ahead and take a swipe at it. let's go. let's bet 600,000. six hundred thousand, ladies and gentlemen!if he wins, you’re in trouble. how you doing? six hundred. you’re going 600 too? okay. here it is,the battle of the titans. here we go. these guys feel lucky. here we go. that's it. herewe go. here we go. here we go. here we go.

green one! man, all we gotta do is get theseguys that are winning a lot. now, they got over a million bucks. how many people arebankrupt? good. this is our last one. this is the last one. this is the last one. we’renot gonna do it again, so you better, if you’re gonna win, you better go ahead and bet. areyou feeling lucky? how much are you betting? ten thousand. ten thousand? how much do you have? hundred thousand. you have what you started with. you’re justbetting 10,000, 10,000, 10,000, 10,000, and

you’re even. is that right? ten percent of the game. here we go. herewe go. here we go. you betting 10,000? this is it. here we go. last pull. you betterbet big. better bet big. green! alright, good. okay, good. let's figure out what happened.what’s this game really about? strategy. i love that. how many people, let me see,how much did my big boys get? how much did you guys over here, how much did you all have?one point three. one point what? one point two three five? so, 1.3 is the high? anybodyin here higher than 1.3 million? anybody higher than that? good. give him a hand! stand up.we’re gonna give you a hand!

what? what happened? hang on. hang on. hangon. a million…? ten million? ten million? wow. give her a hand. that is huge. ten million.how many people have less than a hundred but more than zero? less than a hundred but morethan zero? good. how many people have zero? alright. that's good. and how many peoplehave more than 200? good. good. what was your strategy? because somebody saidit, and this is very, very important. that's why i love this game. this game has a wholelot to do with strategies and emotions and all of that gibberish that i was doing, youknow, talking about, okay, well you need to bet big, and we’ve had four white ones ina row, and if you’re good and feeling lucky then go ahead and pump up the volume, backthe truck up, bet big. all that kind of stuff

is just nonsense. and the truth is there are people that arebusy pumping you full of nonsense all of the time. all of the time. i mean, brokers arethere to get your money, to cause you to do a transaction, and the bigger the transactionyou do the more money they make. so brokers typically are there to get you to do a transaction,and whether you win or lose makes no difference to the broker. and my experience is, oftentimes, people windup using their emotions instead of their intellect to make decisions. i mean, people at one pointor another during the last 15 minutes made an emotional decision. i mean, might as welltell the truth. i mean, holy cow, i mean it’s

only a game. let me see your hands again.let me see them. thank you for your honesty. how many people during the last 15 minutesdid not once, not once, did you make an emotional decision? i mean, you stuck with it, you stuck withit, this is your plan, you will not deviate from your plan? tell me your plan. i needa mic right here. tell me your plan. so, just a mic right up here in front. we’re gonnabe doing a little talking. we’re gonna figure out what her plan is. what’s your name?marie. give marie a hand, very nice. alright, marie. tell me your plan. what was the strategy? well, my strategy was to go in, like riska chunk, because i didn’t do a big chunk

last night. i did a little and i won a little,and the guy behind me got the jackpot, so i didn’t want that to happen. okay. so what was your strategy? so, go in with the chunk, but then the firstloss i reduced what i bet. and then, when i… right, but what was your strategy? i understandthe plan. what were the percentages? did you have percentages or was it just kind of basedon your gut? no, i actually was gonna, i took over one-third. you what?

my strategy was to go in in chunks of abouta third. my first bet was 40. a third! so you’re betting a third of yourmoney, is that right? yup. yup. good? now, let me—give her a hand. but when it went on a loss, i did not. i bet10% on a loss. okay. so every time there was a loss, youreduced your bet, is that right? i did. i did. alright. and some people, every time therewas a loss, they increased their bet. give her a hand. very nice. let me ask you a question.how in the world could we get this many different

results? i got people in here with nothing,i got somebody in here with 10 million, i got a couple of people with over a million,i got about half the room that's got less than a hundred, i got more people that havegot more than a hundred but less than a million. how in the world could that happen? we allwere playing the exact same marbles. it was the exact same marbles. every timea green one came out, it was green for you, green for you, green for you. every time aclear one came out, it was clear for everybody in the room. do you know what dictated yourresults? yes, the size of your bet. the size of your bet. it’s called a position. howbig of a position did you take? and i agree with harv, how you do anythingis how you do everything. and my experience

is, how people play this game usually is areflection of how they play in real life, only people usually play this game betterthan they do in real life. the truth of the matter is that if you wound up with over probably250,000 or if you wound up bankrupt, you got the same problem. i’m gonna say that again. if you made aton of money or you went broke, there is no difference in the mentality of those two people.the people who made a ton of money, the people who went broke, they got the same mentality.there was no way in this game to make a ton of money unless you used your emotions. yougot lucky. and i think there's a lot of people out therein the world who are getting lucky. i think

there's a lot of people that got lucky inreal estate over the course of the last three or four, five years. and then, in the lastsix months all of a sudden, all those people who got lucky we’re busy giving that moneyback because they got lucky. you know, i’m not saying they didn’t doanything. you know, they bought real estate and then real estate went up in value. butthey didn’t do anything to create that increase in value. this is a game where if you madea ton or if you went broke, the only difference was whether you did or didn’t get lucky.i mean, that's the only difference. the only way you could have 10 million is if you madesome huge bets. how many people in here at least once betit all? at least once you bet it all? now,

why in the world would you do that? why inthe world would you do that? i mean, that's a crazy thing to do. i know. i know. the gamewas about over and people do that sometimes. when there's a clock ticking, all of a suddentheir emotions kick in and they say, “oh, well, it’s just a game. i wanna see howmuch i could end up with.” and instead of using their brain, they use their glands. and my experience is most people are glandularinvestors. most people are glandular in their business decisions. i would tell you this.write this down. this would be one of the things you should write down. business isan intellectual sport. investing is an intellectual sport, and the people who do the very bestat it are the people who use their intellect,

who use their brain and not their emotions,not their gut, not their intuition. look, i’m great with gut feelings if thegut feelings are based on something. so, if i asked you the question, alright? “i’vehad these heart problems and i’m feeling like and i’ve been told i need open-heartsurgery.” would you just kind of go in and do open-heart surgery on me and just use yourgut, use your intuition? i mean, that's what people are doing all the time. they’re goingin and they’re asking somebody to use their intuition or their gut on something that doesn’trespond well to gut kinds of things. business and investing is the same way. iwould rely on michael debakey’s gut. if i went to michael debakey and i said—youknow who he is? michael debakey is the original

guy who started doing heart transplants. imean, he is one of the first two people who did heart transplants. this guy’s done over50,000 open-heart surgeries. so, if i went to michael debakey and i said,“michael, look, i got these heart problems. use your gut.” i would be willing to relyon michael debakey’s gut. why? because his gut and his intuition is based on experienceas opposed to emotions. in this particular game, and the reason i love to play it isbecause there are so many—i could teach you about this game for three or four hours. but in this particular game—where’s myguy over here that bet 10,000, 10,000, 10,000? bring him a mic real quick, okay? what’syour name? what? real? did you say real or

rial? rial? good, i’ll call you rial. isthat better? give him a hand. give him a hand. rial, stand up. stand up. rial, what was yourplan in this game? my plan was that i would bet 10% of the totaltake. there was a hundred grand on the table. only play with 10% of the available moneyyou have. alright, good. and so at the end of the game,how much did you end up with? a hundred and ten thousand. he wound up with 110,000. how many winnersdid we have in this game? no, i mean, green marbles. how many green marbles? sorry, thatwas a bad question. seven green marbles! how many clear marbles? six! is that right? sowe had seven green, six clear. is that right?

was there one more green than clear? yes! yes, that would be true, which is how he woundup with 110,000. now, if he’s betting 10%, by the way, that was very nicely done because,number one, could he ever go broke by only betting 10% of what he made? no, he couldnever go broke, because if he got down to 50,000, then he’s—how much was your lowpoint? seventy thousand. seventy thousand was his low point, so atthat point you were betting 7000, is that right?

no, i kept it at 10,000. you kept it at 10,000, 10,000, 10,000, whichis okay, but would it have been possible in this game for there to have been 10 clearmarbles in a row? oh, yes. is that possible? yeah, it is. so under yourtheory, you were still exposed to some risk. don’t sit down. i wanna come back to you.did anybody in here use just a percentage, a percentage, a percentage? good. right there.yes, stand up. we’re gonna bring you a mic. hang on. leave this mic here. they’re gonnabring you a mic right now. good, tell me. yeah, i did exactly the 10% and it finishedat 103,000. that wasn’t exactly, i rounded

a bit, so i went from, you know i was downat 77,000. i bet 7000. and how much did you end with? one oh three. one oh three. so by doing 10%, 10%, roundinga little bit, you wound up at 103. right. you wound up, rial, at 110, is that right? one ten, correct. now, i want you to think about something.there are two things. give both these guys a hand. thank you. thank you. i want you tothink about something on this game. the game

took how long, 15 minutes? fifteen minutes,there are four of those in an hour. let's suppose there's eight work hours, so that's32 fifteen-minute chunks. suppose every 15 minutes you could make a 10% return on yourmoney. see, here’s what happens. people get allenamored with this idea of making 10 million, which i’m glad you’d made 10 million,but the truth is you got lucky. it’s the only way it could have happened. you don’tmake 10 million in this game with seven winners and six losers. you don’t make 10 millionin this game unless you guessed right, and you don’t go broke in this game unless youguessed wrong. but the truth is if you made a ton or youlost it all, either way you were guessing,

and what’s required to be successful ininvesting, what’s required to be successful in business is take the guesswork out. now,here’s the whole problem. rial had this problem. this guy, i’m sorry, i didn’tget your name. clay. glenn! glenn and rial and who were the rest of the people that dida percentage or a fixed amount? good. here’s the problem. they were bored outof their skull. that's the whole problem, and nobody wants to be bored, and so whatwe do is we say, “oh well, this is the last one. well, we’ve had three bad ones in arow. you know, i know i’m supposed to be doing 10%, 10%, but boy, we’ve had fourbad ones, we’ve had five bad ones in a row, i’m gonna load up, ” and that makes itfun, it makes it exciting.

so here’s the problem with all those peoplewho bet a percentage. every one of them, number one, had more than they started with. if youbet a percentage or a fixed amount and didn’t change, you wound up with more than you startedwith. in this game, you had to. here is the problem they all faced: boring. boring. boring.i’m going crazy. hurry up. i hate this. nothing’s happening. boring. boring. boring.but i’m rich. but i’m rich. ka-ching. ka-ching. ka-ching. ka-ching. ka-ching. i’m gonna suggest something to you. gettingrich is boring. write that down. going broke is exciting. getting rich should be boring,and for most people the truth is they are addicted to adrenalin, they’re addictedto the rush, they want excitement. you don’t

put excitement into your money. making moneyshould be boring, and the reason is because you’re removing all of the emotions. doesthat make sense? alright, good. tell me something you just learned. you guyshave been taking notes. somebody tell me something that's either, “ah! boy, oh boy, am i gladi was reminded of that,” or something where you saw your own behavior, just somethingyou learned. hang on, they’re bringing you a mic. right here. what’s your name? azita. azita. what’s something you learned? i play emotional. i take huge risks when,when we were losing i was taking risks, huge

risks. yes? and betting that it would work out. and sowhat i learned is to take the emotion out, to have a system… good! to be knowledgeable, and be bored. and be boring! thank you, that's a great lesson! give her a hand! very nice! that's a lessoni hope you would get. i hope you would get the lesson that, look, you have to have somerules. write that down. if you try to invest,

if you try to become wealthy and you don’thave rules, then you are speculating. you are gambling. your emotions are in play. look, i don’t know about you, but i havea worst enemy. you know what his name is? keith! keith is my worst enemy! that littlesucker never sleeps! he is constantly rearing up, trying to screw me up. it happens overand over and over again. i have to have some rules that will protect me from me! check it out! i don’t know about you, butall of my problems started out as a good idea. how about you? is it true? i mean, who wakesup in the morning and says, “okay, today’s the day. i’m gonna go out and wreck my life!”nobody does that. we all go out every day,

we think we’re doing the right thing, andall of our problems started out as a good idea. i have to have rules in place that protectkeith from keith! keith is my worst enemy. it’s unbelievable! i’m gonna be talking more about rules ina second. i’m also gonna be talking about investing and investing mastery. that's kindof what my theme is for today. it’s what harv asked me to talk about, and in fact,on the flip side of the piece paper that you guys have been playing this game, oh, by theway, give yourselves a hand for playing the game. very good. on the flip side of that piece of paper issomething that just recently came in the mail

to us, to sandy and i, my wife and businesspartner sandy. we have a significant amount of money that's being managed by other people,and once or twice a month they send us a little write-up, and right before we came over hereto las vegas, in fact i just flew in last night from london. i’ve been teaching ineurope for the last two and a half weeks. so last night we landed, and harv called mein london a few days ago and he said, “keith, i know that you got a bunch of people thatare gonna be at extreme wealth, and could you bring along one of the deals that hasrecently been presented to you?” and so i said, “sure.” so i brought this dealalong not for you to do it necessarily but for you to look at it, and this is some ofthe kinds of things that we’re saying that

are opportunities. let me give you a summary. it looks like theygot a patent. it looks like this particular motor that they have will increase the powerof about 50%. it looks to me like it’s environmentally very friendly. it’s hydrogen and ethanol.it looks to me like there’s less complications than there are with conventional kinds ofengines. it’s easy to repair, and their primary target market appears to be chinaand india, which are both very large, very emerging markets. so, at the bottom of your piece of paper,just based on what you’ve read, if this is something that you would be interestedin doing, just write down, and i’m gonna

suggest we just play with a thousand dollars.you write down zero as the amount that you’d be interested in investing or you write downup to a thousand. if you want to write down more than a thousand,that’d be fine, too, but someplace on your piece of paper, just write down, based onwhat you know right now, kind of what would be your interest level in this deal, and thenwe’ll talk about this whole subject of investing and come back to this deal in a minute. isthat good? everybody written something down? good. alright. someplace put in zero and athousand. you know, if you’re a high roller like these guys back here and wanna bet more,then you could do that, but zero to a thousand. alright.

i believe that one of the biggest problemsthat people have when it comes time to make decisions, particularly around the subjectof money, is that they don’t take time to think. i mean, what most people do when theythink about thinking is that they yawn and get ready to take a nap as opposed to reallydoing thinking. i was hired in the early 1970s by two guyswho became my mentors, and when they hired me what they said is, “keith, we promiseyou that over the next two years we will teach you everything we know.” these guys werevery, very successful businesspeople, and they hired me as their protã©gã© to learnand carry their ball, so the very first thing i said i wanted to do was learn.

and then, after i learned and i practiceda little bit, then all of a sudden i had some competence. i had some competence and wasable to actually start doing deals on my own. by 1981, ’82, i had made an enormous amountof money. i was very successful, literally had millions and millions. in 1982, i was32, so for those of you doing the math, it’s 2007 so i’m 57. so, in 1982 i had made an enormous amountof money, we were very successful, and i was buying a business. i was buying another companyand i was raising money for this deal, and who i was raising money from is an investmentbank named drexel burnham. now, drexel burnham was kind of the king of investment bankingin the 1980s and kind of like goldman sachs

is today, but back in the ‘80s it was drexelburnham. and drexel burnham was the inventor of somethingcalled junk bonds. junk bonds is debt that is very low-quality debt, but it’s how inthe 1980s, you know, t. boone pickens and carl icahn and all of these, ivan boesky,were all busy buying companies, and they were the corporate raiders. well, in the 1980s,i was buying a business. the business price was 140 million, and i went to drexel burnhamand i said, “could you guys provide the financing in order to allow me to buy thisbusiness?” and drexel burnham said, “yes, we wouldlove to provide the financing, keith. you got the track record, you got the experience.we’d love to help you raise this money.”

the deal is totally buttoned up, everythingis all ready, the paperwork has been prepared, we’re within a matter of maybe a week offunding this deal and closing the transaction, and my guy in new york whose name is leon,leon said, “keith, there’s only one final hurdle. the hurdle is that you need to goand fly to los angeles and meet with mike milken.” now, mike milken in the 1980s was the fatherof junk bonds. he was like incredibly well-known in the wall street financial world. he wasextremely rich. his salary and his bonus from 1979 to 1985 averaged, his salary, averageda billion dollars a year, so he’s very successful, very rich. and leon says, “keith, you gottago have a meeting with mike milken before

we can do this deal.” and i said, “alright.i’ll go meet with mike milken. where is he?” and leon said, “well, he’s in los angeles,and keith, what you’re gonna do is you’re gonna fly to los angeles. they’re gonnashow you into a little room. in this room, there’s gonna be a total of seven chairs.there's gonna be five of the drexel people in this little conference room. there's gonnabe a chair for you, and right next to you there's gonna be an empty chair, and the meetingis gonna get going.” and leon said, “keith, you’re just tostart making your pitch. you just go in and get going on this thing. tell him why thisis a good deal, and at some point into the

meeting, the door is gonna open and in isgonna walk a little-bitty short guy with a bad toupee. that guy is mike milken. mike’sgonna sit down next to you. don’t say a word. don’t stand up. don’t break stride.you just keep right on going. don’t say anything. just keep on going, and then atsome point, if mike likes everything he hears, he’s gonna leave. he’s not gonna staythe whole time.” “now,” he said, “keith, you’re gonnaget nervous if he stays too long, because that's not good if he stays too long. it’sgonna be very short, in and out. don’t say anything to him. he doesn’t like that. thisis not about him. this is only about the deal.” i said, “no problem. i got it.”

so i fly to l.a., i get to the little conferenceroom, seven chairs. i’m in there, five of their people in there, empty chair right byme. the five people say, “okay, let's get going.” man, i am rolling. i am smoking.i’m telling them why this is a good deal, about competition, about market value, valuepropositions, competitive advantage, management teams. i am cooking. the door opens, in walks this little-bittyshort guy with a bad toupee. he sits down right next to me. i don’t break stride,i just keep on going, and i go for another five minutes and the door opens again. theydidn’t tell me that was gonna happen, so i stopped. i turned around, i looked at thedoor, this guy sticks his head in and says,

“i’m sorry to interrupt. mike, we haveto have a decision on the takeover of gulf oil.” i went, “whoa, that's big deal.” mikemilken, who’s sitting right next to me, says, to me and the rest of the room, he says,“i’m sorry, give me one minute.” mike milken opens his little day-timer, turns thepage, turns the page, and says this, “the next time i’m scheduled to think is from3:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. on thursday morning. you will have an answer at 5:00 a.m.” i went, “whoa.” these boys are playingat a whole different level, you know what i mean? i mean, first of all, they’re schedulingtime to think. are you kidding me? i’ve

never done that in my life. i’m a gunslinger.i’m a ready, fire, aim, like this woman said over here. that's kind of how i did it,and i said, “whoa, here’s a guy who’s obviously very smart, very successful, he’smade a ton of money, and he is scheduling time to think. not only that, it’s from3:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. in the morning.” so i sat there and i opened my little notebook,and i said, “note to self: schedule time to think.” now, let me ask you a question.has anybody in here besides me ever learned something and then forgot to use it? yeah!that's what happened to me. so here i am, i buy this company. i mean, i’m hot, i’mon a roll. everything is good. i start buying real estate. i’m loading up with debt, andpretty soon i get hundreds of millions of

dollars of debt. the economy started turning and the liquidity,kind of like it is today, got drained out of the market, only it was worse, and ultimatelyi couldn’t sell any of the assets that i had, and my assets kept going down in valuebut my debt stayed right here. so, for a while, i was like this, worth a ton, and then prettysoon, i mean, here’s my debt and here’s my assets, and i’m going, “boy, this isgetting worse and worse and worse.” it reminds me of what w.c. fields said onetime, “i sure hope i break even on this deal. i really need the money.” that's theway i was feeling. i was just hoping i was gonna break even on this thing. i spent fouryears of my life negotiating my way out of

several hundred million dollars of personalliability debt. i had a lot of cash, i had a lot of net worth, and i just started trading. for four years i made no money. all i didis go to the office every day and call my lenders and say, “okay, look, i’ll giveyou back your property, i’ll give you back the assets, and i’ll give you a little bitof my cash,” and i was successful. after four years, i got back to zero. my accountants came to me in 1990, and theysaid, “keith, congratulations on getting out of debt.” i said, “thank you verymuch. i’m even. i have no assets. i have no debt. i got zip, nada, nothing. i got nothing.but i’m very happy. i broke even.” and

my accountants said to me, “keith, the badnews is you have…” when there was debt forgiveness, so if i oweda bank 10 million and i only gave them back six million, then i had four million of debtforgiveness, right? does that make sense? they said, “keith, the bad news is thatthat debt forgiveness is phantom income to you.” i said, “alright. so what?” theysaid, “well, you owe taxes on that phantom income.” and i said, “well, i didn’tever get the money.” they said, “we know. that's why it’s called phantom.” i said, “well, how big is the problem?”they said, “nine million dollars. you owe the irs $9 million dollars.” i said, “well,i don’t have that much anymore. i used to

have it, but then i had to solve all theseother problems.” i said, “i tell you what we’ll do. since it’s phantom income, whydon’t i pay them with phantom cash? fair is fair.” they said, “that ain't gonna work.” isaid, “good. what’s my option?” they said, “well, your option is you can eitherpay it or you can file bankruptcy on february 12, 1991.” worst day of my life. february12, 1991. i had to declare personal bankruptcy. i mean, i had pissed away an enormous fortune,and the reason that happened is largely because i had learned a skill in 1982 that i forgotto use, and it was the skill of thinking. i’m gonna suggest something to you. it’sthat when you learn something and you practice

and you get competent at it, what that usuallyleads to is arrogance. that's what it usually leads to. i mean, the problem with successis that success breeds complacency. success breeds arrogance, and i see it all the timein the teaching that i do with entrepreneurs and people who wanna be entrepreneurs. i mean,people who get their first bite at the apple and start getting some success all of a suddenstart getting cocky, and that's what happened to me. i told somebody one time at the height ofmy wealth, and my wealth was real, i mean i had a lot of cash. it wasn’t just on paper.i told somebody one time that i was kind of like hailey’s comet. you know, a guy likeme only comes around about once every 70 or

80 years or so. i mean, that's the heightof arrogance. but that's where i was, and so i started a sabbatical, and this sabbaticalstarted in 1991. i didn’t know how long it was gonna last. it ultimately lasted 18months. there's a reason i’m telling you this story.the sabbatical lasted 18 months. during this sabbatical, i said my goal cannot be to getrich. i’m broke. i’m broken. there is a part of keith who is broken because i’dspent my entire life up until then going for success and it wasn’t working. my marriagewasn’t working, i was a sorry dad, i was a sorry husband, i was bankrupt, i had nomoney, and i said, “i gotta work on keith. that's the primary thing that needs to happen.”

i grew a ponytail, i got my ear pierced, istudied the world’s religions, i read 180 books of theology, philosophy, psych, allof the –ologies, psychology. and the way i describe this time is it’s like beinga basketball player and it’s halftime, and i’m one of the players, and the buzzer goesoff, and as i’m trotting off the court to go into the locker room, i turn around andlook at the scoreboard, and the scoreboard says the score is 87 to 3, the other guy iswinning. so i sat in the locker room in my halftimeand asked myself the question, “how do i win this game? how do i win this game? howdo i win this game?” i was stuck. i was stuck. it turns out that's a horrible question.it wasn’t until i changed the question from

“how do i win this game” to “how ami gonna play?” it’s not about winning the game. it’s about how you’re gonnaplay. i changed the question and very quickly was able to emerge from this sabbatical thati was in. the sabbatical lasted 18 months. within three years after i left my sabbatical,i had recreated my entire net worth. the entire thing. i’d made all the money back. now,the question is, how’d that happen? i’ll guarantee it happened because i had skillsand tools. if you don’t have skills and tools, you can’t do it the first time unlessyou get lucky and rely on hopium. you know what hopium is? that's what most people arebusy relying on, hopium. “i hope it’ll work.”

and i went bankrupt because i took my eyeoff the ball, got cocky and arrogant. i didn’t think it could happen to me. during the sabbatical,what i had to do is make a decision, and the decision that i made was a decision not to pursue success but insteadto pursue mastery. that's an entirely different ballgame. mastery is a different ballgamefrom success, and really that's what all my teaching, if you took all my teaching andput it on a bumper sticker, that would be what my teaching is about. so, around thesubject of mastery. i’m gonna talk more about that in a little while. the critical part of this story is the turningpoints of the story. it’s the learn, practice, competence. this one fouled me up. i got cocky.i then had to make a decision. that's what

happened in the sabbatical, and ultimatelywhat i concluded was in order for me to create the life i want, what i need to be dedicatedto is not success. what i need to be dedicated to for my life is mastery. mastery to me simplymeans being the best me that i can. write that down. mastery means being the best me that i possiblycan. the truth of the matter is, when i die, i have no interest in somebody standing overmy grave delivering a eulogy to say, “here lies keith. he was super-rich.” that's notthe difference. what i have an interest in is saying, “here lies keith. he planteda stake. he gave it everything he got. he made a difference.” that's a whole differentballgame. that's what mastery is about.

i believe mastery is what you learn afteryou think you know it all. mastery is what you learn after you think you know it all.i heard a saying one time that really sums up mastery to me. it says this, “there isnothing noble in being superior to someone else. the only true nobility is being superiorto your former self.” there's nothing noble in being superior to someone else. this is not a race, and for sure, it’s notsomething i’m gonna win. there's nothing noble in being superior to someone else. theonly true nobility is being superior to your former self. it’s very powerful. what ifthe level you decided to play was at the level of “how do i create the best me?” that'sa whole different ballgame.

so, critical thinking time. i learned a lesson.i now take very regular breaks to do thinking, but i think one of the reasons people don’tget rich is because they don’t ever bother to think. if you’re gonna think, i haveover 450 questions that i have developed that i use when i’m about to think about something. if i’m about to think about buying a businessor starting a business or growing a business, or if one of my businesses isn’t as bigas i want it to be, i know how to do that, and so i just begin asking myself these questionsthat i’ve developed, and that's what critical thinking time is. critical thinking time isreally asking yourself questions. i think the second part that goes along withthis, and i’ll show it up here in a second

so you can take notes, critical thinking isnot only about thinking time, it’s also about clarity of the problem. clarity on theproblem. what is the problem? here’s the way that looks for me. can you all see thisokay? are they getting it up there? okay, good. all of us have an “is” line in our lives.there's something that is, and i think one of the problems that people have is they rarelytell the truth about what is in their lives. people don’t tell the truth. i mean, thinkabout it. when was the last time you truly told yourself the truth about anything? notonly that, we don’t even have people around us to tell us the truth.

you know how i know that's true? it’s becauseright now, every single person in this room can think of a friend or a family member whois in the process of screwing up. i mean, not a little, big. you’re watching themscrew up right now and you’re not saying anything. you’re keeping the peace. youdon’t wanna screw up this year’s thanksgiving. so let's say nothing. people don’t tellthemselves the truth. people don’t surround themselves with people that will tell themthe truth. people don’t have someone around them that watches them swing. i think one of the great things about beingin a partnership—it’s a partnership that i have with my wife sandy, i mean it’s apartnership not only in relationship, it’s

a partnership also in our life, in our business—thereis no separation. i mean, it’s work and personal and everything is kind of in onebig blob, but we’ve given ourselves permission to tell each other the truth. that's extraordinarily powerful. without somebodyelse telling me what they see, i will be blind. it’s called a blind spot. you have them,i have them. that's why tiger woods has six coaches. the reason tiger has six coachesis because he can’t see himself swing. you can’t see yourself swing. and so what wetend to do is keep doing the same thing over and over again, and we don’t tell ourselvesthe truth. is there anybody in here who really and trulybelieves that they have been consistently

telling themselves the truth? i mean, really?we don’t. we don’t tell ourselves the truth. i mean, we don’t put on a seatbelt,we don’t eat right, we don’t exercise. we somehow are relying on hopium and luckin order to become wealthy. we think that we can become wealthy without learning criticalskills and tools. have we lost our mind? we think we can become wealthy by changingour mind? michael dell did not get rich by changing his thinking. that's not how he didit. it’s not how warren buffett did it. is it important that you have good psychology?of course. but if that's all you do and you expect to get rich off of that, you just lookat the most successful people on the planet and ask yourself the question, “how didthey do this?”

is it because they sat down and read a bookand changed their thinking or is it because—their psychology was good, but what’s the corereason they got rich? it isn’t because they read a book. it isn’t because they tooka seminar. it’s because they got off their big fat butts and went out there and learnedcritical skills and tools, and then practiced and corrected and practiced and correctedand practiced and corrected until they became a master. that's how they did it. name one person who is one of the 10 wealthiestpeople on the planet who got there by doing the least, who got there by cutting in line,who got there by relying only on their natural talents. name one. name one person who isthe best in the world at anything, i don’t

care what it is, riding a bicycle. there'ssomebody out there who is the best in the world at it. making money, investments, there'ssomebody out there that's the best in the world in them. building computers, there'ssomebody out there that's the best in the world at it. whatever business you happen to be in, there'ssomebody out there who is the best in the world at it. name one person who is the bestin the world who got there by doing the least, who got there by cutting in line, who gotthere without learning critical skills and tools, who got there without being an apprentice.i just said something very important. very important.

every single master on the planet, i don’tcare if you’re talking about tiger woods, if you’re talking about warren buffett,if you’re talking vladimir horowitz who is one of the great pianists of all time,you could be talking about michelangelo, every single master at one time was an apprentice.why were they an apprentice? so that they could learn what doesn’t work. holy cow, if you had to go out and remakeevery single mistake that michelangelo made or that lance armstrong made or that warrenbuffett made, the reason you study with masters is so that you don’t have to repeat allthe mistakes and you can find the things that do work, and then stand on their shoulders.you have to be an apprentice.

and most people don’t wanna be an apprenticeanymore. most people, the concept of being an apprentice has totally been lost. you goback a hundred years and if you found a master cobbler or a master craftsman, at one timethey were an apprentice, and once they become a master, they have apprentices working underthem. we’ve lost that concept. i was giving a speech to a bunch of mbas,and somebody in the audience raised their hand. these are freshly minted new mbas. somebodyraised their hand and said, “keith, who do you think is the best person we could goto work for?” and i looked at him and i said, “well, i mean, the person you shouldgo to work for is the person you admire the most.”

and about two weeks later, i received a callfrom the dean of the mba program and the dean said, “what in the world did you tell allthose people?” i said, “why, i told them they should go to work for the person theyadmire the most.” he said, “i know. they’re all going into business for themselves.” you gotta tell the truth about what is. ifyou don’t have skills and tools, you can’t be hacked off that you’re not acceleratingyour pace to what you want. so, telling the truth about what is. so, we all have an “is”line. we also all have an “ought” line. an “ought” line is an ought. ought isthe way we would like for it to be. is is the way it is.

what’s the difference between is and ought?what’s the difference? what do we call that? yeah, we call that the problem. the differencebetween what is and what ought is what we identify as the problem, right? hello? yes,that's the way we do it. so what i want you to do on your piece ofpaper right now—nobody’s gonna look at it. nobody’s ever gonna see it. i’m notgonna call on you. you’re not gonna have to turn around and share with your neighbor,so here’s an opportunity to tell the truth. what i want you to do is write down on yourpiece of paper one of your top three problems. now, watch. here’s how you do it. here’swhat you do. watch me. you get your pen and you cover it up so nobodycan see it, and you write really, really,

really small so nobody can see it. but you’renot gonna have to think about this. everybody in here knows what one of their top threeproblems is. ten seconds, write down one of your top three problems. ten seconds. youalready know what it is. you don’t need to think about it. good. you got your top problem down? everybodygot it? anybody sitting there going, “i don’t know. i don’t have anybody problems.”everybody’s got problems. everybody’s written one down, right? let me ask you aquestion. is what you just wrote down really the problem? no, it’s not. i guarantee youwhat you just wrote down is not the problem. what you just wrote down is the symptom, butyou did not write down the problem. people

are unaware of what their problems are. that'spart of what this is. you gotta get clarity on what the problem really is. most peopleare trying to solve the problem that isn’t. if you wrote down that “i don’t have enoughmoney,” if you wrote down “my health,” if you wrote down “my relationship,” idon’t care what you wrote down, that is not the problem. if you wrote down “i don’t have enoughself-discipline,” that is not the problem. the only people fooling around with self-disciplineand self-motivation are the people who are doing the best they can. there's a reasonwhy we don’t have what we want in our lives. the reason is because we’re all busy doingthe best we can. when’s the last time you

got up in the morning and said, “okay, todayi’m gonna do the third best i can all day long?” we don’t do that. all day long we’re doingthe best we can. you got up and for the last umpty-ump years you’ve been doing the bestyou can, and here’s what you got right here. it’s your life. it’s not that there’sanything wrong with it, but all of us would like to have more in our lives, and one ofthe things that’s holding us back is this issue of doing the best we can, and the peoplewho are fooling around with self-discipline and self-motivation are people who are doingthe best they can as opposed to masters who don’t do the best they can. never have,never will.

masters do whatever it takes, and that isan entirely different ballgame. that's a whole different ballgame. i mean, i want you tothink about it. if they brought in a whole tableful of crack cocaine and put it righthere, a hundred kilos of crack cocaine, put it on this table and said, “keith, you canuse this crack cocaine, you can sell this crack cocaine, you can have a party with thiscrack cocaine, nobody will ever know.” i’m not gonna sit here and go, “oh mygod, crack cocaine. how am i gonna keep myself from taking a toot?” it ain't gonna happen.crack cocaine is a nonevent. i don’t need any self-discipline. i don’t need any self-motivationto take that crack cocaine, dump it in the toilet, presto, bingo, i’m done! i’m notdoing the best i can with crack cocaine. that

is non-negotiable. write this down. the quality of your lifehas nothing whatsoever to do with your standards. the quality of your life has nothing whatsoeverto do with your standards. the quality of your life, where you are in your life, isa direct reflection of what you have made non-negotiable. the quality of your life isa direct reflection of what you have made non-negotiable, and most people when it comesto critical thinking, a) don’t do it, i mean what most people call thinking is nothingmore than rearranging preexisting prejudices. what most people call thinking is nothingmore than rearranging preexisting prejudices. they don’t really think. and if they dothink, they’re not clear on what the problem

really is. they don’t tell the truth, orif they do decide to tell the truth, what they’ve identified is not the problem butrather the symptom, and what most people are spending all their time doing is trying tosolve the problem that isn’t. holy cow, no wonder nothing’s changed andwe’re all working on the problem that isn’t as opposed to the problem that is. does thatmake sense? hello? how you doing? oh, you’re running out ofink? good, that's what i want. keep on talking,yes ma’am. are you about to tell me something? can i what? of what? a practical example ofwhat? the quality of your life is a direct reflection of what you have made non-negotiable.not your standards. everybody i know has high

standards. do you know what the problem is?the problem is exceptions are the enemy of excellence. that's the problem. exceptions are the enemy of excellence. that'snot keith. that's aristotle. aristotle said that. we wind up running our lives with exceptions.we don’t plant a stake. what’s your name? ming. ming, watch. we don’t do this: “iwill not tolerate exceptions.” we don’t do that. we don’t even want to commit. youknow why we don’t wanna commit? because you can’t commit if you’re still looking.we don’t wanna stop looking. we wanna keep all of our options open. until one is committed, there is hesitancy,the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness

concerning all acts of initiative and creation.there’s one elementary truth, the ignorance of which has killed countless ideas and splendidplans, that the moment one commits, providence moves too. all manner of meetings and materialassistance arise in one’s favor that no man could have predicted. you’ve heard that all your life. we justdon’t pay any attention to it. what’s non-negotiable? your time? you don’t evermake exceptions? you do make exceptions? sometimes. there it is. sometimes, she makes exceptions,ladies and gentlemen. there it is. we all do, and that's what’s holding us back, becauseeverybody believes that if you do the best you can, you can have what you want. you can’t.you can’t have what you want if you’re

willing to do is the best you can. so that's number two. number two—i’m workingon critical thinking here, critical thinking is about: number one, taking thinking time.number two is getting clarity on the problem. number three, who in here has ever been ona debate team? on a debate team? good. for those of you that have been on a debate team,you’re gonna recognize this. for those of you that haven’t, let me tell you what itlooks like. if i was on a debate team, my debate coachwould bring me a subject. they would say “capital punishment,” and they would say, “keith,you are to prepare for the debate.” they don’t tell me whether i’m for or againstit. they just tell me to prepare for the debate.

and my coach knows that i’m ready to gointo the debate once i can successfully argue either side. i just said something very important. yougotta be able to argue both sides. you gotta be able to win the debate arguing for, andbe able to win the debate arguing against, and once you could win the debate by arguingeither side, now you’re ready for the debate. the same thing happens with business, businessdecisions, investing. all of that is the same. most people get anchored to a certain wayof thinking. they start seeing what they wanna see that supports their previous conclusion,and they begin seeing only the data or only the information that reinforces that. andwhat i tell people is this. get ready to write

this down. you have to take some notes onthis. “the quality of your investment decisionsis a direct reflection of the number of competing thoughts you can simultaneouslyentertain.” before you decide to invest, what you gotta do is have some conflictingthoughts. why should you do it? why shouldn’t you do it? what could go right? what couldgo wrong? and most people when they get ready to invest don’t ever have those kinds ofinternal dialogues. they don’t even think about it. most people get blinded and they say, “ohgod, love the idea,” and so they start moving

towards that idea as opposed to saying, “waita second. could something happen? could something go wrong? could this thing turn out to bea mess?” most people never even bother to think about it. so that's number three. havea debate. have conflicting thoughts. number four. this is critical thinking. numberfour is any time you’re using your emotions, rest assured that you’re thinking aboutthe idea, the brilliance of the idea. so actually on this, it’ll come up in a second on thescreen. so emotions equal idea. most people get enamored with the idea, like old rotoblock.they get enamored with the idea. “holy cow, here’s this engine, 50% more horsepowerand it’s more energy-efficient, and it’s going to these emerging markets. it’s notas complicated. boy, what a great idea.”

i’m gonna tell you something. pay very closeattention. name me any product or service. i don’t care what it is, cheeseburgers,shoelaces, hotels, casinos, magic markers, teaching. name me anything. i don’t care,whatever business. what business are you in? real estate. charity business. good. whatbusiness are you in? wellness. i don’t care what industry you tell me.[1:23:52] pick it. give me one week, and within one week i’ll name you at least one personwho’s made millions in your business, in your industry, at least one person who’smade millions and at least a hundred people who have gone bankrupt. in your business. write this down. it’s never what you do,it’s how you do it. your success, your wealth,

will never be dependent upon what you do.it will always be dependent upon how you do it. some of you have heard me—who’s heardme speak before? oh, bless you. thank you. i’ve used this example. i love this example. think about if you were gonna leave here andthis next week there was gonna be an anniversary, a birthday, a celebration, there was gonnabe a race, you just closed a big deal, made a ton of money, something was happening whereyou decided to go and eat out. you can think of the restaurant that boy oh boy, if youwere really gonna blow one out, this would be the restaurant you would go to. you knowwhich restaurant? everybody in here thinking of a restaurant? yeah?

nobody in here’s thinking about mcdonald’s.nobody. nobody’s thinking about mcdonald’s, and yet nobody has made more money in thehistory of mankind in the restaurant business than mcdonald’s. let's take a hard lookat the product. it sucks! it tastes like poo-poo! their french fries are pretty good. the productis intergalactically horrible! the worst food on the market! and yet nobody’s made moremoney in the history of mankind! not only that, if you eat enough of it, it’ll killyou! right? so here’s mcdonald’s marketing plan. let'sserve truly crappy food to our customers, and if our customers eat enough of it, we’llhave no customers. it’s not about the product. can you make a lot of money in cheeseburgers?of course, you can. can you go bankrupt in

cheeseburgers? of course, you can. can youmake a lot of money in real estate? of course, you can. can you go bankrupt in real estate?i mean, the list goes on and on and on. it’s never what you do, it’s how you do it. and so the whole idea then is using your intellect.what you’re gonna be focused on is less about the idea and more about the executionof the idea. execution, management intelligence. who knows how to actually implement this idea?so this is part of critical thinking. so i’ve talked about think time, i’ve talked aboutgetting clarity on the problem, i’ve talked about having a debate and some conflictingthoughts, i’ve talked about don’t use your glands, don’t invest money based onthe idea. invest money based on your intellect.

and the reason most people have to rely ontheir emotions—who in here has ever invested money and lost some or all of it? look around.look around. how in the world did that happen? i’ll tell you how it happened. i’ll guaranteeyou 99.9 times out of a hundred, looking back on it now, you’re looking and going, “whatwas i thinking about? i could have had a v8!” we look back on it in hindsight and we cansee that it was an emotional-based decision to invest the money, and the reason that mostpeople have to use their emotions to try to make money is because they don’t have theskills and tools. holy cow, if you don’t have the skills and tools, you have to useyour emotions. you got nothing left. you take a look at all the money that you’velost. think about this. if you still had all

the money that you lost, where would you beright now? write down on your piece of paper. here’s how much money i’ve lost. and that'sjust the stuff you wrote a check for. that didn’t account all the opportunities thatare waltzing past you every day and you don’t have the skills and tools to recognize. that didn’t account—how many people inhere have a business right now? good. let me ask you a question. how happy would yoube if your business was twice the size that it is right now? i can teach you how to dothat. that's what i do. i’ve done it. we were just in paris teaching a followupseminar to a seminar that i taught in april. there were 60 people in april. there werea hundred people this last week in paris,

and every one of them came to me without exception.if they did what i told them to do, they had increased the size of their business by 20or 30% in six months. i had one person who is a lawyer, who is apatent lawyer, they say “[1:29:48],” we say “[1:29:49],” a patent lawyer, verynarrow niche, her business hadn’t grown in eight years, and since april, what is that,seven months? she has doubled the size of her business and it has not grown a lick.i mean the reason people don’t grow their business—i’m gonna tell you right now,the miracle of michael dell is not that he started the business. any idiot can starta business. most idiots do. it’s not that hard to start a business.anybody can do that. the miracle of michael

dell is that he grew it. that's the miracle.if you’re in business and you don’t know how to grow it, if you don’t know the nextstep, if you don’t know how to raise money, if you don’t know how to hire people andgo to town—how many people in here have the thought that customers are number one?customers are number one? i guarantee you your business ain't growing. if it is, it’stemporary. customers cannot ever, ever, ever, ever underany circumstances be number one. you make customers number one and you’re gonna notbe in business very long. your business will not grow. what’s required is not customersnumber one. employees have to be number one. indifferent people deliver indifferent service.

you know why most businesses aren’t growing?it’s not because they’re not adding new customers, it’s because they’re not keepingthe customers they got. let me ask you a question. how big would your business be if you stillhad every single customer that had ever tried you? how big would it be? it’d be freakingenormous, wouldn’t it? it’d be double, triple, 10 times the size that it is rightnow. the problem is everybody’s focused on thewrong thing. the reason they’re focused on the wrong thing is because they’re notlearning the critical skills and tools that will allow them to be successful, so thereforethey have to rely on their emotions instead of their skills and tools.

masters have rules. masters always, always,always have rules. i got 21 investing rules that i have that protect me from me, and ifi see a deal that doesn’t fit my rules, i don’t do it. i mean, too often peoplewill eat anything that comes flying across the table as opposed to saying, “wait asecond, there are certain things if i’m gonna be successful with my weight, thereare certain things i can eat, there are certain things that i can’t eat.” but if you just eat everything that your eyecatches, you’re gonna wind up having a weight problem, having a health issue. and so thepeople who are the most fit, who are the most successful with their health, are the peoplewho have made rules, and then, ming, they’ve

made them non-negotiable. they quit doingthe best they can. are you with me on this, ming? good. so you gotta have rules, and i think mostpeople who invest don’t have investment rules, which then allows them to meet theirworst enemy. i think one of the rules you gotta have is “stupid in small things.”let me tell you what this is about. warren buffett, who i happen to think is an absolutestud, warren buffett was on the golf course, and he and his buddies got to a par three.and a par three on a golf course is the only hole where you have a legitimate chance ofmaking a hole-in-one. so they get up to the par three and warren’sall ready and he’s about to take a swing,

and his buddies who are with him say, “warren,let's have a bet on this hole.” warren said, “okay, what’s the bet?” they said, “twentybucks. twenty bucks, warren. if you don’t hit a hole-in-one, you give us 20 bucks.”warren said, “but what do i get if i do hit a hole-in-one?” they said, “well,we’ll give you 20,000. if you hit a hole-in-one, we’ll give you 20,000. if you don’t hita hole-in-one, you give us 20 bucks.” warren said, “well, the problem with thatis that that's only a thousand to one odds. i mean, i could stand here and hit a thousandgolf balls and probably one of them wouldn’t go in the hole. i mean, it’d probably takeme more like 10,000 before one went in the hole.” so warren said to them, “alright,look, i’m willing to do the bet. i’ll

give you 20 bucks if i don’t hit a hole-in-one,but if i do hit a hole-in-one, you give me 200,000.” they said, “no deal.” warren said, “well,then i’m not gonna take the bet.” they said, “warren, it’s 20 bucks. son, yougot 45 billion dollars. you’re so rich you’ve given 32 of it to your friend bill gates togive away.” last year, warren buffett’s income, net, was 100 million a week. a week.warren said, “no bet.” they said, “warren, it’s 20 bucks.”warren said, “bad odds.” they said, “warren, it’s 20 bucks!” warren said, “stupidin small things, stupid in big things.” write that down. stupid in small things, stupidin big things. you know what’s keeping you

from becoming as rich as you want? it’snot the big things. people are pimping their rides. they’repimping their computers, they’re pimping their clothes, they’re pimping their vacations,they’re pimping their houses, and then they don’t have skills and tools. they don’tknow what’s causing them to make money in real estate over the last three or four years,and therefore they’re doomed to lose it. it is following the herd. “what are thejoneses doing? oh, i’ll do that, too.” do you know that out of a hundred people,by the time they get to 65, only two will be financially self-sustaining? two out ofa hundred. by the time they get to 65, two out of a hundred will be financially self-sustaining.holy cow, if you look around to see what everybody

else is doing, you’re gonna wind up likethem. that's the problem. so, stupid in small things, that has to bea rule. you have to have a rule, and this is one of my rules, speed kills. the fasteryou try to do anything, the harder it is. the faster you try to get rich, the fasteryou try to get healthy, the faster you try to create a great relationship. the fasteryou try to do anything, the harder it is. see, the problem is there are two kinds oftime. there are two kinds of time, and we don’t do a good job of making a distinctionabout this. there is vertical time, that's 24 hours, and then there is horizontal time.a horizontal time is a lifetime. and most people wind up using the wrong kind of time.

let me give you an example. let's supposethat we lived in a valley and in our backyard is a 300-foot-high dam that's going straightup, that's holding back this huge body of water. so there's a dam holding back thishuge body of water. we wake up in the morning, we go outside onto our patio, we look up atthe dam, we’re drinking our coffee, and we see a crack in the dam. what do we say?dam! we go inside, we look in the yellow pagesunder dam repair people, we call the dam repair person. the dam repair person comes out, looksat the dam and says, “i can fix the dam.” you say, “how long?” the dam repair personsays, “twenty-four hours. it’s gonna take me 24 hours. how would you like for me todo this? would you like for me to repair your

dam in 24 straight hours or would you likefor me to spend 30 minutes a day for the next 48 days? how do you want me to repair thedam?” you say, “twenty-four straight hours. let's get this thing fixed,” right? so while the dam repair people are fixingthe dam, you think to yourself, “well, i’ve always wanted to grow a tomato plant.” sowhile the dam repair people are fixing, you go to the nursery, and you get to the nurseryand you find a pot, and you find the soil and the fertilizer and the right kind of mineralwater and the grow lights, and you get the little tomato seeds, and you’re about tocheck out and you say to the nursery person, “how much of my time is it gonna take fromthe time i plant the seed until i eat a tomato?

how much of my time?” and the nursery person says, “it’s gonnatake 24 hours.” so when you get home, do you plant the little seed, put some wateron it, put some fertilizer on it, put the grow light on it, put the sand and loam inthere, spray it for bugs, dig the seed up, replant the seed, go through this 24 hoursjust keeping digging it up, planting it, putting the fertilizer on it, putting the grow lighton it, spraying it for bugs, do you do that for 24 straight hours or do you spend 30 minutesa day for the next 48 days? thirty minutes a day for the next 48 days,right? anything that requires lots and lots and lots of vertical time is called a crisis.a crisis. and speed is not your friend when

it comes to creating wealth. wealth is builtbased on compounding, and compounding takes time. so, speed is not your friend when itcomes to money because every time you feel like you wanna go fast, now all of a suddenyou slip into your emotions instead of using your intellect. look at the money you’ve lost and thinkabout how long it took you to make that much money. i mean, you know, maybe you’ve invested$40,000. it might have taken you two years to save up $40,000. maybe you only invested5000 and lost it. i mean, maybe you can earn 5000 in a month. i’ll guarantee you, howevermuch money you’ve lost, you didn’t spend very much time, you didn’t even spend afraction of how long it took you to make it

in order to make the decision to invest itand lose it. is that true? yeah. holy cow, what are we doing? there's a reasonwhy we’re not rich. we’re not using our brain, we’re using our glands and our emotions.speed kills. i love this cartoon that you’re about to see, so watch this on the monitorup here. here we go. it’s a cartoon. lemonade, 500 bucks. “i just wanna sell one and callit a summer.” that's what most people are doing right there. i mean they’re tryingto get there so quick that they’ll never be successful. i think that's a problem. corecompetence. look, one of your rules has to be core competence.if you’re gonna invest money, it needs to be in something you know something about.here’s what core competence looks like to

me. every time you invest money inside ofyour core competence, you’re investing, and every time you put money in somethingoutside of your core competence, you’re speculating, you’re gambling, you’re hopingto get lucky. that's what you’re doing. i remember when i was raising lots and lotsof money, one of the things that i would do is if i had a real estate deal, i never tookit to other real estate people. i always took my real estate investments to people who weredoing oil and gas, because those guys are all looking over the fence going, “holycow, look how much money all those real estate people are making.” but they had no competence. if i wanted to do an oil and gas deal, i nevertook it to oil and gas people, i took it to

the real estate people. all the real estatepeople are sitting there going, “holy cow, look how much money those oil and gas guys.”you can take any deal to a doctor and a lawyer. i mean, think about it. you have to be veryclear about what your competence is. what are you good at? what do you know somethingabout? and what most people do is, most people lead with their money. so you can make yourcore competence get bigger, you’re not stuck with what you got. everybody in here knowsa bunch about something. everybody in here knows a bunch about something.it’d be very difficult for somebody to pull the wool over your eyes on what you know alot about, but what you know a lot about is this size right here. this is how big it is.in order to increase the size of your core

competence, you begin spending time and youstart surrounding yourself with people who are experts, you spend time, you spend time,you invest time, you invest time, and pretty soon you have expanded your core competence,and now the investment is inside your core competence. but you don’t lead with yourmoney. and that's the problem. most people hear aboutsomething, they start chunking money at it as opposed to saying, “let me invest mytime and learn about what i’m about to put my money into.” does that make sense? it’svery powerful. i saw this cartoon, and this reminds me of kind of how we tend to do it. “through the hoop, bob! through the hoop!”we got a turtle trying to jump through a flaming

hoop. i mean, the problem is the little turtlehas no core competence. the little turtle can’t jump through the hoop, but we’resitting there urging the thing along, and it’s totally outside of our core competence. critical thinking means asking questions.the better the questions, the better the thinking. tony robbins. i love him. sandy and i do alot of work with that organization. in fact, we’re very fortunate, we’re on the boardof directors of his foundation, which is a very powerful foundation. tony robbins saysthat the quality of your life is a direct reflection of the quality of the questionsthat you ask yourself. the quality of your life is a direct reflectionof the quality of the questions you ask yourself,

and i think most times people ask themselveseither horrible or debilitating questions. i think the most powerful question you canask yourself is the question you’re about to see on this screen. it’s by far the singularlymost powerful question you can ask yourself in any aspect of your life, investing, business,anything. anything. “what don’t i see?” what don’t i see?i believe that question is the singularly most powerful question i’ve ever used inhelping me, and i will tell you what i don’t see. what i don’t see is my assumptions.what you don’t see is your assumptions, which is another way of saying that the qualityof my life is a direct reflection of the assumptions that i’m making, and most people don’tever bother to look at assumptions. they don’t

ever bother to look at the assumptions they’remaking. one of the things that i have is that i wearthese little bands. you probably have seen some like this but this one has written onit, it has “what don’t i see?” and the reason i did these is because, and i havea whole slew of them back there at our table, there should be enough for everybody, butthe reason i did these is because i think it is an extraordinarily powerful reminder.i think it’s an extraordinarily powerful reminder. that's all i got. that was a goodsnag. it’s an extraordinarily powerful reminder,so if you want one of these, i highly recommend it, i took mine off and threw it out there.i’ll be getting another one at the break.

it’s an extraordinary reminder to keep mefocused. what’s going on in my life is a direct result of unquestioned assumptions. what i don’t see is what costs me moneyover and over again, and i’m gonna suggest to you that what you don’t see is what’sbusy costing you money. and if you’d like to have one of those little bands, come backto our table, we’d be happy to give you one. i’m gonna be around actually all afternoon,i’m gonna be here this evening, i’m gonna be here all day tomorrow to be able to answerquestions, to be able to interface with you. i mean, sandy and i own a number of businesses,and we teach because that's what i wanna do. that's what she wants to do. we have at thispoint in our lives said that what our lives

are about is mastery not success, and masteryis for me to be able to fulfill my dream of “if i could have one last thought.” it’svery powerful. if you could have one last thought and thenyou died, what would you want that last thought to be? what a great idea to start with theend in mind. that's stephen covey. shoot, that's aristotle. that concept has been aroundfor a long, long time. what would happen if you began designing your life so that if youhad an opportunity for one last thought, what do you want it to be? i actually was asked this question duringmy sabbatical. part of my studying the world’s religions involved hinduism. i’m not hindubut i studied it, and i’ve actually spent

time with a hindu guru, and this hindu gurutaught me a lot. one of the things he asked me was, “keith, if you had an opportunityfor one last thought, what do you want it to be?” and by answering this question,it allowed me to exit the sabbatical, recreate my wealth and get on with my life. and ultimately having thought and thoughtand thought, here is what i want the answer to be. if i get to have one last thought,it would be, “whoa...whoa…whoa…that was spectacular. this is my life. i’m proudof it. i would gladly live it again if only given an opportunity. whoa!” i’m gonna suggest to you that's playingat a different level. i’m gonna suggest

to you that's not about creating wealth. it’sabout creating mastery. it’s about creating the best me. is part of it getting rich? ofcourse. of course, it is. is part of it creating the best of me? yes, that's it. somethingto think about. something to think about. how you doing? [applause] thank you. thank you. thank you. it’s extraordinary to me if you think aboutthe human spirit. i mean, today we live in the information age, and i’m telling youif the key to being successful was to have tons of information, everybody would be there.i think what’s needed is for us to leave

the information age and to enter the inspirationage, and that's a whole different ballgame. that's a whole different ballgame, findingand tapping into your spirit. i heard somebody say one time, i wish i could remember theauthor, so i’m quoting somebody, i just don’t know who, but they said this. theysaid, “inspiration is a gift from the part of you who knows to the part of you who wonders.”i think that's exceptional. inspiration is a gift from the part of youwho knows to the part of you who wonders. i think at some level we really do know. ithink we really do, and there's a part of us that wonders. whatever it is that inspiresyou, and for us it’s teaching. that's the thing that inspires us. i like making money.i’ve been rich, i’ve been poor. rich is

better. a lot better. but it just gives memore options, that's all it does. getting rich doesn’t inspire me. there are otherthings that inspire me. so whatever it was that you just tapped intowhen we were talking a second ago, that is the part of you who was inspired, and that'sthe part i think you have to keep tapping back into. i think you have to keep tappingback into, “what inspires me? what juices me?” and so thank you for letting me bea part of that. i’m gonna keep going. i’m gonna talk for a second because i told youone of my heroes is a guy named warren buffett. i’m gonna give you some quotes from warrenbuffett. they’ll come up here on the monitor. critical thinking time.

here’s what warren buffett said about criticalthinking time. “all man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a roomalone. an investor who is encouraged by his advisors to do a deal responds much as a teenageboy who is encouraged by his father to have a normal sex life. it’s not the push heneeds.” i think that's true. here’s what warren buffett has to say aboutconflicting thoughts. why shouldn’t we invest? “do all your thinking before you do thedeal. imagine all the things that could go wrong because they probably will. optimismis the enemy of the rational investor.” now look, i’m all in favor of intention.i love the secret. but at the end of the day, what’s getting taught is not the law ofattraction.

the law of attraction says you move towardsit. you can’t sit in a room all by yourself, lock all the doors and somehow, presto, bingo,hocus pocus, there's gonna be a big old pile of money or a beautiful spouse sitting nextto you. i mean, that ain't gonna happen. come on. we were teaching in london and this womancame up to me and said—it was this business mastery program that i teach where i teachcritical skills and tools, and it’s always two sessions. there's a first session, andthen a little bit of time goes by and everybody goes and does work, and then we do anothersession. and we were teaching and she came up and i said, “what are you gonna workon in between?” she said, “i’m gonna

work on winning the london lottery.” i said, “well, how you gonna do that?”she said, “well, i’m gonna buy lottery tickets and i’m gonna sit around and meditate,and with the law of attraction i’m gonna win a 10-million-pound lottery.” i said,“look.” her name was sylvia. i said, “sylvia, that's a great plan. can we have a plan bjust in case?” i mean, because i do believe in the law ofattraction, i really do, but i also believe that there's a big difference in the skillsand tools it takes to make money and the skills and tools it takes to keep it. those are twoentirely different sets of skills. i know a lot about making money, and this time aroundi’m learning how to keep it.

this is my third fortune. i wanna avoid pissingthose things away. i mean, it takes a lot of work to do that. so this one i’ve keptfor about 12, 13 years, and i’m happy. i’m doing things very differently now than i usedto. i have a different set of rules. but you gotta have conflicting thoughts, and optimismis not your friend. when you’re dealing with money, optimism is not your friend. warren buffett on intellect versus emotions,he says, “ignorance, when mixed with greed, is the stuff financial disasters are madeof. a public opinion poll is no substitute for thought.” he’s right. here’s whatwarren buffett says on the subject of rules. “rule number one: don’t lose money. rulenumber two: see rule number one.”

i’m telling you. i mean, this stuff is verypowerful. this guy clearly knows what he’s talking about. i mean, if we’re gonna emulatesomebody, let's emulate somebody that's eating his own cooking, right? does that make sense?i mean, when you think about it, there's two kinds of hay. there's hay before it’s beenthrough the horse, and i think there's a lot of people out there that are grazing on thehay that's already been through the horse, and then they’re wondering why they’renot getting big and plump and fat. they’re eating the wrong thing. look, if you’re gonna model somebody, makesure you model somebody that's actually doing what they teach. speed, i love this. watchthis. here’s what warren buffett says about

speed, “we adopt the same attitude one mightfind when looking for a spouse: it pays to be active and open-minded, but it does notpay to be in a hurry. you cannot produce a baby in a month by getting nine women pregnant.”now, this is true. this is true. i like this. stupid in small, here’s what he says, “inmy world, little things really do matter. an undisciplined mind in small things willalso be an undisciplined mind in large things.” look, either you’re intellectually rigorousor you’re not. if you’re stupid in small things, you’re gonna be stupid in big things. let me talk for a second about mastery andabout core competence. in fact, if you look back at rotoblock—sorry, here’s what hesays about core competence. this is warren

buffett. “the greatest personal fortunesin this country weren’t built on a portfolio of 50 companies. that's the noah’s ark wayof investing. they were built on one wonderful business. almost without exception, when theystrayed from that wonderful business that made them rich, they ended up losing money.”that's what warren buffett has to say about core competence. what don’t i see? here’s what warren buffettsays. “a pen lies in wait for every bubble, and when the two eventually meet, a new waveof investors learn some very old lessons.” i think it’s absolutely true. look, if you’regonna listen to somebody, don’t listen to me. don’t believe me. let's believe somebodywho started with zero and in his lifetime

created 45 billion of real live money, lastyear 100 million a week. a week! clearly, he knows something and is doing somethingthe rest of us aren’t. look at rotoblock. remember rotoblock? youremember that? that little engine that could? let's think about our investment. whetheryou put down zero or a thousand or $5, i don’t really care. i’d be curious. how many peoplesaid they would do zero? let me see those hands. good, for you. how many people saidthey’d do something? alright, good for you. this is a learning opportunity. let's look at rotoblock in light of what wejust talked about. did we have any thinking time? no. did we have clarity on the problem?no. did we have any conflicting thoughts?

well, if you said yes, to invest, you hadno conflicting thoughts. you didn’t look at what could go wrong. you just said, “holycow, look at this great idea.” you used your emotions versus your intellect. was rotoblock within your core competence?if you said yes, what in the heck do you know about engines? what in the heck do you knowabout startup businesses? what in the heck do you know about india and china? what inthe heck do you know about ethanol? i’m gonna tell you right now, the deal that ishowed you is a real deal, only it wasn’t sent to me. it was sent to somebody else andthey sent it to me to use as an example when i teach.

you should not, everybody look at me, lookat me, whatever you do, do not go out and buy this stock. don’t do that. i’m usingit as an example. i don’t know whether this is a good deal or a bad deal. all i know isi don’t know anything about engines, i don’t know anything about manufacturing, i don’tknow anything about automobiles, i don’t know anything about china and india, i don’tknow anything about ethanol or hydrogen, i don’t know nothing about nothing. so, therefore, i’m not gonna even look atthis deal because i have rules. did you ask yourselves the question, “what don’t isee?” most people don’t. most people don’t, and so they wind up being stupid in smallthings. “well, keith, it’s only 50 bucks.”

“oh well, keith, it was only 500 bucks.”stupid in small things. does that make sense? good. there's a very famous football coach in theunited states, no longer alive. his name is paul “bear” bryant. paul—what was it?roll tide! crimson tide. he was coach at alabama. prior to that, he won national championships.he was very, very well-known, very, very smart guy. born in almost poverty, in fact bornin poverty, and he became literally one of the most, and i think the most revered coachin the world. paul “bear” bryant said one time, “onany given saturday, i can take my team and beat your team, or i could take your teamand beat my team.”

that's serious. that's how good a coach hewas. paul “bear” bryant died a few years ago, and when they found him and looked inhis billfold, they found what i am about to read you. he carried this around with himfor 40 years. for 40 years, he read it every day. here’swhat it said: “this is the beginning of a new day. god has given me this day to useas i will. i can waste it or use it for good. what i do today is very important becausei am exchanging a day of my life for it. when tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever,leaving something in its place i have traded for it. i want it to be a gain, not loss,good not evil, success not failure, in order that i shall not forget the price i paid forit.”

that to me is extraordinary. this is the beginningof a new day. i will suggest to you that you will not, you will not find what you’relooking for. what is required of you is not a search. what is required of you is a decision,a decision on who it is i want to create. what are the skills and tools that i needto learn? mediocrity hates decision. masters embrace decision. if you’ve learned something over the lasttwo hours, if you’ve made any notes, if this is what i was able to do for you in twohours, imagine what i could do for you in a hundred. if you need help in skills, thisis the beginning of the new day. all i can tell you is i appreciate your allowing meto be here today, i appreciate the opportunity

that harv has given all of us to continueour education, and i truly, truly, truly hope that you decide that you will continue yourbusiness education with us. i will be here all through lunch. i will behere all this afternoon. i would love to answer your questions, and i am grateful for theopportunity to have played a part in your education. thank you.