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📚 Hey, I’m back with more books!

Today I’ve got two books in one.

The first part of the book is more about personal development and goal-setting, whereas the second part is specifically about how to build your dream business.

Both parts of the book (by two co-authors) have flaws, and I address those in my full book breakdown. 

But I took pages and pages of notes from The Answer, by John Assaraf and Murray Smith, and I thought that what they had to say was important enough for me to spend 25+ hours reading the book and writing a 12,000-word breakdown.

I did that so you can get all the Key Ideas and more in just 44 minutes.

You can even just skim this email here where I lay out a quick summary of the book, the first few key ideas, some book notes, action steps, etc., and decide if you want to read the full breakdown.

The complete breakdown is free and you can read that right here if you like what you read in this email and want more.

You can skip these next few paragraphs and get right into the breakdown, but…

It’s a little bit of a transition period for me here with this newsletter.

I’m moving all of my online courses to my (soon-to-open) Skool community, and I will probably move the book breakdowns over from The Stairway to Wisdom and merge them with The Reading Life, the newsletter you’re reading now.

So: Premium members of The Reading Life will get all the book breakdowns, free members of The Reading Life will get free previews, and paying members of The Stairway to Wisdom will automatically get free memberships to The Reading Life.

Dude, I know. I wrote that last paragraph and even I had to read it twice to fully understand what I just said!

Basically, I’m simplifying everything from four different platforms down to just two.

This is probably more than you care to know, but as my business has grown and expanded, trying to manage all that has just become unwieldy.

And probably confusing as hell for some of my readers too!

Which is why I have to make a change. For all our sanity.

See, The Answer is all about building your “dream business,” and I know for a fact that my dream business doesn’t involve creating content for four different platforms, three different newsletters, seven different social media profiles, etc.

It’s all just too crazy!

But hey, I’M confusing myself here even just typing this, so let’s just get into The Answer, by John Assaraf and Murray Smith…

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This Book is For:

*Everyone who dreams of starting their own business or wants to grow the one they already have, and who wants to stack the probabilities of success in their favor by following a proven plan laid out by two successful, multimillionaire businesspeople who've done it all before.

*Business owners who have the self-awareness to realize that they are the impediments to their own success, and who want to learn the specific techniques and practices that will help them reach that next level.

*People who realize that there may actually be something important and valuable in things like visualization, affirmations, and similar ideas, but who want a more commonsense, science-based approach than what's usually offered, with a greater emphasis on practical application.

*Anyone who's interested in learning about the major psychological principles that drive all great human accomplishment, and about how to implement them on a practical level to achieve meaningful outcomes in their lives.

Summary:

The Answer avoids some of the major objections I usually have to books like this, and falls right into some of the others.

As a general rule, the people who teach "mindset" do so because they don't have anything practical to teach, but that's not true in this case.

It's actually kind of a 2-in-1 personal development and business book, with the first section making up for its many eye-roll-engendering references to the Law of Attraction by being wonderfully practical and wise, and the second part focusing on more on-the-ground business principles that will help anyone get started in business or grow the one they already have.

The two authors, John Assaraf and Murray Smith, are incredibly accomplished businesspeople with deep domain experience in the areas of business and personal development, and they share dozens of fantastic insights about the true power of the human mind, how to live up to your inherent potential, how to spot profitable business opportunities and capitalize on them, and more.

Together, the two authors tackle the beliefs, habits, thoughts, and actions that they used personally to build eighteen multimillion-dollar companies, and frankly, anyone who's done that must know a thing or two that most people don't.

The first part of the book explores the awesome untapped power of the subconscious mind and how it influences our thoughts, beliefs, and actions.

It also covers limiting beliefs - which are deadly to have working against you - as well as specific practices that will help you amplify your mind's power to assist you in achieving your biggest goals.

And if you doubt that things like visualization actually "work," just ask literally any Olympic athlete whether or not they've ever imagined themselves up on that podium before it actually happened. Every single one of them will tell you yes.

But here's what's different than all the other "vision boarding" books and the "you can do anything you put your mind to" life coaches who couldn't "manifest" themselves out of a paper bag: the authors repeatedly emphasize focused, massive, relentless action towards the accomplishment of your biggest goals.

I'm sorry, but it just doesn't happen any other way, and no amount of gratitude journaling will ever get you out of doing the hard, unglamorous work that it's going to take. The authors openly acknowledge that, and doing so earned my respect.

Of course, there's plenty of other great stuff in here about the vital importance of surrounding yourself with positive, supportive, ambitious people who want the best for you and who will inspire you to work harder and reach further.

But there's also this genuine affection for the reader, and a deep, avid interest in your success and fulfillment that's palpable on nearly every page.

It's something you feel as you read this book, that the authors are fully and completely on your side, and they have the knowledge and experience to guide you along the path to achievement. And yet, by the end of it, they'll also help you realize that The Answer has always been within you.

READ THE FULL BOOK BREAKDOWN HERE

Key Ideas:

#1: Your Limitless Potential

Essentially without limit - and yet how many of us limit ourselves by not even realizing how much fantastic power we have at our disposal!

It's like what Bart Simpson once said:

Not that Bart was some great neurologist or anything (and the "10%" thing has some caveats, but he's directionally correct). There is tremendous, untapped power sitting right on top of our shoulders, and hardly anyone has made it their conscious focus to see exactly how deep that reservoir of power goes.

Human beings have supercomputers sitting on our shoulders, sure, but then we look outward to technologies, tools, and apps, thinking that the answers to greater productivity, success, and achievement are somewhere "out there" - when in reality, we've been sitting on acres of diamonds this whole time.

Several spectacular books have been written about the fact that human beings generally exist and operate well below our full potential: The Outsider, The War Against Sleep, Super Consciousness, etc. They're all worth reading, and I've written breakdowns on all of them.

But Colin Wilson really shook me up when he said that most human beings are like great big jet airplanes trying to fly on just one engine. If only we made the attempt to tap into that unlimited potential! To fire up all the engines and just see what's actually possible!

I personally believe that there's very little that's more meaningful than spending your life trying to find out what's not possible for you. What you can't do. What your actual limits are.

The work of your life is to explore this essentially limitless potential, tap into it fully, and do your absolute best to bring what's inside of you into the outside and help make this life better for all of us.

#2: Design Empowering Beliefs

If you want to find out what people truly believe, just look at their actions and their results. They'll tell you everything you need to know.

For one thing, it's virtually impossible to behave in a manner that's inconsistent with what we believe to be true about ourselves, our self-image - at least for long.

Eventually, we'll always return to the habits, behaviors, and results that we believe are possible for us and represent "who we are."

Beliefs are everything, and they drive so many of our actions and outcomes, but we often forget that we can change what we believe if we truly want to achieve a different outcome. Beliefs are malleable, and subject to change.

For example, if you believe right now that you aren't good with money, then you'll continue to behave in such a way to "prove" to yourself that your belief is true.

You'll overspend on things you don't need, forget to pay your credit card bill, and hold off on investing because you don't believe that you are the kind of person who can manage money.

If you don't take the actions that someone who's skilled at managing money would take, then you won't achieve the same results as that person would, which will then "confirm" your initial belief and allow you to stay the same.

Poor, but the same.

But here's one of the most important realizations you could ever come across in your entire life, and I do NOT say this lightly:

You get to choose what you believe. If your current beliefs aren't serving you and taking you in a direction you want to go, you can change them. You are empowered to edit your beliefs, and it is absolutely imperative that you do.

Today, I refuse to believe anything that robs me of my power to get what I want out of this life. I only choose - and consciously strengthen - beliefs that are actively working for me to help me get to where I want to go in life, and I categorically reject any belief that would hinder me from doing so.

I mean honestly, why on earth would you ever believe something that disempowers you? What's the point of that? I'm asking you.

So the important realization here is that you can design and reconfigure your own beliefs, and it's absolutely critical that you do. But what does that process actually look and feel like? Here's John Assaraf:

You work backwards from your Ultimate Vision (I capitalize that phrase but you don't have to, of course), and consciously work out what kinds of beliefs you'd need to have in order to make that vision a reality.

If your vision is to become fit and healthy, for example, the beliefs you'd have to construct might include things like:

"I'm the kind of person who enjoys moving their body, and I always make sure to fit some form of physical activity into my schedule, no matter what."

"I never eat processed foods, and I possess the foresight to avoid them by not hanging out with people who do eat that type of food."

"I value my long-term health and longevity more than I value the temporary comfort of staying at home eating snacks."

Those are the beliefs of someone who's likely to be quite fit and healthy, but if those statements don't describe you at the moment, then it's going to be somewhat uncomfortable at first to adopt them.

That's when you put your subconscious mind to work, which is always observing you when you make choices and take actions in the external world.

For the first little while - probably for a long while - those choices and actions are going to feel quite uncomfortable, because you'll be working against your current self-image and what you believe about yourself right now.

But then, as you keep making the hard choices, and therefore stacking up evidence of your new beliefs, your subconscious mind and your self-image will begin to catch up, and you will begin to feel more and more comfortable living inside your new identity.

#3: The Three Laws

I usually shudder involuntarily whenever I hear people talking about the "Law of Attraction," but as irritating as some of those people can be, they're also partly right.

Now, obviously, nothing will "work" until you work. I'll just say that right upfront so you don't think that I'm about to tell you that you can just sit around "manifesting" all day and wind up any different than you are right now.

I'll still probably never be able to say the words "thought energy" in a sentence with a straight face, but it's true:

If you set up certain conditions in your life, then the corresponding circumstances, events, and yes, objects will start to enter your life.

They will be attracted to you because you set up the conditions for their showing up in your life.

There's nothing magical about this at all. It's simply how the universe works.

Everything operates by cause and effect, and if you continually repeat the causes of wealth and happiness, then you will be rewarded with the effects. That's basically the Law of Attraction, without all the quasi-mystical stuff.

There's also the Law of Gestation, by which John and Murray simply mean patience. Achieving anything worthwhile is probably going to take a lot longer - and be a lot harder - than you expect, and so you have to be willing to grind it out; you have to be willing to act, and act consistently, without necessarily witnessing the results of those actions until much further down the road.

Patience, in this way, is a kind of faith. You just need to have faith in what you're doing, faith in the plan, and faith in your ability to carry it out.

Then you basically just have to find something to do in the meantime while all the invisible progress compounds in the background and you start seeing all the wonderful results of your consistent action-taking.

As my unofficial business mentor, Alex Hormozi, likes to say, advanced people never don't do the fundamentals. That's what makes them advanced. They find a good mentor of their own, adopt a winning strategy, and install the faith that if they keep showing up and doing the work, the results will come. That's the Law of Gestation.

Then there's the Law of Action, which is fairly self-explanatory. You'll have to be the Prime Mover, the cause of your life and not the effect.

You have to actually get up, take action, and create the success that you want to experience. That's the part that most people don't want to hear, and that's what makes them "most people."

READ ALL THE KEY IDEAS HERE

Book Notes:

READ ALL THE BOOK NOTES HERE

Action Steps:

So you've finished reading. What do you do now?

Reading for pleasure is great, and I wholeheartedly support it. However, I am intensely practical when I'm reading for a particular purpose. I want a result. I want to take what I've learned and apply it to my one and only life to make it better!

Because that's really what the Great Books all say. They all say: "You must change your life!" So here, below, are some suggestions for how you can apply the wisdom found in this breakdown to improve your actual life.

Please commit to taking massive action on this immediately! Acting on what you've learned here today will also help you solidify it in your long-term memory. So there's a double benefit! Let's begin...

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#1: Envision Your Dream Business

Everything you see that was created by human beings first existed as an idea in someone's mind. It was imaginary, a vision, before it ever became real. The same is true for your dream business.

Even if it feels a little weird at first, try to envision - in as much detail as possible - what your dream business will look like. Bring in all your senses and emotions too:

Imagine yourself running your hand over the "Open" sign that you're eventually going to hang above the door. Smell the engine oil as you listen to the sounds of new customers bringing their cars into your automotive shop. The one that as yet exists only inside your own mind.

Strong emotion will help you make it more real as well. The pride and exhilaration you feel as you step into the unknown and begin to make sales calls to potential customers; the relief of knowing that you've made a bold step forward in securing your financial future; it all counts.

Envision literally everything you can about your dream business, who you will serve, where it will be located, what you will actually do all day...literally everything. Make it as rich and clear as you possibly can, and back it with extreme emotion and belief.

#2: Practice Neural Linking

One of my favorite exercises to help me remember how capable I truly am and to call up a rush of confidence and personal power is to establish reference experiences and bring them to mind before facing any challenge I may confront in the present.

By reference experience, I just mean any memory of a time where you were fully on; when you performed at the best of your ability and achieved some stunning success in your life.

Attaching the memory - and the feelings and emotions associated with that event - to what you're doing in the present moment can help you smash through obstacles that would have stopped you in your tracks before.

For me, I think back to when I won a unanimous decision in my last boxing fight, or the way I felt driving my super fast and responsive Porsche down the highway, lit up with power and speed. For you, it could be anything, as long as it's a core memory from a time where you felt unstoppable.

Compiling a multitude of reference experiences is important because over time, you begin to stack up a pile of evidence that you are exactly who you say you are. You have real memories and experiences of times when you were capable and strong; when you won; when you accomplished something significant.

Possessing these memories, you also find that you possess the knowledge - the deep knowing - that you can do it again. You're strong enough. You're courageous enough. You've been here before. And you belong here now.

#3: Gather Inspiration and Review It Daily

Some people call it "vision boarding," and you definitely can if you want, but you don't really have to call it anything specific. It's basically just a collection of inspirational images that mean something to you, and that you can look at every day to remind yourself why you're doing this and/or what you're aiming for.

In John Assaraf's case, he's got this wild story of how he clipped out a photo of this house from a real estate magazine and put it on his vision board. He looked at it every single day while he was growing his dream business, all the while moving towards someday owning a house like that.

Years later, he's unpacking boxes after moving across the country into his new house, and he finds his old vision board. Maybe you see where I'm going with this: he had bought the exact same house as the one on his vision board. Not a similar house, or something that looked like it, but the exact same house. 

Now, plenty of other people have similar stories, and I'm not sure how many of them I believe, but I do actually believe that John's telling the truth in this case. Which is pretty insane when you think about it.

Whether you actually clip these photos out of a magazine, print them off from your computer, or whatever, it's the same idea. You're gathering visual representations of what you want to have appear in your life, and you review them each and every day, as you take massive action to make your dream business a reality.

I do this myself too. At the time I'm writing this, I plan to sell the Porsche I have now and buy a 2010 Lamborghini Gallardo. I looked up the exact one that I'm going to buy. It's sitting in a car lot in Houston, Texas, and I have the car advertisement bookmarked on my internet browser.

You don't have to use a car or a house - maybe it's a restaurant experience you've always wanted to have, or someplace you've always wanted to go on vacation. Maybe it's just a comfortable living space, decorated perfectly to suit your simple, unique tastes. It's completely up to you.

The important thing is to be able to see it, and to remind yourself that these possessions and experiences that you want are already out there. They exist, and now you just have to do the work to help them show up in your life.

READ ALL THE ACTION STEPS HERE

"The path to success is to take massive, determined action."

-Tony Robbins

About the Authors:

John Assaraf (right) is one of the leading mindset and behavioral experts in the world. He's appeared numerous times on Larry King Live, Anderson Cooper and The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

John has built 5 multimillion dollar companies, written 2 New York Times Bestselling books, and has been featured in 8 movies.

Today, he is founder and CEO of NeuroGym, a company dedicated to using the most advanced technologies and evidence-based brain training methods to help individuals and corporations unlock and ignite their fullest potential.

Murray Smith (left) is a business advisor, entrepreneur, speaker, and author who loves helping people grow their business. He has turned around or started 13 different businesses and has helped thousands of others achieve success worldwide. He presently owns 3 companies dedicated to business growth.

As a testament to his abilities, he purchased the Indian Motorcycle trademark from bankruptcy (just the name) and built it into the second-largest US motorcycle company in the world, with sales in the first year of $75 million and with a business value of $300 million. Indian is one of the most published business stories in history.

Additional Resources:

John-Assaraf.com | Main Website

John Assaraf | Private Consulting and Mentoring

How to Set and Achieve Any Goal | YouTube

Strengthen Your Mind | NeuroGym Main Website

Complete Book Notes from 1,000+ Books | Patreon

This Book on Amazon:

The Answer, by John Assaraf and Murray Smith

If You Liked This Book:

Having It All, by John Assaraf

Innercise, by John Assaraf

Million Dollar Habits, by Brian Tracy

The Personal MBA, by Josh Kaufman

The Education of Millionaires, by Michael Ellsberg

The Ten Pillars of Wealth, by Alex Becker

Change Your Paradigm, Change Your Life, by Bob Proctor

The Creative Act, by Rick Rubin

Super Consciousness, by Colin Wilson

Rise of the Reader, by Nick Hutchison

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OK, that’s it for now…

More excellent book recommendations coming your way soon!

Again, the rest of the above breakdown is absolutely free (for now!), and you can find it right here.

What you see in this email is less than half of what you get at the Stairway to Wisdom. I left out most of the Book Notes, all the Questions to Stimulate Your Thinking, several of the Key Ideas, etc.

So there’s a lot more for you left to read if you enjoyed what you read in this email!

With that said, I hope you enjoyed this edition of The Reading Life, and enjoy the rest of your week!

Until next time…happy reading!

All the best,

Matt Karamazov

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