By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Get Stefan Aarnio's book "Money People Deal: The Fastest Way to Real Estate Wealth" at MoneyPeopleDeal.com!

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One of the most common questions that we all hear on a daily basis is: "What do you do?"

For some, this is an easy question; "I'm a doctor" some may reply; or "I'm a teacher" everyone understands that doctors treat sick people and teachers teach. For others, the questions "what do you do?" is much more abstract and hard to answer.

In the past, I had introduced myself as an "entrepreneur". Some people say that "entrepreneur" is a nice word for "unemployed" or "unemployable". The problem with being an entrepreneur is that is that entrepreneurship is so vast and abstract that most people cannot understand what an entrepreneur does.

When you say "I'm an entrepreneur", the common reaction is a blank stare, and then the following question "so, what do you ACTUALLY do?"

In truth, entrepreneurs are responsible for the entire business, or multiple businesses. They hire, fire, delegate, select projects, start projects, finish projects, manage and even sometimes work in the business. However, the entrepreneur has 1 job that only he or she can perform.

A great businessman once said; "there are only two jobs that you cannot ever pay a person to do"; These are the job of the entrepreneur - everything else can be done by someone else.

The two jobs that cannot be done by anyone other than the entrepreneur are:

1) Think
2) Do things in the right order

In Michael Gerber's bestselling book "The E-Myth", Gerber explains that there are three roles that the entrepreneur must play when he or she starts a business:

1) They must be the Entrepreneur, the visionary who paints the broad strokes and has the energy and drive to start the business.
2) They must be the Manager, the person who oversees the operation and ensures that it functions efficiently and sustainably.
3) They must be the Technician and handle the daily transactional work in the business.

All tasks in an organization can be delegated or hired out to either a manager or employee and many organizations can run very efficiently on mostly Technicians and Managers. However, the Entrepreneur is responsible for all of the strategic thinking in the business and he or she must determine the right order of operations and proceedures.

No matter how good your technicians are or how good your managers and employees are, they can never replace you as an entrepreneur. They rely on you to think and create plans for them to execute.

So many businesses fail because the entrepreneur is negligent to think and appropriately delegate: A ship without a rudder always smashes up on the rocks.

I have broken the above rules many times in the past and have learned my lessons first hand. Today, I make sure that I am the only person in charge of the sacred tasks of the entrepreneur. To break this rule is to expose your venture to disaster.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio

Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Get Stefan Aarnio's book "Money People Deal: The Fastest Way to Real Estate Wealth" at MoneyPeopleDeal.com!

Remember: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Get Stefan Aarnio's book "Money People Deal: The Fastest Way to Real Estate Wealth" at MoneyPeopleDeal.com!

Remember: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

A wise man once said: " Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t." -Unknown

Everyone dreams of having the rewards of a successful entrepreneur. We all want more free time, less work, less stress, more money, more vacations, the best spouse possible, a great family, more satisfaction at work, a creative outlet, independence and more cheques in the mailbox than bills. However, everything in life has a price and usually in life, the higher the benefit, the higher the cost.

The truth is that entrepreneurship can provide all of the above benefits that we all want, but it can also become a burden that is far too costly for most to bear. Most employees have dreams and fantasies of quitting their job, firing their boss and living on a beach with lots of passive income. Many employees who have this kind of dream will join a network marketing company, start dabbling in investment real estate or start a traditional business. Some of these employees will dabble with entrepreneurship through all of the above methods and may eventually decide to make the leap and quit their job. However, very few survive.

Entrepreneurship has one of the highest failure rates out of any career path. There is no traditional school that teaches entrepreneurship correctly, and in reality, it is something that cannot be taught or learned from one source. It takes many years, many experiences, many sources of knowledge, coaches, mentors, seminars, books, tapes, mistakes, failures and relationships combined with consistency and a commitment to success at all costs to become victorious in entrepreneurship. The process takes at least 10 years, likely more, and it can never be mastered.

So why do most people fail?

In my opinion, most WANTrepreneurs (aka entrepreneurs who still have day jobs and practice business on the side) are generally crippled by one under-developed skill set.

What is more amazing is that this skill set is not even considered a skill by most educators and it is rarely taught (or poorly) taught in schools and business schools of the world.

The secret sauce that most entrepreneurs are missing is the ability to sell.

When an employee attempts to make the leap into entrepreneurship and then is forced back into his job because he cannot survive, it means that he cannot sell.

I have "quit my job" 3 times in my life. The first two times, I didn't know how to sell and foolishly quit without the adequate skills, credit or cash to survive. The third time I quit and never looked back.

What made me different on the third time? When I was ready to quit the third time, I had worked for a direct sales company and had learned how to become a top performer on the team. I knew how to hire, how to fire, how to train, sell, present, cold call, farm a database, build a database, put on events, sell from stage, fill events and watched my mentor build one of the fastest growing companies in Canada.

The experience was scary at times, it was stressful, uncomfortable and I wanted to quit, but I became successful at my vocation and earned the right to become a full time entrepreneur and never need my resumé again.

When you consider Robert Kiyosaki's cashflow quadrant (as it's displayed in the photo above), there are 4 quadrants. 2 of them actively work for money on the left, (the E for employee and S for self-employed), while the quadrants on the right (the B for large business owner and I for investor) do not work for money.

So many E's and S's dream of being on the right side of the quadrant and they wish they had residual "passive income" to fund their ultimate lifestyle, but they try to "make the leap" to the right side of the quadrant without knowing how to sell.

Selling is the difference between the left and the right. The right side of the quadrant must sell to survive and grow, the left mostly trades time for money.

Too often, people on the left try to go from the E quadrant and make the leap to the B or I without becoming an S or self employed. This, in my opinion, is one of the most dangerous moves a person can make.

The S quadrant is a great training ground for becoming an entrepreneur and it is the place that most professional salespeople live in. Robert Kiyosaki explains in his book that the most natural progression towards financial freedom is to start as an E (or employee), become a salesperson (self employed), then become a B or (Business owner) then finally end up as an I (or investor).

This progression is very natural and the skills learned in each quadrant compound on one another. For myself, I had been in the S quadrant for most of my life and my progression looks like this so far: S E S I

1) My first S - I was a self employed guitar teacher running an all cash business out of my mother's home in university

2) My first E - I was a phone sales employee taking inbound calls in the middle of the night.

I quit this job and tried to become a "B" (or business owner) and failed.

I then became a merchandiser "E" (or employee) stocking chips on shelves for one of the largest chips companies in the world.

I then quit my job and tried to become an "I" (or professional investor) (I failed and had to get a job)

3) After failing again on my own, I became an "S" again, worked for a direct sales company, got the skills I needed and built my own "I" (investor) company.

Today I am out of the rat race and run my own successful business. I work when I want to on projects that I am excited about and have the honour and privilege of growing the business of my dreams. My life is better in every way because I know how to sell. Selling is the #1 skill in my business and I continue to study it meticulously to become a superstar. As my sales skills improve, so does my income, and I love being in control of how much I earn.

Ever since I learned to sell, I have earned the right to operate in the "B" and "I" quadrants on the right side of the diagram and survival is no longer a concern for me. Instead of trying to "scrape by", I use my energy towards thriving, building a legacy of value and anything I set my sights on is possible!

Action Step: Can you survive on your sales skills alone? Have you become a student of selling? How can you benefit from improving your sales skills? Please share your comments below!

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Get Stefan Aarnio's book "Money People Deal: The Fastest Way to Real Estate Wealth" at MoneyPeopleDeal.com!

P.S: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Get Stefan Aarnio's book "Money People Deal: The Fastest Way to Real Estate Wealth" at MoneyPeopleDeal.com!

Remember: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

Jim Rohn, an american entrepreneur, once said "If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much."

I always struggled with the idea of getting a job. Some people call their job a J-O-B which stands for Just, Over, Broke.

From age 17 to 24 I struggled every year with employment. When I was in university, every summer, I had to go out and "get a job" to pay for next year's tuition. Every year I would procrastinate, the idea of a job bored me, and I felt in my heart that I didn't want to work for someone else. Every summer was different, I worked at Tim Hortons, local restaurants, odd painting jobs, and even had a short taste of direct sales. Nothing felt good and every year as the summer would approach I felt myself feeling depressed.

In 2008 when I graduated from university with an Arts degree, the game was over. My parents and society both agreed that it was time to leave the fantasy world of school and join the "real world" and get a "real job".

I had made most of my money in university by teaching guitar lessons out of my mother's living room and had made a good little cash business out of it. I also played numerous music gigs throughout the city and had experienced the life of being self-employed. Now that I was done school it was time to "wake up", shut down my little business and join the real work force.

I followed the advice of my parents, society and the status quo and got a real job in telephone sales. I worked in the middle of the night, on straight commission and although I was one of the top performers in the office, I only made about $10 an hour selling on the phone. My life was completely upside down, I was making less money at my "real job" than I was making it my guitar teaching business, my quality of life was the lowest it had ever been, and I was isolated by working the graveyard shift.

After a few weeks of working my real job, I fell into a depression. Everything I had done was "right". I went to school, got a degree, and got a job, but I was living a miserable life and was making less money than I made in school doing things I enjoyed less.

What was wrong with me?

Looking back, I realize that I was living a life of convenience, not a life of choice. Everything that was in my life came to me by way of convenience. Nothing was consciously chosen by me and this was the source of my unhappiness.

They say there are only two sources of unhappiness in the world:

#1 is not getting what you want
#2 is getting it (not what you want)

When we get something we do not want, unhappiness ensues.

The downward spiral of unhappiness and dissatisfaction continued for years until I learned to take control of my own mind and use it towards endeavours of my choice.

As the great Napoleon Hill writes in his book "Think and Grow Rich":

Everyone comes to this world with the privilege of controlling the power of his mind and directing it to whatever ends he may choose.

At birth, everyone carries the equivalent of two sealed envelopes:

1. The RICHES You May Enjoy If You Take Possession Of Your Mind & Direct It To The Ends Of Your Own Choice.
2. The PENALTIES You Must Pay If You Neglect To Take Possession Of Your Mind & Direct It

In the contents of the first envelope named RICHES are the following blessings:

• Health
• Peace Of Mind
• A Labor Of Love Of Your Own Choice
• Freedom From Fear And Worry
• Positive Mental Attitude
• Material Riches Of Your Own Choice & Quantity

In the envelope labeled PENALTIES are the prices one must pay for neglecting to take control his/her own mind:

• Ill Health
• Fear & Worry
• Indecision & Doubt
• Frustration & Discouragement Throughout Life
• Poverty & Want
• The Evils of Envy, Greed, Jealousy, Anger, Hatred and Superstition

For many years I allowed others to take control of my mind and I drifted through life living a life of convenience with very few elements being of my own choosing. After I hit "the bottom" through depression, poor health, fear, doubt, worry and debt, I began to design the life that I wanted.

Today, I have made drastic changes and every aspect of my life has been chosen by me. Perhaps there are parts that are not 100% of my choosing, but every single aspect is improving steadily towards my vision and my ideals.

All of the improvements in my life came from having a concrete vision of what I desired. I began to write down my goals, my wants, and my vision. I began to reverse engineer and design the life that I wanted. I am very happy to enjoy the blessings that Napoleon Hill names above and be free of the penalties he warns against.

In your own life, ask yourself: Are you living a life of convenience or a life of choice? If you are living a life of convenience, begin to write a vision plan detailing every aspect of your ideal life. When your vision is put into words and written down, the subconscious brain will begin working towards the life of your dreams.

Thanks for reading,
By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Get Stefan Aarnio's book "Money People Deal: The Fastest Way to Real Estate Wealth" at MoneyPeopleDeal.com!

Remember: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

By: Stefan Aarnio

Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Remember: Please share this article if you found it helpful

“We have this notion in America of the Lone Ranger/Batman type - you know - someone who takes on the world alone. But in reality, all successful people need help. We need advisors, coaches, lenders, customers, and clients. True we ourselves have to do the work, but our "team" that we put together - makes it all worth-while. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we can reach our goals.” – Robert Shemin

Although many entrepreneurs enter the field of business alone, achieving success in just about any field is impossible without a team.

This is especially true in business where “lone rangers” get squashed on a daily basis by teams of professionals.

1)   The local “mom and pop burger shop” gets wiped out by McDonalds,

2)   The local “mom and pop hardware store” gets crushed by Home Depot

3)   The local “mom and pop” department store gets destroyed by Wal-Mart.

These small “lone ranger” businesses may provide better services than Walmart; They may provide better burgers than McDonalds and they may offer more expertise than Home Depot. However, they cannot compete with teams of professionals that make up the talent at Wal-Mart, Home Depot or McDonalds.

One thing that separates “mom and pop” from the Walmarts, Home Depots and McDonalds is that “Mom and Pop” have to sleep: Walmart, Home Depot and Mcdonalds don’t.

Kevin O’Leary, Canadian Investment Guru, once said that he prefers investments that make money while he sleeps.

Investors make decent returns when their money grows during business hours... However, the same investors get rich when their money keeps working for them after they have gone to sleep.



In real estate investing, many investors don’t consider themselves to be entrepreneurs. Most investors manage their own properties, hammer their own nails, paint their own walls, lease their own suites and pick their own deals.

Most real estate investors do not get ahead because they are too busy pinching pennies at the $10 an hour level to make serious dollars at the CEO level.

In order to break out of the $10/hour mentality, it’s up to the entrepreneur to break the link between time and money.

Most of us are taught from an early age that:

Time = Money

In reality, time does not equal money:

·      Sales = money

·      Assets = money

·      Brand = money

·      Press = money

·      Information = money

When time equals money, we are stuck in an advanced form of slavery. We must trade hours for dollars. The problem with this model is that we only have a limited amount of hours and cannot make money while we sleep.

Sandman Empire: (noun) An empire of business or real estate created passively through a joint venture or partnership between a passive money partner and an active working partner. The active working partner handles all aspects of the business and the money partner is only responsible for financial backing. The passive partner is removed from all operations and can essentially sleep; hence the word “sandman”.

Investors who can create a “Sandman Empire” can earn serious returns in a completely passive way and have unlimited earning potential: Investors who fail to create a “Sandman Empire” are limited by time, focus, management, skill sets and capabilities.

But how can one create a “Sandman Empire”?

In investing, there are two types of investors: Active Investors and Passive Investors.

Active Investors are essentially entrepreneurs. They pick their own deals, manage their operations, manage their contractors and run the enterprise. Naturally, these entrepreneurs get the highest returns possible and in many ways, they take a risk on themselves to perform and run the enterprise profitably. Active investors may or may not invest money into their enterprise. Since they invest their entire lives into the business, usually they do not have money invested.

Passive Investors are more like silent partners who park their money with an Active Investor. Silent partners trust the Entrepreneur to run the enterprise profitably. Silent Partners need to be proficient at analyzing people and deals. These Passive Investors are the ones who get the benefits of building a “Sandman Empire” if they can select the right Entrepreneur to grow their money.

Usually passive investments have lower returns than active investments. However, Passive investors can get much higher returns by partnering with an Active Investor and splitting the profits.

If a Passive Investor can find the right Active partner, the possibilities are endless. When financial backing is paired with time and talent, tremendous value and profits can be created.

However, if the Active partner is not chosen correctly, massive financial destruction can occur; including losing the investor’s capital or worse.

A Passive Investor must perform proper due diligence on their Active Partner before “taking a leap of faith” and making a final decision to place their money with him or her.

Some questions that need be answered in the due diligence period are:

1)   Does the Active Investor have experience with these types of assets?

2)   Does the AI have experience with this strategy?

3)   How do we recover if things don’t go according to plan?

4)   Has the AI lost money before? How did he or she handle the loss?

5)   What is the track record of the AI, does it show success? Is he or she hiding anything?

6)   Has the AI built an adequate team? Can the team handle the additional business that the Passive Investor is funding?

7)   How has the AI handled himself when things went wrong? Can he turn bad luck into good luck?

8)   What transparency is offered?

9)   What options does the Passive Investor have to exit if things don’t go right?

10)                 Does the AI have good relationships? Is he loyal and in what way?

11)                 What is the brand of the AI? What does he stand for?

12)                 Is the AI 100% focused and committed to the venture or does he or she have a day job? Do you want a “weekend warrior” managing your money?

13)                 What is the X-factor for this AI? What makes him the over-the-top best choice for your dollars? Are you investing in someone who takes care of the details and provides an excellent product and experience? Or just another “real estate guy”?

If an Active Investor can provide satisfactory answers to all of these questions, then he or she is a prime candidate to build a “Sandman Empire”.

Of course you will have to trust and verify all of the answers to make sure that the “walk” matches the “talk”. When it comes to money, people will say whatever they have to get your dollars. Don’t be a victim of bad due diligence, put your potential partner through extensive scrutiny, ask the hard questions and make sure that you have a competent, trustworthy partner to build your empire while you sleep.

Thanks for reading,

Stefan Aarnio

Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

P.S: Please share this article if you found it helpful

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Remember: Please share this article if you found it helpful

If you were offered $35,000 a year to sit at a toll booth and collect change from cars crossing a bridge, would you take the job?

Or would you decline and look for the next opportunity?

What if you were paid $100,000, $200,000 or $300,000 for the same task? Would you take the job?

What if you were paid $1 a year to sit at the same tollbooth?

For myself, I would not sit at the tollbooth for any amount of money because money earned at the tollbooth is “dead money”.

We are human “be-ings” not human “do-ings”.

Daily tasks that help us become the person we want to become create life, energy and success. These tasks have purpose, feed our spirits and nourish our souls; By performing tasks we enjoy, we become the person we want to “Be”.

If a task or job does not bring us closer to the person we want to become, we earn dead money and in some ways, waste our time, effort and energy.

Eventually if you earn enough dead money, you won’t be able to get out of bed in the morning.

Dead money is a term I learned from Raymond Aaron, a New York Times best selling author. Raymond explained that the money he earned from his published books that were unaligned with his core purpose were “dead money”. In some ways, these books hurt his brand, wasted years of his life and were very expensive in opportunity cost.

In my own business, I make sure every action I do advances my career by building brand-equity or by earning cash AND brand equity. If I am able to monetize my actions and build my brand equity at the same time, I make the biggest gains in spirit and in my bank account.

My mentality is: Even if I earn $0 at the end of the year, but have built a $1,000,000 brand, I succeed. Steve Jobs paid himself a salary of $1 while he was the CEO at apple because his mission was to build the company and put a dent in the universe by challenging the status quo. I have a similar philosophy to Steve Jobs who I have idolized since 6th grade when I first learned about who he was and kept a picture of him on my desk at school.

I am fortunate enough to aware of my brand and purpose, the average person does not consider his or her brand, his brand equity, who he is, who he wants to become or where he is going in life. For the average person, this is very unfortunate.

These people are stuck in “dead end” jobs that are either high paying or low paying and every dollar they earn is a “dead dollar”. The dollars they earn do not build their dream or advance their career.

If you earn enough “dead dollars” you will eventually build the bars of an emotional prison.

Money is a medium of exchange and a currency because it needs to move in order to be relevant and useful like electricity or water.

If money stops moving, money dies.

If people stop moving for long enough, people die.

If the spirit stops moving, the spirit dies.

If you are earning money in your career, but are NOT moving towards becoming the person you wish to become, your career and spirit will eventually die.

Years ago I used to work Frito-Lay, the company that makes Lay’s chips and Doritos. I used to put chips on shelves at Wal-Mart every morning at 4:00 am and I earned a disproportionately high salary for doing so. Walmart employees stocking chips at 4:00am were making $8 per hour, I was making closer to $20 per hour to do the exact same task.

However, every dollar I earned was dead money.

The money was dead because although I was earning money daily, I was not advancing towards my goal of becoming an entrepreneur. The money was good, but my soul was dying. I was becoming a professional shelf stocker and not a professional entrepreneur. I was NOT advancing towards the person I wanted to become. The life that I wanted was not being built with my actions and consequently I was earning dead money that did not help me in my pursuit of happiness.

Many people think that earning money in itself is a good return on time, but in fact, earning dead money is a complete waste of time, waste of spirit and a waste of life.

Would you rather live a life of poverty doing what you love or a life of riches in a life of indifference?

Most people will say that they would rather do what they love and live in poverty. However, 70% of people are not happy with their current jobs or current careers.

70% of people earn dead money every day.

A wise man once said “Talk is cheap and money buys the whiskey.” What this wise man is saying is that most people say whatever makes them sound good: “I would rather do what I love” but their actions do not align with their words.

Remember: Talk is cheap and Money buys the whiskey.

I’m not saying that we should choose a life of poverty out of passion to pursue what we love. I’m a firm believer that we can “have our cake and eat it too”.

I think it’s 100% possible to do what you love, monetize it and become rich. 

I believe you can have it all, happiness, love and money. When it comes to happiness, love and money; there is always enough for everyone.

Obtaining happiness and money is a topic of major study for myself at this time in my life. What I find is that the more I love my career, the more I love my daily routine, the more fun I enjoy, and the more money I make.

Fun = money.

Love = money.

Enthusiasm = money.

Money = life.

The more fun, love and enthusiasm I enjoy, the more life I have, and my wallet benefits as well.

I have abandoned the pursuit of “dead money” and if a task or job doesn’t line up with my mission, my vision and who I want to become, I will not perform it.

Do what you love and the money always comes.

Complete the mission and the money always comes.

Provide enough value and the money always comes.

Money is a result of a job well done; it is an effect, not a cause. Actions performed at a level of excellence equate to money earned. Money itself can never motivate someone to be better, achieve excellence or create more value because money intrinsically has no value.

Money is intrinsically dead, we are the ones who breathe life into money. People are the ones who attach external value to money and we use it to build our dreams.

Money is neutral and money doesn’t care. Money doesn’t cry for you when you are sad and money won’t drink champagne with you when you want to celebrate.

Money will, however, buy you a bottle of champagne.

Money can either be alive or dead depending on how we earn it. It is up to us as the wielders of money to respect the neutrality of money, breathe life into money and allow money to flow through us in our personal pursuit of happiness.

Money, life, spirit, happiness, enthusiasm and joy are all currencies and we must allow them to flow.

If we allow money, life, spirit, happiness, enthusiasm and joy to flow through us, we will become congruent. We will prove our integrity and the universe will reward us for respecting it’s laws and creating abundance.

If we shut off our spirit, enthusiasm and joy, then we also deactivate the spiritual power of money and the power of life.

If we deactivate the spiritual power of money, the money we earn will die the moment it touches our hands. Instead of using our earned money to build our dreams, our dead money will build an emotional prison around us where we are forced into slavery for the all-mighty dollar.

When we align with the person we want to become, we earn the Midas touch and everything we touch turns to gold. When we are out of alignment, we earn the touch of death.

Ask yourself; do my daily actions help me become the person I want to become? Am I earning dead money? What is my purpose? How am I achieving my purpose?


We all have the Midas touch if we can find our purpose deep down inside of ourselves. Respect money as a tool; respect the neutrality of money and the power of money. Allow money to live and money will let you live the life of your dreams.

Disobey money, kill money and you will find yourself in financial prison. Don’t let money die.

Protect money and it will protect you.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio

Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

P.S: Please share this article if you found it helpful

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Remember: Please share this article if you found it helpful

“Suppose a farmer has some land, and it's good, fertile land. The land gives the farmer a choice; he may plant in that land whatever he chooses. The land doesn't care. It's up to the farmer to make the decision.

We're comparing the human mind with the land because the mind, like the land, doesn't care what you plant in it. It will return what you plant, but it doesn't care what you plant.

Now, let's say that the farmer has two seeds in his hand- one is a seed of corn, the other is nightshade, a deadly poison. He digs two little holes in the earth and he plants both seeds-one corn, the other nightshade (a deadly poison). He covers up the holes, waters and takes care of the land…and what will happen? Invariably, the land will return what was planted.

As it's written in the Bible, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap."

Remember the land doesn't care. It will return poison in just as wonderful abundance as it will corn. So up come the two plants – one corn, one poison.”

-Earl Nightingale

Earl Nightingale who was one of the best self-development minds of all time had an unbeatable analogy for the human mind.

Nightingale compared the human mind to a fertile piece of land where we can plant whichever seeds we choose to plant.

The mind is neutral and much like fertile land and will return whatever we choose to plant.

What I find amazing on a day-to-day basis is to see what people plant in the fertile earth of the mind.

Instead of studying success, listening to lectures, reading books on success, attending seminars, creating visions, creating plans, and visualizing what we want; most people fill their brains with garbage.

Most people “mind feed” on mainstream news, mainstream radio, CNN, Fox News, Dr. Phil, Maury, daytime television, infomercials, video games, soap operas, sitcoms, Hollywood movies, magazines, pornography and trash fictional novels (which can also be pornography aka fifty shades of grey).

Finish this sentence…

Garbage in…

Garbage out?

Most people will finish the sentence “garbage in” with “garbage out” implying that if we put garbage into our brains, we will receive garbage as output.

The truth is, the results are much worse…

In reality, Garbage goes in, it festers and multiplies by three. “Garbage” has “Garbage Babies who turn out to be triplets” and morphs into a debilitating emotional cancer.

All of the above “garbage” in our mind feed sources can create a cesspool of poison in our emotional brain that breeds fear and inhibits our ability to take action.

We are given the most powerful, fertile land known to man and unfortunately; most of us are negligent farmers who fail to plant corn.

Even worse, instead of planting corn, or better yet – planting NOTHING; we plant an abundance of the deadliest poison of all.

THE DEADLIEST POISON

If good, clean, positive, empowering, affirming thoughts are corn, then what thoughts account for the deadliest poison?

Steve Chandler, a man who spent the majority of his life studying how the brain works as an psychological warfare specialist, defines the brain as working in one of two ways:

1)   The brain either functions with an OWNERSHIP mentality

2)   OR the brain functions with a VICTIM mentality

The ownership mentality represents the brain working as it was designed and this is where creativity, success, opportunity, fearlessness, and happiness come from.

Those of us with an ownership mentality are planting corn on a daily basis.

The opposite of an ownership mentality is a victim mentality. The victim mentality is the exact polar opposite of the way that the brain actually works. From an early age, through school and traditional upbringings, most children are taught to use their brain in the exact opposite way that it functions.

We teach people in our school systems to plant nightshade instead of corn and most people plant far more nightshade then corn every day.

Lets briefly compare an OWNERSHIP mentality to a VICTIM mentality.

18 differences between an OWNER and a VICTIM:

1)   Owners are Positively charged, Victims are negatively charged.

2)   Owners are happy from the inside (all children are born happy), Victims believe that happiness comes from the outside.

3)   Owners see and seek opportunity; Victims expect to have opportunities “presented” to them.

4)   Owners use the brain for creating; Victims do not create and feel needy instead.

5)   Children are born as owners: 90% of young children believe that they are good at poetry, dancing and singing. Most adults have become conditioned to be victims: 75% of people aged 30+ believe they have no ability at dancing, singing and poetry

6)   Owners are fearless; victims are fearful

7)   Owners actively seek wisdom in every experience; they say “what can I get from this situation”? While Victims turn their brain off and passively float from experience to experience. Victims say “I don’t want to know” or “I’m trying to get through this experience”.

8)  Owners actively create situations, Victims passively react to situations

9)  Owners are the authentic YOU; Victims are YOU reduced down to an animal level

10) Owners say “I use life”’; Victims say “life uses me”

11) You were born an Owner; Victims are “added on” to your personality through conditioning.

12) Owners say empowering words of intent like “I want to”, “I will”, “I Choose to”; Victims say de-motivating words that crash the higher brain functions like “I should”.

13) Owners eat to live; Victims live to eat

14) Owners pull up their socks and complete tasks that others don’t want to do. It’s “horrible” to work 12 hours a day towards a goal that you have chosen. However, Victims take no action and live life as “miserable”. Life is a choice between the horrible and the miserable.

15)  Owners have an internal self-rewarding belief system. Victims have an external belief system that was inherited from someone else.

16) Owners operate from a place of LOVE while Victims operate from a place of FEAR.

17) Owners find satisfaction in measuring small improvements and tasks over time. Victims seek success with an “all or nothing” mentality. If they don’t have 6 pack abs after 10 sit-ups, they quit.

18) Owners create a vision of who they want to be and start living in that reality NOW while Victims are living a life as one half cynic and one half skeptic.

In my own mind, I have become a diligent farmer and have “weeded out” most of the nightshade that has grown in my brain. To me, planting corn is very important and I have hired a coach to ensure that I can produce the best crops possible.

The mind can be a brilliant machine that creates wonderful art, health, wealth and life or it can be a prison that kills dreams.

Take some time to go through the list of the 18 differences between owner and victim mentality and isolate any limiting beliefs you may have.

Strive to become a diligent farmer and produce the sweetest crop of corn that has ever grown.


Thanks for reading,

Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

P.S: Please share this article if you found it helpful

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Remember: Please share this article if you found it helpful!

Two men are laying brick, and one man is miserable. He lays brick after brick and curses each brick as it’s laid upon mortar. The other man is excited and filled with joy to be laying the exact same brick.

What makes these two men different?

One man has vision: he is building a beautiful cathedral.


The other does not: he is merely laying brick.

These men are identical men, performing an identical task in an identical way, but one is energized and overjoyed while the other miserable and depressed.

I recently hired a coach to take my life and business to the next level. The first thing my coach had me do was fill out my “vision” board. I was unprepared for a vision board because I had not spent much time creating a vision for my business and myself.

After being assigned to create a vision, I started to spend serious time to thinking and took action to construct the vision that will fuel my life and my business.

What do I want my life to look like? What do I want my home to look like? What do I want my health to look like? What do I want my bank account to look like? What do I want my workday to look like? Etc.

The list goes on.

Vision is so powerful because once we have a great vision, we can literally reverse engineer our reality from the blueprints of a great vision.

Just like the two men, one can see the lines of a cathedral in his vision and he feels like he is contributing to a larger mission and a beautiful creation.

The other man can only see bricks and mortar. Each brick he lays is painful, his body is exhausted and he works like a slave.

Which man would you rather be?

After becoming more conscious of vision and spending some time to create my own “vision plan”, I feel like I can no longer offer advice to the people who ask me for advice.

When someone asks me for advice, I always ask, what his or her vision is.

It startles me to find out that very few people have visions for their lives. Most people are satisfied with just laying brick. Only a very select few are building a cathedral.

Many people have goals, hopes, and dreams but few have a vision. The vision, in many ways is more far more powerful than transactional goals, baseless hopes and action-less dreams.

The reason why I prefer a vision plan to all of the above is because a vision can be reverse engineered into actionable steps that can be executed each day.

Goals are often one-dimensional, hopes are for the hopeless and dreams are for dreamers. However, a strong vision that has been reverse engineered into daily actionable steps is unstoppable.

We must create the vision of our cathedral and then begin laying brick – one brick at a time.

If we are consistent and persistent in our “bricklaying” actions, eventually our Cathedral will begin to manifest and the vision will come to life.

The people with the strongest visions are the leaders in all facets of life. Visionaries like; Steve Jobs, Gandhi, and Henry Ford all saw the world differently and worked towards their vision.

Through a powerful vision, reverse engineering of that vision into a blueprint, and execution of the small actionable steps of the blueprint, the world can be changed one “brick” at a time.

The future belongs to those of us with strong visions, clear blueprints for achieving the vision and a specific plan of daily actionable steps.

In your life today, are you laying brick or building a cathedral?

Whose cathedral are you building? Your own? Or someone else’s?

Thanks for reading,

Stefan Aarnio

Freedomway.ca

facebook.com/stefanaarnio

https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio

http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

P.S. Please share this article if you found it helpful!