Lifestyle Millionaire

Share Your Passion. Help People. Build Your Brand and Freedom.

Akira Iguchi

• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781683501923
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Small Business
• Index: Business

Lifestyle Millionaire gives readers the roadmap to take their passion and turn it into a thriving business.

Building and growing a company doesn't have to be hard, learn the steps to take your business to the next level while building your dream lifestyle. The success principles found here allow you to bridge the gap with the struggles as an entrepreneur, online Marketer, coach or speaker and blaze a trail to success as a Lifestyle Millionaire.

Even if you have a business, the pages within give you the edge you're looking for to crush plateaus, create new products or an entirely new brand. Most people wish and hope they had their own business, but never take the necessary actions to achieve it. It's time to stop surviving and start creating your millionaire lifestyle today.

CHAPTER ONE

WHAT IS YOUR PASSION?

I have said that this book is about your passion. What is a passion? Far more than interest or excitement, a passion is a compelling enthusiasm or deep desire for something. Passions are inclinations and desires carried to a high degree of intensity. When you are deeply passionate about something, that thing draws you, consumes you; it’s never far from your thoughts. You have a commitment to it, an abiding relationship with it; you want to know all you can about it.

What does this book have to do with passion? The answer is that your passion or natural bent or inclination is the starting point for building on the model of business success the book is all about. The business plan you will read about starts with the person who is reading about it: you. Rather than asking you to conform to some general, one-size-fits-all plan, we start with what is natural and right already for you—your passion. That’s why the first key to the success in following this plan is to . . .

“BE WHERE YOU ARE, OTHERWISE YOU WILL MISS YOUR LIFE.”

BUDDHA

Does this rule seem simple or obvious? Simple it may be, but it definitely is not obvious. Why else would most people start their search for enterprise by looking to see what and who else is out there? Look around you. Virtually everything you see, hear, feel, taste, and touch is there because of the ideas and efforts of others.

Of course, this pertains to the matter of work and livelihood as well. Few people start out working for themselves. Instead, they look for jobs created by others. So it is tempting to wonder, “Where is my place? Where do I fit in?” Unless you have had a parent, teacher, coach, or friend who strongly advised you to look within yourself for direction—to listen to your own mind, to decide what you wanted and go after it—you have likely tended to follow the example set by those around you and looked “out there” to know where you were going. If you did not have such an influence, consider this book as such a guiding voice, and ponder the rule—the one that is simple but not so obvious—to begin where you are.

As you read my story, you will see that I tended to make that same assumption, implicit in the lives of those around me, that it was proper to listen to others’ voices. Also, as you will see, that outward direction did not work for me.

My rise to the top wasn’t easy.

Like many people who have created their own success on their own terms, my ambition was born out of adversity. When you think of the world’s top leaders and innovators, they’re usually not people who were born rich or who were the most popular in school or even who played by all the rules in life. They’re people who thought a little differently, who wanted something more, who were a bit of an outsider marching to their own drum, but who always knew that somehow, some time, someway, they would succeed on their own terms. The question was, how?

When I was a teenager growing up in Japan, I had a very difficult time. I didn’t fit in to the culture of conformity. The kids that did were quick to fall in line, to go along with the crowd, to be agreeable, friendly, and mild. I was different—outspoken, opinionated, with hardly a care about what other people thought. It wasn’t that I was uncaring. I just wanted to say what I wanted to say and do what I wanted to do. I was naturally free spirited. Alas, in Japan being free spirited spelled disaster, socially.

I was the nonconforming bird in school, and so the pecking began, first as teasing, and finally as brutal bullying. It became so bad that I ended up changing schools a total of five times between middle and high school.

Perhaps as you read this part of my story you were wondering: What has this to do with passion? The answer is one of the most powerful ways to find your passion: struggle. Ask yourself:

• How have I struggled in life?

• When were things really difficult for me?

• What was I up against?

• How did I overcome it?

The last question is the clue, for in overcoming the difficulty you opened the way to a new phase of your life. I will shortly be suggesting other ways to find your passion, but the first one is to look at that for which you have fought and conquered.

A POSSIBILITY IN TIME

We will shortly return to the subject of finding your passion—which you now know is the place to “begin where you are.” Meanwhile, I will ask you to consider building a business on your passion. Perhaps this is the first time you are being asked to consider taking what you have long been passionate about and making it into a business. How would that work? Let’s consider an example.

Suppose your passion is holistic health. You are interested—no, you are passionate!—about the subject. You read up on it, you follow its principles of diet, exercise, and holistic medicine to keep yourself healthy. You even talk about it with friends and family, seeking to interest them in following a course of right eating, etc., that a philosophy of holistic health prescribes.

But have you ever thought of yourself as a professional coach in the field of holistic health? Have you ever entertained the thought that your passion could have some earning potential, that you could use your know-how about this rich subject to attract clients who would pay you to coach them in learning and following what you have gleaned by focusing your attention in this field? Or perhaps, instead of health, your passion is birds, or flying, or art, or travel. Whatever it is, can you begin to entertain the possibility of turning that passion into a Lifestyle Millionaire Coaching business?

ENTREPRENEURSHIP: A GROWING TREND

Entrepreneurs are individuals who identify a change that needs to happen and who realize that they are the ones who need to bring that change forward. In my early twenties I became passionate about being a pioneer—one who opens the way for an enterprise to take root and grow.

In my first year as a college student in America, I had become excited about the personal growth movement that was taking place in this country. When I returned to Japan, I realized that the movement had not really taken off in a similar way there. So I determined to be the instigator, the one who lights a match to start a conflagration that would sweep across my homeland as it was sweeping across the United States.

A report sponsored by Babson College and Baruch College finds that 27 million working-age Americans—a record high of nearly 14%--are starting or running new businesses. A growing number of people consider entrepreneurship an attractive career option. Fifty-one percent of the working population believes good opportunities for starting businesses exist, the first time that figure has risen above half. So if you think it may be time for you to take your passion to the next level, you are in good company.

CLARIFYING YOUR PASSION

If you are to consider building a business around your passion, it follows that you need to be crystal clear about what that passion is. How clear are you about your passion? Perhaps you are so sure about what it is that it came immediately to mind as you read the above description of a passion. On the other hand, maybe you’re not quite sure what your passion is. If that is the case, read on. There are certain indicators that help identify a passion, even in its formative state. As you read the following part of my early life story, you will see that I did not know what my passion was. Nevertheless, the seed of that passion was already there in me. See if you can discern, even through the difficulties describe, the germ of a desire that might lead eventually to my passion.

At an early age, I may not have known what my passion was, but I certainly knew what my passion was not: conformity. For as long as I can remember, I have been unreservedly opposed to following standard patterns of thought and action. Nonconformity was, and still is, a natural inclination of mine. I never set out to be a rebel; it’s just that every time I try to follow the pack, something inside me tells me to stop. Even at this early stage, I was unable to fit the model, unwilling to fall in line, and unprepared to behave like everyone else. This marching to my own drum has caused me a lot of pain and suffering.

That was before I learned how to use it to my advantage.

PASSION INDICATORS

There are several indicators you can use to better discern your passion. Let’s look at five of them now: investment, inclination, dream, motivation, and giving.

1. The Investment Indicator

When I started my pioneering efforts in Japan, I spent a lot of time examining people’s interests. I asked, “What are people passionate about?”

Right away, I noticed a strong, widespread interest in learning ...