Harv Eker is one of North America’s most exciting instructors.   He has worked with and shared the stage with some of the top authors and speakers in the world including: Mark Victor Hansen,  Jack Canfield, Wayne Dyer, Robert Allen, Jay Abraham, Jay Conrad  Levinson and Richard Carlson.     

He teaches using ‘breakthrough’ techniques and high involvement  “accelerated learning” technologies that help people learn faster, remember  more and achieve maximum results. The change in his students is immediate and permanent.  Over 200,000 people have attended his courses.    

Eker’s motto is “talk is cheap.” His unique ability is getting people to take “action” in the real world to produce real success. He combines a unique brand of ‘street-smarts with heart’.    

Harv is the founder of the ‘Street Smart Business School’ in San Diego and president of ‘Peak Potentials Training’, the fastest growing personal development company in North America.    

Using the principles of the Millionaire Mind, that he teaches, Harv Eker went from zero to millionaire in only two and a half years. In this month’s interview, we’re going to find out exactly how he did it, and how you can apply these principles in your life too.

Liz: Harv, you say you went from 0 to Millionaire in two and a half years. How on earth did you do that?

Harv: Well, I guess my claim to fame is that I owned at least a dozen different businesses before I hit the age of 30. In one of those businesses I opened one of the first retail fitness stores in all of North America.

And the interesting thing is that I started that business with $2000 I borrowed on my Visa card. From there I was able to open 10 locations in only 2 1⁄2 years. Then I sold half my company shares to the H. J. Heinz Corporation—you know, the Ketchup people—for $1.6 million dollars. So that’s how I did it.

Liz: Wow, 2000 bucks from a credit card to 1.6 million. That’s from 0 to Millionaire, for sure. tactics of The Millionaire Mind. So can you tell us exactly what The Millionaire Mind is? 

Harv: Well, I can’t say that I did this only by The Millionaire Mind, but I had some businesses prior to that that didn’t work out really well.

Two things, first of all, I learned some business strategies that were important definitely.

But, you know, you can have the greatest business strategies in the world but if you don’t have the mindset to go along with them, you won’t use them. And if you do use them you will sabotage them somehow.

So The Millionaire Mind is what transformed me, personally, to a person that really understood that the inner world really does create the outer world.

There is a big difference in the way rich people think and the way poor and middle class people think. And it is this thinking that makes person becomes financially successful or not.   

Liz: Going along those same lines. Rich people don’t usually think that there are money problems, and often, poor people do. What would you say to somebody who thinks they have money problems?  

Harv: Well, the obvious thing that I would say now that I know what I’m doing... (Laughter)...is that we live in a world of cause and effect. Money is a result. Wealth is a result.

Health is a result. Illness is a result. Your weight is a result. And most people call the lack of money a problem.

But a lack of money is never, ever, ever, ever a problem. A lack of money is merely a symptom of what is going on underneath and in their inner world, their mental, the emotional, and even their spiritual realm.

You know, in the universe, everything is created twice. First on the inside, and then on the outside. First in the mind and then in reality.

You know that the only way you can change your outer world, especially if you want to change it permanently, is to first change your inner world.

There has to be a massive change on the inside of who you are and how you think. When you change your true beliefs on the inside, that will transform to the outside.

So very simply, money is a result. And if you are not getting the results you want financially, it has got very little to do with what is happening on the outside.

Because the outside has very little to do with what is happening on the inside. If you want to make the change permanently, you will need to make the change where it can be permanent.

In your permanent way of thinking, feeling and acting. And the result is either success or not. For me, the biggest turn around came when I went from being over anxious towards money to, “I wasn’t doing so great.”

I said, “You know what, this isn’t working. I am not happy. I am not making it. I’ll go another route.” 

So, I started studying Zen Buddhism, and the whole spiritual side of things. I really enjoyed that, but the belief system that I modeled there, was that money is not important.

It is not a thing in your life at all. Success is not important. Just be “in the moment” and all that. 

That was great but I found that my money was doing even worse! My old way didn’t work, this way wasn’t working. I wasn’t happy. 

I thought, “Isn’t there some kind of nice balance here? I’d like to have both. I’d like to be very spiritual and be very loving and very giving and very in the moment and meditate, and do yoga, and be really rich.

Liz: (Laughter) Those concepts aren’t mutually exclusive, right?   

Harv: What a concept! That is when I started my work on The Millionaire Mind Intensive. When I did that work, everything changed for me.

I started to recognize that my beliefs were not who I was. That I could choose them for the time I was in, and I could “rechoose” them later, actually installing new ways of thinking – new information patterns and thought patterns into my own mind using this work.

I found I could do things that are supportive to both of those things. I had a mindset that said, you can be rich and spiritual, then that’s what was created.

That is exactly what I did. I transformed my own way of thinking to one that allowed me to be what I wanted. I changed my money blueprint to one that allowed me to do well in business, and hopefully be a very nice guy too, help a lot of people, still do my meditations, still do my yoga, still be very spiritually oriented.

I am very, very fortunate. Over the last several years—it’s been about 12 to 14 years now—not only have I been fortunate enough to go the spiritually based route – I am talking from the standpoint of spirituality, and being a loving person, connected with the universe, and being a conscious person – but I don’t make any bones about it.

I am a multi- multi- multi- multi- multi- multi millionaire. I think that it’s fantastic and I hope that other people can model me.

I didn’t have any models before. The only models I had were people that had talked a little bit about money, but talked about it in a way that was kind of foreign to me. I just couldn’t get it.

People like Deepak Chopra who was just a fantastic model. You know, here is this guy who is extremely conscious, very enlightened, and very rich. And makes no bones about it.

And I make even less bones about it. I say spirituality is great and if you want to live a monk’s life and you really, really want that, then just do it.

But for most people they are looking more for a bit of a balance. They would love to have that and they would love to be very successful too.

Why not have the beautiful things that life can offer? Go to see places, and be able to travel. Have the nice things. Have the beautiful home.

I am looking at about 15 boats in the harbor here, out of West Vancouver. I am a totally blessed person, however, I didn’t get blessed before I started doing this type of stuff.

I had to work on the inside. I had to work on my money blueprint. This is my life’s work now.

You know what, now we have taken this work to a whole new level, the good thing about the blueprints is that you can change them on the spot.

You can actually transform them right there. Most people who come to our Millionaire Mind Intensive program — we have usually over a thousand people at each one — most people walk in the door with one blueprint and, they walk out with a different blueprint.

Liz: Well, how do you figure out what your blueprint is?

Harv: We do it primarily through looking at the programming that you’ve got. So again, the easiest way is to look at the completed picture – at your result.

Whether you are a spender, whether you are a saver, whether you are an investor, whether you manage money well, or mismanage money well.

Look at whether you struggle for money. Or whether it is easy for you. Whether you argue around money, or whether you don’t argue around money.

Look at all these. Look at your income. All that stuff. That stuff is the picture of the outcome of your blueprint.

Basically, if the temperature of the room is 72 degrees, chances are the thermostat is set for 72 degrees. Now here’s the thing. Is it possible that the windows are open in the room? That it’s hot outside and that somehow the temperature could go up to 77?

Liz: Yes.

Harv: Absolutely. However, what will eventually happen? The thermostat will eventually kick in and drop it down to 72. And is it possible that the temperature of the room is 72 and the windows are open and it gets cold, that the temperature could go down to 65?

Sure. But what will eventually happen? The thermostat will kick in and bring it back to 72. So what I am saying is that no matter what you do, you can take sales courses, you can take business courses, you can take financial courses, and learn.

You can do everything else. But it doesn’t really matter on a long- term basis if your thermostat is not set for success. If it is not set for a specific type of success — which we help people do.

All of those things will only be temporary. They will be helpful, but it will be temporary because eventually, the thermostat will kick in and bring you back to where you are “supposed” to be.

One of the most amazing things in the program is that we actually change people’s blueprint right on the spot. And when you change that blueprint, it is changed permanently. You cannot think the same way you did before.

We actually take the files in people’s minds — because everything is just stored in files — and we alter them. Some files we totally and radically change, take out the stuff that was in there and put in stuff that is supportive to happiness and success.

And other files, other roots, are so deep that it is very hard to rip them out because they will leave a big gaping hole that will feel really weird. So then, what we do is we neutralize it.

It is almost like taking a weed outside and spraying it, pour some neutralizer on it. So that the thing eventually just withers and dies because of suffocation or lack of energy.

Again, that is what we do right at the program. When people walk out of there, they are different people. The beautiful thing about this is that it is not just about money.

Because again, money is a result. We work on the whole “beingness.” Four different quadrants, the mental, the emotional, the spiritual, and the physical.

And here is the issue: the one quadrant that you don’t work on is the one that will take you down. 

Liz: That makes sense. So when you are changing a blueprint, and you work on all four areas... is that what makes the change so fast? 

Harv: I believe so. You have to work on all four quadrants, because we are holistic beings, you cannot affect one part without affecting the other.

That is why when we work on the money arena, it works on the happiness and the inner peace arena too - because it is all one thing basically. I recognize how powerful it is, because it changed everything for me.

I made that my life’s work even though I was still teaching business, I knew that this is what really did it for me. I started developing this, and now, am known, as the foremost expert in this arena.

We’ve worked with over 200, 000 people and made radical changes in their lives. Most of our students come from word of mouth. What’s happened is that people come back and their friends say, “What’s happened to you?? You think differently, you look differently. Look what’s happening in your life now, what’s going on??”

They tell them and then, some people call up out of the blue and say I’ve gotta go to this thing. We are just totally blessed; I am totally blessed to be even a part of this. You know, one thing that most people don’t realize is that money will only make you more of what you already are. 

If you are a mean person, yeah, you can be more mean when you have money to throw around and overpower people if that is what you are like. If you are a generous and beautiful person, then money is just going to allow you to be more generous and more beautiful to people. 

Liz: That’s awesome.

Harv: That’s all it can do, it’s only energy, right? And people don’t get that. They think that money is going to change them.

Here’s what I say to my students. “So the reason you are not going to get rich, or the reason you are not going to go for wealth is because you think money is going to change you?

Let’s make a deal, instead of talking about this, and thinking about this, listening to other people’s opinions, why don’t you just get rich and then you will see for yourself. And if it changes you, then you can give your money to me!”

Liz: (Laughter) Okay it’s a deal.... That’s great.

Harv: People have these ideas about things, these belief systems and they just want be “right”. One of the things we say in our program is “You can be right or you can be rich, but not usually both.” 

You can be right and keep to your own ways. And if you are not doing so well right now, then maybe you just want to choose to be rich and let go of some of your ways of thinking and being.

One of the things we do in our program is that we show people that you are not who you think you are. Your conditioned mind, your ego mind is not who you are. 

You have a higher self that can observe what your ego self is doing and consciously you can make some changes. Now in our programs we work on the subconscious at the same time.

Certainly we do some conscious fun stuff, but most of the things we do are unconscious. We work so radically on the unconscious that you just don’t even think that way any more. 

Liz: Wow, alright, say we have this blueprint that is middle class, or poor, or even just not as rich as we want to be. How do we move from that blueprint into the blueprint of a richer person?

Harv: One of the things that we start with is just simply awareness. One thing that we talk about is that rich people believe, “I create my life,” and poor people believe, “Life happens to me.”

Poor people and middle class people often believe that. If you want to create real wealth, it is important to believe that you are at the steering wheel of your life, especially your financial life.

You are the one that creates your success. You are the one creating your mediocrity. You are the one creating your struggle. Instead of taking responsibility for their lot in life, poor people and many middle class people often play the role of the victim.

And you can always tell a victim because they leave clues. Now, I am sure that this doesn’t apply to anyone who is reading this at this point in time.

Liz: Of course not. (Laughter)

Harv: But in case you know somebody like this, have them tune in to this interview. Here are a couple of clues that you can tell that you are playing the victim.

By the way, if you notice, I never said that you are a victim; I said that you are playing the role of the victim. The first clue is blame. Poor people blame the economy; they blame their type of business. They blame the stock market.

They blame their job. They blame the real estate market, taxes, and the government. They blame their employer, they blame their employees, they blame their managers.

They blame their upline they blame their downline. It’s always something else. It’s always someone else. It’s always headquarters, or this or whatever it is.

Then they justify their situation by saying something like, “Well, you know, money is not really important.” Let me ask you a question. If you said that your husband or your wife or that your boyfriend or girlfriend wasn’t really important, would they be around for very long?

Liz: I don’t think so.   

Harv: Exactly. And neither would money. People come up to me in the programs that I do, and they say, you know Harv, money is not that important. And I look them square in the eye and I say “I have two words for you”.

And they go, “Really what are they?”

And I go, “You’re broke! You’re broke aren’t you?” “Well, right now, I am a little short.” And I say, “Not right now... Always. You have always been broke, yes or yes?”

And then they blibber or blabber, well...well...well... Of course, they are broke. If you didn’t think that having a car was important would you have one? If you didn’t think having a sailboat was important would you have one?

If you don’t think that money is important would you have any? Of course not! There are no rich people who think that money isn’t important. They know that money is important.

Now, of course, certain people — broke people — always tell you well, “Money isn’t as important as love.” Where’s the comparison there? What is more important your arm or your leg?

Maybe they are both important. Money does what it does in its environment. And love does what it does. Why don’t you try this? Why don’t you go to the bank, and tell the bank teller that you want to deposit some love, and see what she says to you, all right?   

Liz: She’ll probably scream, “Security!” (Laughter)   

Harv: For sure, you can’t replace love with money or happiness. They are two different worlds completely. A rich person would never say that...money isn’t important...

      > interview Page 2

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T. Harv Eker is author of the book Secrets of the Millionaire Mind  - which “identifies the money and success blueprint engrained in our subconscious minds - this blueprint, more than anything, will determine our financial lives.”

He also leads the Millionaire Mind seminar

and Millionaire Mind Tele-class

related Talent Development Resources pages:

achievement / personal development programs.....

achievement : articles

achievement : books

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