Millionth Dollar (eBook)

The Guru

The Guru was just starting to become well known. He himself was an incredible businessperson. He had huge successes in building businesses, growing sales, and building relationships. People who had the opportunity to work with him often had a golden ticket to accelerated success in their business and in their personal relationships. So this was a huge gift to Rich and Joe.

They began a three-day workshop. The topic was “Strategic selling.” In essence, this was a three-day workshop focused on how to build relationships and navigate a customer’s buying cycle.

Joe and Rich were both interested in the content and found it incredibly useful! By the end of day three, both were filled with new ideas to build their businesses and continue to achieve goals their company set for them.

It was Friday now and almost 4pm, so both Joe and Rich were ready to get out of there and start the weekend.

Then The Guru said something to both. “Now you both know how to build your businesses. I have no doubt you will be successful. I want to offer you one bonus class if you’d like to take your life to the next level.”

Joe is sitting there thinking to himself; “We are all set! You taught us how to sell and how to build our businesses. We can go and make tons of commissions with what you gave us. Plus, I have plans tomorrow, it’s Saturday!”

Rich asked one question. “What do you mean by taking your life to the next level?”

The Guru looked at him and said, “Let’s meet tomorrow at 5am. This time let’s meet on the walking trail down by the water.”

Bonus Day 1…Rich Shows Up, Joe Does Not

Realizing Joe isn’t going to show, The Guru turns to Rich and says, “For his life, he will be constantly chasing and full of frustration. I teach people to get what they want… more sales, more money, a bigger job—but very few take me up on learning these skills that you’ve shown up to learn. I want to teach you how to master yourself. If you can do that, you won’t just be great at sales…you will have great relationships, you will feel more confident and content and most importantly, you will find joy in the small things. I can teach you to lead a very rich life.”

Rich is intrigued. “Tell me how I can master myself!”

“You already started with number one. You are up early and showed up.”

Eager to continue, Rich asks, “What’s next?”

Come back tomorrow and I’ll tell you number 2,” says The Guru. “Same time, 5 am.”

The Next Day: They Went For a Walk

The Guru asks, “What is it that you want? How do you want to be remembered?”

“I’m not really sure,” replies Rich. “I just want to be successful and comfortable.”

“Don’t we all.” replies The Guru. “But what does that actually mean to you?”

“Well, I guess I imagine that I’ll need to be rich if I want to be successful and comfortable.” Rich replies.

“I teach people how to make money.” replies The Guru. “I show them ways to achieve what they want. Most of them have plenty of money to live a modest life and some even have enough to live an extravagant life. But most of them are actually stressed with the excess money. They stress over how to invest it, how to make it grow, and then struggle with how to deal with all the stresses it has brought them. In fact, you aren’t doing so bad yourself, I presume. Do you really think a lot more money will solve everything for you?”

Rich answers further. “Hey, money would definitely be nice, but I guess it is much more than just money. I’d really like to be able to have a career that means something and where I have respect. I want to be able to give back to others and still make money while I do it. I’d like to have great relationships with my family and friends. That would be success to me.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere.” replied The Guru. “See you here tomorrow.”

Day 3

Rich shows up again on Monday morning. It’s 5am and the sun still hasn’t come up yet. He’s tired. He had to fight not to hit the snooze button. The Guru was already there. He was stretching and doing some breathing exercises.

Rich looks at the guru and says, “What is the next lesson?”

“Just sit and breathe with me,” says The Guru. “We’ll get to that.”

After five minutes of breathing and stretching, The Guru said nothing. Finally, he gets up and starts jogging. Rich follows. They run and they run and after about a mile loop they were back where they started. Rich buckles over at his waist and put his hands on his knees in an effort to catch his breath. The sweat is dripping down his forehead. As he gains control of his breathing, he asks The Guru, “What was the lesson in that? Well, besides that I’m out of shape.”

The Guru replies casually as if he wasn’t winded at all. “How do you feel after that?”

“Well, I feel great,” replies Rich. “It is not even 6 am and my blood is pumping, and you’ve got me breathing hard…I feel awake!”

Just then, the sun appeared over the horizon. It was a beautiful sunrise that Rich didn’t often get to see or take notice of. Taking in its beauty for a moment, he is overcome with a feeling of gratitude to see such a beautiful sunrise. After taking that in for a moment, Rich turns back to The Guru and asks again, “What was the lesson today?”

The Guru looks at him and says with a smile, “You may not know your life’s purpose yet, but you started today with purpose. Oh, and a little gratitude. Now that is something you can build on.”

With that, the two went their separate ways.

Day 4

Its 5 am and the sun still hasn’t come up yet. Today was a little easier to wake up early since he had been doing it for a few days now. Not to mention, he started going to bed a little earlier to make the early morning easier. The Guru comes jogging down the trail as if he’d already run a mile. “Good morning!” he says to Rich. “It is another beautiful morning.”

“Sure is,” says Rich.

The Guru notices that Rich seems a little distracted this morning. The continued glances at emails on his phone tips him off, so he asks, “What is so important that you are locked on to your phone?”

Rich explains the big project going on at work. “We have this big client that has some pretty huge demands. Everyone in the office is stressed over the work that we need to do. People were sending emails last night and so I’ve been catching up this morning.”

“I understand these things are stressful,” replies the guru. “They will also be there in a few hours when you get to work. For now, I want you to think of three things for which you are grateful.”

Rich is almost annoyed at this point because he’s so stressed with all the emails, but he respects the guru enough to comply. “Geez, three things?” Rich says as he started thinking. “Well, I’m incredibly grateful that I have this career that has afforded me some pretty great opportunities. And as chaotic as it was at home last night, I’m grateful to have such an amazing family. I mean my wife is a saint the way she is patient with our kids.”

As Rich struggled to come up with the third, The Guru chimes in, “Think of something simple. How about that Starbucks coffee in your hands?”

Rich looks at him a little oddly. “I get one of these almost every morning. I didn’t even think to be grateful for it. I mean I do love my early coffee, so sure, I’m grateful for this cup of coffee as I can barely function without it!”

The Guru looks at Rich and says, “Think of everything that went into that cup of coffee. There are beans harvested by someone halfway across the world. They are shipped across vast oceans and then processed and packed in a factory once they get here. All to be prepared by a barista who came to work with the sole intent of making premium, custom cups of coffee today. I know you have it every day, but today, look at the steam coming off the top, take a sip and think of everything that went into it. Now, you can be grateful for your cup of coffee.”

Before Rich could respond to this simple, but deep response, the Guru starts to walk away.

“Where you going?!” Rich asks.

The Guru turns and smiles. “I’m going to grab a cup of coffee. Oh, and I’m leaving town this week, I’ll see you next Friday and you can tell me how things went with your big client.”

Rich figures he might as well go for a run since he got up early and is already here. As he was running, he starts to think about today’s lesson. He thinks to himself, “All we talked about was what we were grateful for?” In that moment of huffing and puffing down the trail, his mind wandered back to his wonderful family. He was going to head home and make sure his wife knew how much he appreciated her. He was going to go back and make sure he spent a little more time with his kids..

Then his mind wandered to that cup of coffee and he chuckles to himself. “Well, I guess I do take it for granted,” he thinks.

Appreciating the complexity of what he thought was a simple cup of coffee, one he enjoys so much that he orders it nearly every single day the exact same way, he laughs again.

After about 2 miles of his run and nearly 20 minutes of not thinking about work or stressing about the project ahead, it hits him!...