Our new book Cash in a Flash is about how to create prosperity in your life, quickly.  What is your fastest path to profit?  How do you make money from what you love?  If you’re going to be making money, don’t you want to do something that is fulfilling your destiny in life, something that you were born to do?  Wouldn’t you like to be what we call a profitable servant — serving in your way, profitably, using your gifts and talents to make your life better and the world better.  That’s what it means to be an Enlightened Entrepreneur — to enlighten the world while at the same time helping yourself.

Your Inner Winner is your sensing mechanism which recognizes what you are naturally drawn to. What do you gravitate toward at the magazine stand?  What things in your house do you find priceless?  Everyone is fascinated by different things.  I believe we are given particular talents, tendencies or interests as part of our divine DNA, in order that we may learn how to magnify them.  The sooner we find that true path, the faster we generally will make profits from striving to be the the world expert in that area.  So how do you know what your purpose path is?  What is “work” for you and what is not “work” for you?  What do you sometimes find yourself doing or studying, so mesmerized to have lost all sense of time?  You are transported away in a sense of joy, preoccupied in an effortless activity.  Don’t you want to earn money on such personally fascinating things?  It’s true that many people won’t share your passion, but there are definitely those who do.  And they are eager to invest time, money and resources to learn more about it. 

Three things make up your destiny: 1) Your values — What you find important,  2) Your talents — What you’re good at,  3) Your passions — What you love to do.  Mix those together in some form and create a product, service or information around it.  Or find someone else who has already created a product, service or information around it and become their salesperson, associate, affiliate, distributor, or franchisee.  Turn your hobbies into a business which makes you money instead of costs you money.  This is the difference between an amateur and a professional.  The professional turns those same interests into a money-making venture.  I used to feel guilty for my study of wealth creation.  I thought I should be interested in something seemingly more righteous.  But my AHA was that this is my gift!  It should not be considered more important than families, relationships, spirituality and health.  It is your unique gift, to find financial freedom through helping others.  You are naturally drawn to certain passions, and this is your fortune hidden in plain sight.

Imagine inheriting 100 million dollars. Take out an outdated checkbook which you haven’t yet thrown away, and start writing checks.  Let your heart guide you as to how you would “invest”.  This forces you to contemplate what it is that is important to you.  And there are people spending such money on those same things.  Your goal is to find them and get them into your database.  They come to you because you are the expert, and they are your fans.  Study, research, organize and simplify how to become a world-class expert, at least in your region.  As you become even more informed, you’ll expand that customer region.

Cache is defined by Webster as: A hidden storage space for money, provisions, or weapons; a secret store of valuables or money.  What is your secret cache of valuable resources waiting to be “monetized”?  Similar to a cat scan of your body, imagine putting on “cache-scan” glasses to have a look inside yourself for what’s cashable.  First scan your brain, consisting of:  1) Knowledge - what you know that people might be interested in learning,  2) Skills – what you are good at doing that others might pay you for,  3) Successes — where you have succeeded, the proficiency from which others might want to capitalize on,  4) Failures and fears — how you can fix your failure experiences which many other people have shared.  If you crack the code, and turn fear into confidence, you’ll earn the right to be their coach and guide.  You understand exactly how fearful, painful, expensive and wasteful the failure was, so you’ll have credibility with those who suffered the same failure.  You can effectively get paid twice, first from the success, and second, by teaching others how you did it.  5) Challenges — how you solve or transform the problems or difficult tasks which stretch your comfort level.  Again, many people will relate and want to know how you did it.

You can discover or uncover the areas in your life which should be monetized.  You can also “cache-scan” your heart.  Find the resources naturally found in your heart, consisting of  1) desires,  2) passions,  3) talents,  4) wisdom, and  5) connections.  You can find profit in each of these resources.    Combine the resources of your heart and mind into a business that markets a product, service or information.  Capitalizing on what you already know right now is also what I call picking your low-hanging fruit.  It’s ripe and ready to go, easy to pick and consume right now.  The fruits high in the tree might be more lucrative as larger, riper fruits, but you’d have to strategize how to get to them, using a ladder, etc.  And you certainly don’t have enough time to go plant a new tree and wait for it to grow.  You may only have 90 days to bring money in the door.  So pick and eat the low-hanging fruit from the tree you’ve already got. 

The paradox of knowledge is that the more you know, the more you know you don’t know.  So you think you’ve got to go learn more, and this creates a loop of inaction.  The more you know, the less you feel you have the ability to act.  You are stuck in a paralysis of analysis.  And then when you finally try to learn a new skill, you must start out in a valley of failure requiring much patience, courage and determination.  But you can bypass that valley by not trying to learn a new skill at all.  Focus instead on what you already know and love, and take action using these resources – right now!  What you may still want to learn about your passions is learned more effectively from your actions anyway.

To expedite your progress, you must find your Dream TEAM (Together Everyone Achieves Miracles).  Your mastermind alliances are two or more individuals voluntarily coming together, creatively putting their energy behind a major purpose, with the idea that together they will accomplish more than either would alone.  Your project-oriented team generally works best with six members, who each commit to bring something of value to the table.  Members don’t have to be partners or experts.  They may even have a separate money-making venture.  But each member will promise to be present — in person or by teleconference — at weekly meetings (minimum bi-weekly) to refine their respective projects.  Establish some light guidelines and laws which will make your team work better.  Will there be penalties for not showing up, for example?  You’re not fooling around.  Each of you will update the group on project activities, problems and/or opportunities that took place since the last meeting.  Don’t describe the studying and research you did, but report the activities you carried out which will generate the ultimate result.  Even if a sales presentation did not get you the sale, for example, it still counts as an action that can directly generate money.  If you don’t yet have a team, make a list of at least 20 people you know who might be interested in forming that Dream Team with you.  Make them aware of the commitments.  If you don’t form and then meet with your team every week to report your progress, life overwhelms you and you wake up a year later wondering why the money you invested in a program never amounted to anything.  Your group members are there to hold your feet to the fire, and they will help keep you on track.

Your personal wheel of fortune consists of those inner resources you monetize in three forms: products, services, information (PSI’s).  And each — or all — of these ways you choose will come from the essence of the following decision process:  Draw four concentric circles, three consecutively larger to surround a center circle, like a bulls eye.  The center circle is your why.  What is the real, heart-felt reason you are starting this business?  The second circle is the who.  You will market to customers through four primary channels: B to C = business to consumer; B to B = business to business; B to G = business to government entities; B to P = business to philanthropy (while sharing profits with the philanthropy).  The third circle is the the what, or your version of PSI to market.  The fourth circle is the how, where and when you’ll sell your PSI.  Your entrepreneurial activities will be based around these four concentric circles.

Your assignment is to write down ten of the greatest problems or challenges you’re facing in your life at this time.  These problems are opportunities disguised in work clothes!  Entrepreneurs love to create solutions to problems.  So a good source of research is your own problems.  You could capitalize on them, because many people are looking for solutions to the same challenges you have.  You’ll have even more problems in the future, perhaps as a divine destiny, to make you think, “I never want this to happen to another human being.  I’m going to be the one person who knows more how to help people solve this problem than anyone else in the world!”  The best problem you can have is one that you can solve and monetize at the same time.  And is this economy loaded with problems or what?!  This recession is a gold mine for entrepreneurs, as long as your solutions directly apply to the current needs.  And the need for solutions is everywhere.  There are businesses that are profiting tremendously right now, and can barely keep up with the current demand, simply because they had adapted appropriately to the current economy.  Opportunities are everywhere in these times with so many problems.  So first increase your awareness of your own problems (viewed as opportunities), because not only do you have first-hand knowledge of your struggle, but many other people are longing to solve the same problems.  You can make fast money in slow times by meeting the current needs of the people.