The mayor of a small town once wrote to Benjamin Franklin asking for a donation so the town could buy a bell for its town square. Franklin sent money with a note suggesting they forego the bell in favor of buying books for the town library.  It is at the library we might find an answer to why so few succeed and why most fail – at anything, at everything.

Most people do not apply themselves to acquiring know-how nor apply the know-how they acquire. In short, they have the attention span of a gnat, the diligence of an idle, random breeze. They certainly don’t study.

I have become quite rich and somewhat celebrated, reaching the pinnacle of success in not one but three different fields. At each required skill-set, I once sucked. For me, there has always been a crawl to competence, then a fast rise to superiority.

Part of the process is getting through of a lot of information in a hurry but also continuously. For nearly 25 years, I read a book a day plus newspapers, trade journals, newsletters, visited the public library weekly; took on a needed skill and so thoroughly and intensely studied it as to become a world class expert.

When I was teaching myself to be an advertising copywriter, for example, I studied no less than an hour everyday, listened to recorded material on the subject constantly, sought out and got to know the top people in the field, and when one told me to take great direct-response ads and write them out longhand 21 times each, to teach my subconscious the rhythm of such writing, I did that with 100 ads.

I collected over 200 books on the subject and immersed myself in them. I built organized files of samples that fill a room. I traced one master back to his teachers, they to theirs, thus even knowing the genealogy of the field.

When I am asked by fledgling or journeymen copywriters how they, too, might have clients waiting in line to pay them $100,000.00 fees when there are thousands of copywriters advertising their availability for 1/10th that or less, and I tell them this answer, they reject it. They seek rewards out of kilter with their value and are unwilling to do what is necessary to build up their value.

The same answer could be given by the top earners in insurance, real estate, retail store ownership, dentistry – name the business or profession. The answer is the same.

I am told by people all the time that they simply do not have time to read and listen to all the material they have purchased or subscribed to. But time is democratic and just. Everyone has the same amount. When I choose to read with my mid-morning coffee break and you choose to blather about trivia with friends; when I choose to study for an hour sitting on my backyard deck at day’s end but you choose to watch a TIVO’d American Idol episode, we reveal much.

When someone says he does not have the time to apply himself to acquiring the know-how required to create sufficient value for his stated desires, he is a farmer surrounded by ripe fruit and vegetables, whole grains and a herd of cattle on his own property who dies of starvation, unable to organize his time and discipline himself to eat.

Incidentally, success in every business, including yours, depends on mastery of a handful of critical competencies (one of which is always marketing).  The individual who sets out earnestly and diligently to acquire a wealth of know how in each winds up with wealth in his bank account.  All others watch with envy and cry in their soup, two activities they do seem to find time for.

– By Dan S. Kennedy, serial entrepreneur, from-scratch multi-millionaire, speaker, consultant, coach, author of 13 books including the No B.S. series, and editor of The No B.S. Marketing Letter. FOR A SPECIAL FREE GIFT FROM DAN FOR YOU including newsletters, audio CD’s and more: visit:www.FreeDanKennedyNewsletter.com

Lookin’ for Luck in all the wrong places.

The Irish are a very superstitious lot. They believe a black cat voluntarily following you home brings good luck, but bringing a black cat home, or even moving one with you from old house to new, curses you with bad luck forevermore. There are so many Irish superstitions about good and bad luck and blessings and curses, they fill a book.

I’m Irish. I don’t make a big thing out of it. Sometimes, on St. Patrick’s Day, I even forget to wear green. But my racing silks (I drive professionally in 200+ harness races a year) have a big green shamrock on them, and I have been known, after winning a couple races, to get attached to a lucky whip – until I again lose a race.

I have my little superstitions and lucky objects and rituals; indulgences; for racing, selling and speaking. But I know (and constantly remind myself) that luck has very little to do with outcomes, and that we pretty much manufacture our own luck – bad or good.

Usually by behavior, occasionally merely by attitude or thought.

People prefer looking at bad luck as purely circumstantial, yet if probed deeply and objectively enough, there’s choice involved. For example,  when our very spoiled pet, who we affectionately call The Million Dollar Dog came up lame in her good rear leg and hip, and needed emergency surgery – delaying my wife’s travel plans, was this a week of bad luck?

The Million Dollar Dog already had this same surgery in the other leg, three years ago. This breed of dog is well-known for such problems, and she did pick the dog. That’s not to say I think a different choice should have been made; I do not; I wouldn’t trade this dog for any other on earth. It is to say, though, that the week’s trouble has little or nothing to do with bad luck, but with dog genetics, and human choice.

Belief in luck and all the superstitions that go with it, and variations of it to which we assign different names and terminology, clouds the core reality of success and failure: that it is up to the individual.

The Renegade Millionaire Way is acceptance of responsibility; more responsibility for more things more often and more readily than the 95% crowd wants anything to do with – not because we are masochists, but because we know a secret: responsibility equals control, control is product of responsibility, and we definitely do want control.