“I don’t have what I need to make this successful. I don’t have the advantages. I don’t have the connections. I don’t have the resources. I don’t have the money.”
It’s what you say next that can determine whether you succeed or fail.
In a few minutes, I’m going to tell you to go to Jay Abraham’s site, and download a free chapter from Daymond John’s book, The Power of Broke. Plus watch a three and a half minute video with Jay and Daymond. (Or, if you’re a hyper-responder, click here right now.)
But before all that, I want to share with you the real power in this book.
I want to talk about all those statements above — statements you’ve probably made to yourself a few times, if you’re like most of us who run our own businesses (or want to).
And, I’ll reveal what the heck story telling has to do with all this, too…
First, let’s look at the two main ways people complete those statements above…
First…
“I don’t have what I need to make this successful. I don’t have the advantages. I don’t have the connections. I don’t have the resources. I don’t have the money…
“And so I know I’m going to fail.”
Not a very empowering belief, is it?
In fact, I’m guessing that if you say this to yourself enough times, you’re going to find a way to make failure happen.
If you repeat to yourself every day a laundry list of reasons you’re going to fail, and the conclusion that failure is inevitable, what do you think is going to happen?
Even if you don’t give up consciously, your subconscious is going to find a way to make your imagined failure a reality!
Now let’s compare that to another — far less common — way to complete those statements…
“I don’t have what I need to make this successful. I don’t have the advantages. I don’t have the connections. I don’t have the resources. I don’t have the money…
“And I’m going to succeed anyway, damn it!”
Now that’s powerful!
Now, I don’t believe in the “woo-woo” kind of Law of Attraction stuff.
I don’t believe that you can just imagine something to be true, and it will become true.
However, I believe that our mind is far more powerful than most people give it credit for.
And I believe that if you imagine something constantly, truly believe you can make it a reality, and take daily action toward achieving that goal…
Well, if you don’t achieve that goal specifically, you’re going to achieve something a lot like it — giving you everything you originally wished for, and more!
And so I’d much rather be repeating the “succeed anyway” mantra than the alternative.
Good news: there’s all sorts of proof that this works…
As part of the Titans of Direct Response VIP package — part of my compensation package from Brian Kurtz for writing the sales letter — we got a tour of the Boardroom world headquarters.
Now, a lot of people don’t know that Marty Edelston was a big-time art collector (as was his friend and top copywriter, Eugene Schwartz).
And Marty, in particular, really liked art that meant something to him.
It didn’t matter if he got it from a struggling artist who wanted a couple hundred bucks for their work, or if it was from a hotshot artist en vogue in the NYC art scene, demanding top dollar…
If it didn’t “make him vibrate” — that is, evoke a strong, visceral feeling — he didn’t care for it. On the other hand, he proudly displayed all kinds of art that made him “vibrate” — even if it was for deeply and irrevocably personal reasons.
One particular piece from his collection — which was displayed around the Boardroom headquarters — really touched me.
You see, Marty was driven through his whole life by rejection. His parents never really believed he’d do anything with his life. And they told him. Constantly.
So he set himself on proving them wrong. And turned $5,000 of his personal savings into a $100-million consumer publishing behemoth.
The art that touched me?
A big pile of spanking paddles with insults written on them. It was a reminder — through art — of what drove him. Of his parents doubts. Of their rejection.
It drove him — “Mickey from Newark” — just a regular guy — to come from nothing and build what was, at its peak, the world’s largest publisher of its kind, helping millions lead better lives.
Marty Edelston’s story is one of countless. Someone successful, who started as a nobody who’d been told they couldn’t do it. Always for a good reason. But that got under their skin, and they found a way to overcome their disadvantages, and succeed to spite their doubters.
(Similar rejection from my 9th grade English teacher drove my writing for years!)
This is the “underdog” story — and if it’s yours, you have great power…
Pick 10 of your favorite movies. I bet if we were to look at them, there’d be a STRONG underdog theme in at least 8. Quite likely, all 10.
This is one of the most powerful themes in all of storytelling.
(And it doesn’t matter if you’re writing for novels, Hollywood, Broadway, or a sales letter…)
We all love to root for the underdog.
And when that underdog is us — and we’re able to step back and recognize it — we are capable of achieving great things.
In fact, it can even be an entrepreneurial superpower.
Think back…
“I don’t have what I need to make this successful. I don’t have the advantages. I don’t have the connections. I don’t have the resources. I don’t have the money…
“And I’m going to succeed anyway, damn it!”
That’s the underdog.
That’s “The Power of Broke…”
That’s also Daymond John’s story.
He started with nothing. He was the son of a single mother. Black, growing up in NYC. They were on and off food stamps.
There’s a million reasons why he could have given up.
But he didn’t.
He said, “I’m going to succeed anyway, damn it!”
He tried and failed. He tried and failed again. He tried and failed AGAIN.
But every time, he kept getting back up.
Every time, scraping together just enough to test out his next business venture. And his next. And his next.
Then, with no funding and a $40 budget, he decided to start selling FUBU hats on the street corners in Queens.
Hat by hat, shirt by shirt, he started to grow.
He and his mom sold all their furniture to buy sewing machines, which they set up in their empty house — their earliest production facility.
At one point, he was loaning out clothes to rappers to wear in their videos, then coming to pick them up the next day because he couldn’t afford to let them keep them.
He started FUBU broke, and grew it into a $6 billion fashion phenomenon.
The underdog. Rags to riches. Totally true.
Daymond realized he wasn’t alone — that most of the successful people he knew had their own underdog struggle-to-success story…
And so he decided to tell their story.
To look at how they faced adversity. How they overcame a tremendous lack of all the resources many assume are required for success.
He went deep. Back to the beginning. When they had nothing.
And he documented exactly what it takes to come from nothing and make something of yourself.
In fact, he had a shocking realization along the way: nearly every success that’s created by money will fail when the money is gone.
A marriage based on money? Breaks if you go broke.
A startup only growing because of investors, not customers? Dries up when investors stop making it rain.
Even a product or marketing campaign you are trying to brute-force into working by throwing more money at it? If you can’t make it succeed on a $100 or $1,000 budget, throwing $1,000,000 at it will only turn it into a more expensive failure.
What came out of it is a guidebook for success when resources are scarce…
And, in fact, a call-to-arms of sorts, even if you have all the resources you need to throw at a project…
Harness “The Power of Broke” to create success on meager resources. Make it successful before you make it scale.
Throughout the book, you’ll find 15 stories of people who exemplified “The Power of Broke” in their rise to success.
Most didn’t come from money. They didn’t come from power. They didn’t come from connected families. They had no advantages in the field where they’d find success.
In fact, a few came from places you’d never expect someone of their level of success to have risen from.
And yet they succeeded. In business. In life. Financially. In the impact they made on the world.
And from their stories, Daymond John laid out 8 “Broke Power Principles” that you can use — right now — to start achieving your greatest success yet… Even if you’re scraping rock bottom.
— Click here to listen to Jay’s podcast interview with Daymond, about The Power of Broke.
— Click here now to buy directly from Amazon.com.
One more thing — Jay GUARANTEES your life will be changed for the better if you apply even ONE lesson from this book…
Jay told this story in that podcast interview.
When Jay released his first book, Marty Edelston (of Boardroom) believed so much in the book that he offered to buy back the copy from anyone who was dissatisfied for any reason, so he could pass the book on to someone who would use it.
Jay decided to do the same for Daymond’s book — he considers it to be one of the most important business books he’s read recently.
And so, in the podcast, Jay put out a “standing offer.”
Buy The Power of Broke. Read it. Absorb it. Decide what action items you’re going to pull from the book, and implement yourself. Do it.
If it doesn’t change your life for the better in a meaningful and measurable way, reach out to Jay’s office. They will buy your book back from you, to give to someone who will value it.
It’s a generous guarantee, but Jay was confident he’d have few if any people take him up on it.
I tend to agree — this is a powerful book.
I’ll be sharing more about how to use your underdog story in your marketing, soon. However, it’s an even bigger breakthrough to learn how to use it in your head game, and to motivate you to ever-greater levels of achievement. This book is a perfect guidebook for doing so.
Yours for bigger breakthroughs,
Roy Furr
