The most powerful secret, from Thomas Watson

A success secret is that by exercising courage, you can succeed faster than by reading dozens of books or attending seminars or even hiring a coach. (The courage to be, right now, your future self, as I explain below).

Take business, for example. You just have to know clearly what value you're offering to clients, and keep working hard to increase that value. Imagine your ideal business in five years, and start acting like your current business was that ideal business already.

Or take dating. There are many so-called "gurus" who give advice on how to approach and seduce women. I've read all of them (for research purposes, not for personal education!). They all propose some kind of verbal or psychological technique to make women feel comfortable, gain their trust, then do whatever.

Look, I've never had a beautiful woman say no to me, and I didn't use any special technique. I was just myself, truthful and sincere. "I like you, babe, so how about this Friday?" "But, Peter, I have a boyfriend..." "No problem, bring him along, I'll sit him in the corner while we talk."

I'm just kidding.

Truth is, I've never hesitated to do what I wanted to do, so there was very few success books that I needed to read or seminars that I need to attend.

My point: 95% of information, including information in books, is useless. Books are useful only if you have the courage to act, and stick to what you committed to. Also, books help if you have a clear goal.

Even gurus cannot help you. Take Rich Schefren, for example. He's certainly a prolific guru who writes a lot of reports and launches a lot of business coaching programs. Yet, business is really simple: focus on what you do best, and knock on every door.

Most people don't have the discipline to stick to something simple, and practice it until they become a master. If they did that, they'd be world-famous and very rich.

Here's a metaphor to drive home my point.

Imagine that you're digging the earth in search of oil and petroleum. But some guru says that you should dig elsewhere because there's more oil over there, so you believe him and go to that other place and start digging again. You actually abandon the original hole that you started digging!

But that's not the end of the story. A second guru comes along, and succeeds in convincing you that there's yet a third hole worth looking into.

You know what? To hell with all the gurus! They promote their books and tapes only to make money.

And here's the shocking part: NONE, absolutely NONE of all the financial freedom gurus (Randy Gage, Rich Schefren, Jay Abraham, Mike Filsaime, Mike Dillard, John Reese, etc.) ever talk about digging where it really matters: your true self.

In other words, they don't teach you how to discover the treasure within yourself, the infinite wealth within.

This inner wealth has to do with passion, talent, conviction, values, purpose, etc.

Stephen Covey and Richard Bolles do talk about finding your true self, but unfortunately, they don't mention anything about making a LOT of money from one's passion and talent. This is why I recently created a workshop and ebook called "Ideal & Profitable Career."

Don't get me wrong, those gurus DO offer good advice (as far as I can see) about business and marketing, but those are secondary, tactical issues. The ultimate strategy is to decide WHO you want to be.

IBM founder Thomas Watson probably gave the best advice: "Decide who you want to be in five years, and start acting, speaking, dressing, walking, eating, behaving, thinking, etc. PRECISELY like that ideal person you want to be."

This piece of advice is actually a SECRET whose immense power will only be revealed to you if you apply it -- every day.