My IM advice made someone get married.

Hi Warriors,

I spoke to a fellow warrior recently and wanted to share something with you. I won't mention his name but I wanted to share his story.

A couple of years ago this guy came along to a London Lunch. (if you're not aware, this is a UK lunch that a bunch of us go to in London every few months. It started out as a chance for Martin Avis to meet up with Phil Wiley (UK guy now successfully doing IM from Australia). Since I was moderating Phils forum, I asked Martin if it was ok for me to come along, then a few others came and after a while it didn't matter if Phil came - we met up anyway. Now there are about 30-40 people who come along. The next lunch is very soon).

So, while at this London lunch, I did my usual thing and play devils advocate for peoples business models and ask them uncomfortable questions about how realistic their expectations are and then once they think I'm trying to tell them to quit - we turn it around and look at how they can make it better

This one guy from Singapore happened to be there and told me what he was doing, so we had a chat and I suggested some simple but powerful changes he could make to take things to the next level.

Then I spoke to some other people and never thought much about it again.

Well, a few weeks ago I met up with a bunch of Singapore warriors to get some momentum going with them so that they continue to have these meetings. Like with the London lunches, I'm playing the role of Phil Wiley and I want them to continue and grow without me needing to be there.

We had a great meeting, I spoke a lot as usual and it was a good start to having these guys (and gal) meet up again in the future.

After the meeting, this guy comes up and I'm wondering why I recognize him - It's the guy from London 2 years before. So we went for a drink and a chat about things.

It turned out that he took 2 pieces of advice I gave him and focused on them. His situation at the time was that he had a girlfriend and had just started his IM efforts and had decided that he would only propose to his girlfriend once he was in a position to buy a house for them (I think that's quite romantic). Well in the time since we spoke, he did what I suggested and has actually bought his house now and proposed to his girlfriend.

He put it almost entirely down to the advice I gave him. I don't believe that's really the case, but it was nice of him to say it. It took HIS actions, focus and dedication to get his results so it was definitely him.

The reason I wanted to share this story is that he's just a normal guy and I think that his desire to marry the woman of his dreams, and that he had decided he wanted to have a house for them first was probably way more powerful than he thought.

I spent a lot of years just doing things that made sense in the smaller context of the career I had and my own immediate environment, but when you have a passion for something bigger than yourself I believe you tune yourself in to universal forces that come to your aid and make your passion happen. Every great dream started as a passion - it's like planting seeds.

So if you're trying to be successful in business and in IM especially, my advice (Take it or leave it) is to have a bigger picture than just the money. Bigger than just what YOU want and whatever niche you decide is the best way to do it, make the plan about more than just what's good for you. If you make it important enough to fire your passion at it - nothing can stop you, and forces you can't imagine will come to your aid to get you there in ways you would never have thought of.

So, while some people might tell you to burn your ships so that you cannot return and need to be successful - I think it's just as powerful to make your goal so powerful that it pulls you to it harder than anything that can push you away.

Andy