The Rags To Riches Project

Introduction: The Introduction is printed here in its entirety. The links scattered throughout the Introduction are your opportunity to purchase that chapter of the book which is specified by the link. You are invited to own whichever chapter you like in a portable data file format. (This format requires Acrobat Reader to view. You may acquire this free reader via the Adobe website.)

Introduction: ^©

By Anthony Price

The copyright for this document is held by its author. No part, nor its entirety may be used without express written consent. Consent may be obtained via email to info@stelutec.org

Since you have chosen to read this book, please bear with me as I make a few

assumptions about you: You are industrious; not afraid of hard work, you are intelligent;

you understand that one who does not read is no better off than one who can not read,

and perhaps you are tired. You are tired of having too much month left at the end of your money. You are tired of seeing other people achieve what seems like great success with

very little effort as you toil your fingers to the bone and barely get by.

I am sure that a few people will pick up this book and read it for the shear joy of reading.

Two or three people (out of the entire world) will pick it up because they have been

assigned to critique it; but I have not written for those few. I am writing for you.

I have written this book as a hope and a dream that my own life, my own secrets, my

own work can become your magic bullet.

I would like very much for you to experience what I call, “Happily Ever After” simply by

reading this book, but for those who are planning such a result, you might as well stop

reading now. There is a magic bullet; but you will have to buy the gun, learn and master its

operation, clean the gun, load the bullets, take aim and fire. And please take special

note of that last thought: You will have to FIRE.

We all know who Thomas Jefferson was. We all know he headed up the commission of

people assigned to write the Declaration of Independence. Right now, it is necessary to

bring up a phrase from that document that reads the pursuit of happiness. It is this

pursuit that defines our happiness. We are always happier moments before we open a

birthday gift than we are even one hour afterward. It is my attempt throughout this book

to show you how I came to be in an almost constant state of “just before” in my lifetime.

It was not always so. My life began as the ninth baby born into a family which eventually

grew to thirteen children born of the same two parents. As of this writing, those two

parents have watched their family swell to over one hundred children, grandchildren,

great-grandchildren and great-great grand children. But my own childhood was fraught

with “lack.” There was never enough money to grow very far out of “just over poverty”

and my first experience with charity was watching the neighbors carry in groceries donated

to my family during a period when my father was hospitalized from a heart attack. (We

will cover heart attacks and all health issues in chapter Six.) My first food stamp

experience came about the same time because my mother was using them. We qualified

for free lunches at school. I grew up thinking poorly of my next door neighbors because

they clearly had more than we did.

I remember the jealousy that filled my mind whenever I met someone new who was

wearing nicer clothes than me (which was everyone I met). I remember becoming good

friends with another poor family who were so impoverished that when they moved, their

house “mysteriously” burned to the ground – and it was no more than fifty feet from the

fire department.

I remember my sleepless dreams just before falling asleep at night; sometimes for hours,

about how happy I would be if I could just get a brand new “used” bicycle. I can recall

without much effort, begging my mother to allow me the brand name jeans all the other

kids were wearing – Levi’s – during the seventies. Twelve dollars was far too much for

our budget. The result of this and many other childhood experiences are discussed in the

first chapter.

I learned to live without many things – just as you did, I am certain. And through all your

life experiences of going without, you probably learned that the “rich kids” were “spoiled”

and disrespectful. My fervent hope for you now is that you will realize that money is not

the root of all evil as it is purported, but the lack of money is its root.

Just last month, I found myself in conversation with my father in which he communicated

to me that I should learn patience. He said I needed to get a good job, and work and save

and work and save. He said I wanted things too fast. I nearly broke into tears when we

hung up the phone. At this point in his life, he has not discovered a belief in possibility.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta has become a saint in the Catholic Church by doing deeds of

charity and living a life filled with love for God. During her lifetime, she managed to

achieve many things that most people would never even attempt, although she had no

money, power, or armies at her beck and call. On one occasion, while working on a

project, one supporter asked where the money would come from to build. She said,

“God has lots of money.” The project went forward.

You can insert any word you want for “God” and the results are still the same. If you

believe and act out your belief, it will be so. Chapter Five will discuss the details of how

to do this and why.

About the time I was released from the military, I was the recipient of a “how to” audio

book on the fine art of salesmanship. This was an eye opening experience for me

because it was through this recording that I discovered how I might further my education.

I did not realize just how far I could go at the time, and I will explain it in more detail in

Chapter 8, but I found myself studying the works of Earl Nightingale, Napoleon Hill, Dr.

Norman Vincent Peale, Dr Wayne Dyer, Dr Dennis Waitley, and a lesser known, but

phenomenally impressive Bob Earll.

Throughout the nineties I learned and practiced what I learned. I created one business adventure after another. I wrote my first book. I learned to play guitar and wrote 74 songs.

I experienced a string of what I call successes, but I was still missing two key elements:

Faith and Money.

The money started coming in during the year 2002. This was the year I purchased my first

home. It was the year I purchased with cash, the first car I ever purchased that cost

more than $1,000.00. This was the year I purchased my second house. This was the

first time I had been burned by someone in excess of twenty five thousand dollars. By the

time I celebrated groundhog’s day, 2004, my holdings were more than a million dollars. I

doubled that amount just three months later. But there was still something missing. This

piece was Faith.

I was living the American Dream: the Pursuit of Happiness, but deep down, I did not

believe I deserved it. I was thinking about the people who had debts with me, and how

they were trying to run from their obligations. This destructive thinking is discussed in full

in Chapter Two.

Then something amazing happened: I started losing everything. The banks took the

houses, the customers stopped coming in droves, my employees were stealing from me,

and I even lost a car. We will cover how I recovered from that more in Chapter Four.

Without Faith, the naysayers could control my thoughts. By controlling my thoughts, my

personal universe is controlled. Please understand, no one was controlling me with malice

in their mind. It is just so crowded at the bottom; I couldn’t hear anything from the top.

It is nice to say we are free, but are we? Freedom and Liberty should not be confused.

There are days when I am free to go to the grocery store, but because my vehicle is in

disrepair and the store is far away, I may not have the liberty to go to the grocery store

(at least not in my vehicle). Many prisoners of war come back to be better guitar players,

golfers, pianists and dancers because they used their “freedom” while in prison to hone

their skill. Even if this practice occurs only in the mind, the mind doesn’t know the

difference. Henry Ford was right when he said, “Whether you think you can, or you think

you can’t, you’re right.” I had believed what I was told. And I was right.

My brother asked how I could sleep at night when my real estate payments were twelve thousand dollars a month. People I met at church told me I was doing too much; that

I could not possibly handle it all. Friends I would meet in the grocery store told me I was

in over my head. After two and a half years of listening to this, it came true. I believed I

could not and I was right. Chapters Three and Four go into this with more detail.

I found myself starting all over again.

Just as I learned about selling after my military career, I found myself analyzing what went

wrong and what I should do to fix it. The old Chinese proverb, when the Student is ready,

the Teacher will appear is true enough; a customer of mine suggested I watch a movie

called The Secret. Inspired because I watched this movie, I started to research again.

The knowledge came to me not as a trickle, like Reagan’s trickle down theory of

economics, but like a flood the way the water floods the land in the springtime around the

Mississippi River! I found new information in everything I saw, everything I heard, and

everything I read. I found solutions to problems in movies, books, magazines, the Internet,

in my own past, and, most important, I found solutions when I closed my eyes and let

them come to me. This technique will be discussed in Chapter Four.

Then the most surprising piece of the puzzle presented itself to me: this knowledge was

not new. Brain surgery and rocket science may be new concepts, but successful people

and the knowledge they possess have been around as long as mankind, and arguably even longer.

In Chapters Seven and Eight we will discuss how you can make specific changes to your

world right now to achieve success. Not in the long run, but right now. Reverend Frank

W. Gonzales managed to make a million dollars in a single day when he delivered his

speech What I Would Do If I Had a Million Dollars. The result of that speech exists today

as a part of the University of Chicago, but it started out as Armor Institute of Technology.

There are no limits to your success, excepting those which you think up all on your own.

Learning what you can accomplish and how to get it will be our subjects at that portion of

the book.

By combining the information you find in this book, particularly in Chapters Five, Six,

Seven, and Eight, you will experience a new level of happiness in your home, in your relationships, and even at your place of employment. If you do not have a place of

employment, you will have a new level of happiness about happiness which will lead with

all deliberate speed to either the obtaining of gainful employment or the joy of being your

own boss.

This book was created in the imagination of two people primarily: I and my oldest son, the

co-author. It started as a lesson plan for him, but throughout our daily discussions, the development of the book came forth. Ben Franklin’s Autobiography was written almost the

exact same way. As is the natural course of the true Pursuit of Happiness, we were only

in our second day of work on this book when the concept was developed for our next cooperative effort.

In Chapter Nine, you will learn about all the possibilities that exist outside of your own

thoughts. There will be discussion on the aid and use of telepathic media, generating

help, and a variety of new businesses that need to be formed, perhaps by you. Andrew

Carnegie was a lowly immigrant when he started more than a hundred years ago, but we

now have music halls bearing his name because he used these same principles to create

an empire which made him the wealthiest man on the planet at that time. He is well

known by even school children for his riches from the steel industry, but did you know that

he himself knew very little about steel?

You have taken the first step toward your own happily ever after. You are reading this

book. Always keep in mind that you are happier on the way to the goal. The successful

person is the one who is constantly striving to attain a worthwhile goal. It is this constant

striving that will bring you your much deserved happiness. This is what Chapter Ten is all

about.

What you get out of this book will change your life, if you can remember that education

without application is entertainment. This book is not meant to be entertainment, but

even if that is all you get from it, it will be worth your time and effort. There is a magic

bullet, but it only works with a magic gun in the hands of an educated shooter. There is

nothing going to come your way if you do nothing. (This is the origin of the idea of a

“lottery curse,” because the winners of the lottery still do nothing and the winnings

disappear.) Let me help you with that bullet.

I would wish you good luck, but that will have nothing to do with it. For more on this

thought, study Chapter Four.

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