Everyone asks, “How do I make a living following my passions” Listen to the practical, powerful tools and tips in this article, and keep in mind that you can create great wealth. At the same time, you can practice what Ralph Waldo Emerson was talking about when he said, “The purpose of life is not to be happy; it is to be useful, honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
Dan Kuschell is a man who has lived and lived very well, and who every day makes a difference in thousands of people’s lives. About seven years ago, Dan was at an Enlightened Millionaire event, and was already an incredibly successful entrepreneur. He had trained over 50,000 people in direct marketing skills, and he had just completed writing his first book: A Champion Vision: Awaken a Champion in Your Life, Relationships and Business.
People are always impressed with Dan, because he is always uplifting, he always has a smile on his face, and he is always looking for ways that he can help others. Dan is one of the first that people think of when they are looking for guidance and practical tools for achieving financial freedom. He is an accomplished serial entrepreneur. He has created and run a number of very successful businesses.
Today he oversees a group of companies that bring in almost $20 million a year. He does it by helping people learn the skills and techniques of creating income by following our own passions. Just in this past year, several of Dan’s students have begun making over $100,000 a week-yes, I said a week-within six months of beginning their studies with him.
His consulting clients pay him hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to help them with the kind of knowledge he shares in this article. Dan has such integrity, and you can see the quality of his heart when you spend time with his wife and their two children.
CHRIS ATTWOOD: Dan, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for spending this time with us tonight.
DAN KUSCHELL: It’s an absolute pleasure; it’s an honor as always, Chris. I am excited to be able to spend time with you, my friend.
CHRIS ATTWOOD: We always have a good time, so let’s do that tonight.
DAN KUSCHELL: Absolutely! I’m just curious, because I’m going to flip the switch here and interview you! How does that sound? No, just kidding!
CHRIS ATTWOOD: I think we’ll go back and forth. I’m excited tonight because you are going to share a lot of very practical information with our listeners about how to create an income following their passions. First, will you take a moment and tell us how your passions, the things that matter most to you, led you to work that you do today?
DAN KUSCHELL: That’s a great question. It’s been an incredible journey, especially over the last 20 years, Chris. My dream as a kid, as you know, was to play pro baseball. The reason I wanted to do that was I grew up in the inner city of Detroit. I thought sports would be my way out. It looked like it was going to be, and then unfortunately an arm injury ended my career. All I really wanted to do, Chris, was to take care of my family at that time in my life.
We were on the verge of poverty several times. It was a pretty interesting time, and when sports didn’t work out I went to school. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. The idea of being a teacher was what I went to school for. The idea of having a roommate named Dad until I was in my mid-thirties wasn’t that exciting. I wanted to take this passion of being able to teach.
I ended up coaching college baseball for two years. That was a lot of fun. I was more of a volunteer than anything else. Then I ended up in direct marketing, which was completely against the grain for my personality type. I’m actually more of a shy, introverted-type person. I got involved in direct marketing and fell in love with the whole idea of personal growth, personal development.
I went on a quest-actually an obsession, maybe like many people on the phone-where I became a seminar junkie. I attended, over the course of about a decade’s period of time, well over, I believe, 100 different seminar programs. I enrolled in different home-study courses and versions, all on a quest personally, because I wanted to be able to take the idea of helping people and teaching people and turn it into a business.
I have to admit that I was a slow learner, quite frankly. I was extremely blessed, Chris, as we talked about, to have some incredible mentors who I’ve met along the way. Now I’ve had at least a dozen or more mentors. There were a couple who had a really big impact on me in the very beginning. They were instrumental in showing me that you truly could take your passions and what you love-which for me was inspiring, teaching and educating people to live their potential-and be able to show people how to do better and how to do more.
My first eight years, actually, in business-not that everybody has to follow my same plan-I struggled quite a bit. I was barely making ends meet. I was ready to leave the direct marketing industry overall and altogether. I looked around at some of my colleagues and my friends; they were surpassing my results compared to where I was after eight years. At that point, I thought maybe I’m destined to be average. Maybe this isn’t for me.
I love what I’m doing; I have passion for what I’m doing. One of my mentors, we had a long conversation-but I’ll keep in time with what we need to cover here-I’ll never forget. I ended up driving from where I was to a seminar she was doing. I was actually planning on leaving the industry. She took me up, we spent some time in her room, and we talked for a little bit.
She invited me, Chris, to come work with her personally and directly, and that was a huge turning point for me from several points of view. Number one, to have someone who I admired tremendously-who was someone I looked at as a true mentor and an inspiration to hundreds of thousands of people up to that point-who thought enough of me to call me a leader was great. I ended up going and working with her.
It’s really the foundation of what started, for me, the transformation or that turning point. That’s where what we refer to as the Prosperity Formula was adapted. It’s a three-simple-question concept that I really believe is a magnetic prosperity catcher, if you will. These three questions that I’ll reveal to everyone changed my life. I got so excited about the concepts of these three questions that I started teaching it everywhere I went, to the people I worked with in my organization and my companies.
Companies started hiring me. Really, the basis of everything I teach is built on this simple, fundamental premise. I have to admit, Chris, as we’ve talked about, I don’t even recall where I learned these three questions. I know I didn’t invent them. I can tell you that for sure. In the course of my hundreds of seminars and all the home-study courses, audio programs, and video program I participated in, I can’t truly remember who it was, or whether it was from a combination of people I learned this.
What I can share with all of you is these three questions became something so powerful in a handful of months. First of all, I started answering these three questions, which was very challenging. It will give everybody an idea of where I was when I reveal where I started. I did this for two weeks prior to working with Laurie and going and working with her directly. When I got there, I was doing the same presentations, or so I thought.
All of a sudden, I started attracting different things. Chris, you know this as well as anybody. When your passions are in line with your mindset, the universe starts handing you things out of the blue that you weren’t capable of handling before.
CHRIS ATTWOOD: Dan, Janet says you become a passion magnet.
DAN KUSCHELL: That’s right, a passion magnet. These three questions, in my opinion, lead everyone to become a passion magnet. I challenge all of you to take these three questions in your life and, number one, use them. I challenge you to do it for two weeks, and you watch what happens to you as a person and how opportunities start popping up, things mentally, physically, socially, spiritually and financially.
When I applied this principle, I had up to that point, Chris-and we’ve talked about this-for the most part attracted the wrong kind of person in my life from a mate. What ended up happening is by starting this process, I actually attracted the angel into my life, who today is my wife. It’s just amazing what these three questions can do. Would it be all right if I share these with everybody?
CHRIS ATTWOOD: Now that you’ve got us all sitting on the edges of our seats, you better share them. For everyone listening, I hope you have your paper and pen out. Dan, I’m sure you’ll repeat them so we can all write them down, right?
DAN KUSCHELL: Absolutely. Just to give you an idea-and, Chris, I know we’ve talked about this-when I put these questions into place, I got to Clearwater, Florida to work with my mentor. Sometimes I lose track of times and dates, and I don’t ever want to misquote, but roughly in about 90 days of going to work with her and starting to apply these principles to my business, I earned more in three months than I had the previous year.
Within six months, my business was double what it had been the previous couple of years. Within a handful of months thereafter, I was well over a six-figure income. I got so passionate, so excited, I just wanted to start sharing what I consider to be this revelation, this gift. I was an evangelist sharing with people all this stuff. I documented and journaled, basically, what we would call today case-study examples of people and what it did for them.
We were watching people’s lives change, able to attract the best in relationships, the best in opportunities financially, mentally, physically, socially and spiritually. It was like someone had taken me behind the curtain, if you will, Chris. I got a chance to meet the Wizard of Oz, and then the Wizard just started giving us this gift to tap people on the shoulder and say, “You can have this.”
CHRIS ATTWOOD: Okay! We can’t take it anymore. You have to tell us the questions.
DAN KUSCHELL: You know I go on and on.
CHRIS ATTWOOD: No, you are doing great. We are saying, “Yes, we want that! What are the questions?”
DAN KUSCHELL: The first question is: What am I grateful for right now? The second key question is: What am I happy about right now? The third powerful question is this, but again, I wrote these for me; this was just to be a simple exercise. When I actually went and wanted to go work with Lori, Chris, I wanted to be a good person. At that point-and I don’t know if I’m supposed to share this in a self-help forum-I had thrown all my goals away, all my material stuff that was related to getting cars and homes and these things.
For me, at least, what had happened was that it seemed the harder I was chasing all that type of success, the further away it went. I was repelling it. All I wanted to do, going to work with my mentor Laurie, was I wanted to just be a good person. It wasn’t about impressing anybody anymore. I wanted to go there and be the best person that I could be.
The last question that was so critical, in my opinion, was: What have I done well today? I don’t know, Chris, if you know people like me. I was famous for being myself. I could have a good day, but I’d find something wrong with my day and what I was doing in production or whatever. The question, “what have I done well today?” was critical.
CHRIS ATTWOOD: Say all three, yes.
DAN KUSCHELL: You know I jump all over. The first is: What am I grateful for right now? The second is: What am I happy about right now? The third is: What have I done well today? For me, what I did, I actually would wake up in the morning and force myself to come up with at least 10 answers for those three questions each. Then I’d do it at night before I went to bed. What I discovered in this process was something so powerful.
It was like, as you called it, becoming a passion magnet. The more I identified what I was grateful for, the more the universe gave me to be grateful for. The more I identified what I was actually happy about, the more the universe gave me to be happy about. The more I identified what it is that I was doing well at that point in time, the more the universe gave me things that I was doing well.
CHRIS ATTWOOD: It’s so interesting to hear you speak about this, Dan, because I know many of our listeners and our readers are certainly familiar with these concepts. These three questions boil it down to the essence of that. At the same time, I know you very well. While you are talking about things that may seem abstract at first when you are listening, what I also know is that just in the last several years, you’ve created a whole group of businesses that have been incredibly successful.
As I said, they are doing over $20 million a year now in business, or almost that. Would you talk to us a little bit about how you’ve taken this practice of answering these three questions, and then applied it in an environment where you’ve been able to create such successful businesses?
DAN KUSCHELL: That’s a great question. Basically, what I discovered is this. We built our entire program at www.ProsperityBasedLiving.com on these fundamentals. We call it the Three Pillars for Success. Number one is mindset; number two is marketing mastery; and number three is communication mastery. If you look at leverage, it is such an important concept and an important tool in business.
The longer the lever the easier it is, of course, to lift the obstacle. For me, in my life, the reason I talk about mindset and why this piece is so critical is because this is the basis of something we refer to in our program call the Prosperity Formula. This is the essence, as you mentioned, the core of it, that gets it started. It is probably the most important piece. Without the right mindset it doesn’t matter what tools you have.
I have to admit; I learned from some of the most incredible mentors in the world, Chris. I know that we’ve had conversations that from a practical, strategic point of view they were the best at teaching marketing, the best in the world at teaching selling skills or persuasion skills. I have to admit, I got really good at a lot of the tactical strategy-type things. However, I still fell short when it came to results.
I truly believe what I discovered, and I’ve learned now in our studies over the last several years in working with hundreds of thousands of people; I’ve wondered why it is that one person who we could work with would skyrocket to success, and here I was. My first eight years in business, it seemed like I was further in the hole than the day I started. It comes back to having the right mindset and having that critical piece in place.
This is the essence and the core. It’s the most important piece of everything, having the right mindset to work with. Once we get the mindset in place, then we focus in our programs with implementing what we believe to be the two highest-paying skills overall. It’s not that a person has to master these skills themselves, but I believe that all of the listeners who are part of your program need to get a grasp of the talents or skill set of persuasion and marketing mastery, to be able to at least outsource it properly.
It’s because of all the types of things that are out there; really, there are a lot of people who, I would say, are false prophets, to be nice. They’re out there teaching about this, that, or whatever the case might be. It’s a lot of theory-speak, if you will, where they may make money online selling shovels, but they’re really not out in the trenches digging dirt and actually going what someone is going to go through in their business.
I also know that’s what makes us unique. I get that question all the time: What is it that makes you unique? The biggest thing is that I lead by example. The things that I teach are really the things we are doing. As you know, Chris, today, because I didn’t want to be on the road doing seminars, I really worked to create an autopilot business where I can do a lot of tele-trainings like this and/or automate with the Internet.
I also create salesmanship and print that way, or direct mail, radio, or TV, and these things that allow you the flexibility to do that today through the technology of putting those in our favor. What I have discovered is that anybody, if they take the time to learn this, can accomplish it if their mindset is right. I believe this; I remember years ago when I was struggling, and I used to say, “When I’m making a bunch of money, then I will change this habit.”
I did a video here earlier to promote this call. I was talking about some concepts related to finances. We have a formula called Wealth Formula, Part Two. It’s a formula: 10-10-3-7-70. I don’t want to go into the details, because everybody can get a chance to see the video. What I remember saying to myself when I was learning about managing money and finance, was, “When I make more money, then I’ll start saving money.”
What I’ve discovered-and I believe this to be true in all walks of business and all walks of life, mentally, physically, socially, spiritually, and financially, is this. If someone can’t do it small with a little, they can’t do it better with more.
CHRIS ATTWOOD: Dan, would you repeat that? That’s such a power principle.
DAN KUSCHELL: Absolutely, and hopefully I can remember what I just said.
CHRIS ATTWOOD: I’ll help you. If you can’t do it small…
DAN KUSCHELL: If you can’t do it small, you can’t do it better bigger.
CHRIS ATTWOOD: That’s so true. If I may, Dan, one of the questions that comes up, I’m sure, for many people as they are listening to you, is that you clearly have mastered these skills. You are obviously a master marketer. You’ve worked with many students, and as I said in your introduction, some of those within six months are making over $100,000 per week. I am saying that right, correct? That’s per week?
DAN KUSCHELL: Correct.
CHRIS ATTWOOD: Per week, applying your principles. I know that one of your clients is generating over $300,000 a week. What is it that makes the difference between those students who have that kind of success and anyone who doesn’t? Are they somehow magical or special? What’s the secret that allows people to be able to earn that kind of income?
DAN KUSCHELL: Again, I think it comes back to the core principle of mindset. Number one, someone’s got to believe that they can actually do it. They’ve got to believe in their heart and their soul at the cellular level even they can do it and do it consistently. I know you’ve had T. Harv Eker on, and he probably explains it better than anybody I’ve ever met. It’s a thermostat. I think it’s T. Harv who talks about the thermostat, but maybe not.
You have a thermostat, and you set the thermostat to 72 degrees. Let’s say you open some windows on a cold day. Temporarily it may cool off a little bit. Ultimately, that thermostat will adjust your temperature, and so it is with making money or earning money, doing it consistently. Why the mindset piece is so critically important is because if you believe it, you’ll achieve it. It’s proven at the cellular level. I didn’t make this up.
Studies have been done with a lot of brilliant scientists who really spend a lot of time and money to research this. If someone truly, at the cellular level, is ready and capable to handle that type of income that they are generating, they not only have the ability to make it, but they have the ability to make more. I don’t want anybody to get too impressed with these numbers, Chris. I know certainly I’m humbled by it every day.
Honestly, I’m not really impressed. I look at it, and although it’s exciting when compared to where I was 20 years ago-when I was sleeping on a friend’s couch; that was supposed to be a weekend while I was moving into my other place, and it ended up being a year later and I was still there-overall what I know is this. If someone said to Donald Trump, “Your businesses do $300,000,” or “Your clients do $300,000 per week,” he’d probably be on the verge of 12 bankruptcies or something with those little numbers.
To me, it’s also relative overall. Then again, I know a lot of people who might be listening to this are at a different level. I know some of the people who you have in your programs with Healthy Wealthy nWise-and it’s what I love about you-you have some of the most successful big thinkers in the world, people who run, I believe, billion-dollar companies who are attracted to Healthy Wealthy nWise.
For those of you listening today, and maybe this is your first time being introduced to Chris Attwood, Janet Attwood, and Ric and Liz Thompson at Healthy Wealthy nWise, you need to take advantage of every resource that they’ve got available. It’s the finest education and one of the fastest-growing self-help resources online in the world today. Chris, I just wanted to throw that in; it is so powerful.
Coming back so as not to digress on your question, mindset is the critical piece, and then understanding about building a business. There are a lot of prophets in the industry today online, so-called mentors, teaching concepts of building a business. They talk about how you can get an e-book, sell it, and you can be wealthy. I’m not disputing that some people probably can.
However, what I look at is, what is the shortest distance between two points from a theory point of view? In business, folks, here’s the reality. Years ago I used to talk about the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and that’s what you are shooting for. I don’t believe that anymore. I’ve discovered in my own journey that running a business is not a straight line. Anybody who tells you differently is, maybe, not there yet as far as experience.
Just seven or eight years ago, I was teaching that principle. Things evolve, and you start to understand different things at different levels. To build a business, let’s talk about getting to $300,000 a week. If you look at that over the course of a year it’s, let’s call it, $15 million, based on 50 weeks in a year. There are a couple ways you can get there. There’s a fast route and a slow route. You decide which one you want to use.
In your head answer the question, do I want to go fast, or do I want to go slow? Answer it. You might do like I do; I say both. That’s how I look that. Why do I want to choose one? Let’s do both. I’m also a rebel that way. I don’t just settle on the one. I’ve also discovered that having a mindset that thinks outside of the box is sometimes an advantage in business. For $15 million a year, here’s the fast route. Folks, think about this.
The fast route to make $15 million a year: you find one person, create a product with value-ideally, that’s got 10 times the value of that $15 million-and sell that one person that product for $15 million. That’s the fast route. The slow route? Let’s just use, for the sake of math, a book for $15, because the numbers work easily. For a $15 ebook that you create, you are going to sell it online, how many books do you have to sell to generate $15 million?
One million books. Have people done a million books? Yes. Have there been people who sold one entity a $15 million product? Yes. What if you combine both? A lot of people say I’m like a secret weapon. I work behind the scenes almost in a reclusive way with many of my clients. I look at the business structure and strategy, and say, “How can we help them do both?”
It’s the ability to have front-end products that are low price to get people involved in their sales process, as well as higher-end products that create incredible value on that side of it to the student or consumer, as well as to the company or entity. Think about this, folks. Let’s back it up; let’s not talk about a $15 million business. That might be, for some people, a little bit too much to think of too fast. If it’s not enough for you, maybe you are running a billion-dollar goal.
Think about this idea right now. Draw a ladder on a sheet of paper. I look at a business similarly. Draw a ladder with, maybe, five or six steps on it. You’ve got a bottom step going all the way up to the top. That ladder is going to represent something. Now draw an upside-down triangle over the top of that ladder so the middle is basically in the center of it, so it kind of looks like a funnel. Now you’ve got different layers. You draw the layers through the steps.
At the very top of this triangle, the fat end of the triangle, you want to have a low barrier of resistance to bring people into your business. My belief, Chris-and I think we share the same belief; I have discovered this the hard way-is the most important product any of you could learn to sell and build is not the product you think it is. You are not in the business you think you are in. You are in the business of marketing the thing that you think you are in. I know that may sound a little bit strange.
CHRIS ATTWOOD: Say that again.
DAN KUSCHELL: You’re not in the business that you think you’re in; you’re in the business of marketing the thing you think you are in.
CHRIS ATTWOOD: It’s the idea that you don’t build a better mousetrap thinking that everyone is going beat a path to your door. People don’t beat a path to your door unless they know that it’s a better mousetrap.
DAN KUSCHELL: Exactly. That’s why, in our program, we talk about the Three Pillars, if you will: mindset, marketing mastery and persuasion mastery. At the very top of this triangle, the lowest-level barrier is free. If it’s free, it’s for me. A lot of people will come into your system. Your most important product, that any of you should be focusing on, more than your widget-gidget gadget or whatever you are selling online or off, is actually your database.
That’s your product. Your database is your product. People call it a lot of different things: it’s your e-mail list, your subscriber list, your database, your list. We can go on and on about all the different terms that people throw around. You want to bring people in and build your database. That’s your greatest asset value, in my opinion, from what I’ve discovered, in any business today. It’s building that database.
CHRIS ATTWOOD: Why is that, Dan? Why is that so important?
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