Think and Grow Rich explains the Science of Success. It changed John Mitchell’s life. It allowed him to alter a 20 year history of earning low six figures a year, to earning over $5 million a year. John’s 12 minute day technique is recognized as the top practical application in the world of the legendary book Think and Grow Rich.

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Listen to the podcast here:

$5 million – The Science Of Success with John Mitchell

How To Actually Apply Think And Grow Rich To Make A Million-Dollar Life With John’s Proven System

As you probably already know, in the back of The Successful Thinker is a list of the twelve books that we recommend for becoming the most mindful strategic leader out there. One of my all-time favorites, I’ve probably read it 30 or 40 times, is Think and Grow Rich. We couldn’t bring Napoleon Hill in, but what we could do is bring someone in who has actually taken Think and Grow Rich and added a system for practical application. Our guest is John Mitchell. He is recognized as someone who has gone ahead and applied The Successful Thinker and he has created a program to complement that. I’m excited about it because John has it down to where this practical application takes about twelve minutes a day. What he does is he puts science behind it and the science behind his technique was profiled on the cover of Time Magazine. When John applied this to his life, he changed a twenty-year history of making six figures a year and began to make $5 million a year. John, welcome to our program. How are you?

Corey, thank you so much. I’m pleased to be here. I love what you’re doing.

We’re so pleased to have you. We appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to share your thoughts with our audience. Can you tell us a little bit about your twenty-year journey to figure out that you weren’t living the life you thought you deserved?

I’ll share my story with you. I started my career as a CPA and became an entrepreneur when I was 30. When I turned 50, I wasn’t as successful as I thought I should be. I had two goals in my life which are to make enough money, so I didn’t have to work and to find the woman of my dreams. At 50, I was falling short on both of them. As an entrepreneur, I was blessed to always make six figures a year, but never close to a billion a year. I was finding the girl at 50, I’d never been married, but I can tell you it was not from lack of interviewing. I did a lot of interviewing, probably too much. The defining moment happened three days after I turned 50.

I realized that if I didn’t start netting over $1 million a year, I would never have that exceptional life I always dreamed of, the freedom, the lifestyle and the sense of accomplishment. I came to a realization. I realized that hard work doesn’t work. It works for making six figures a year. Clearly, it didn’t work for making seven. I knew there had to be something else. I made the decision that by God, I was going to go find what that something else was. Three months after turning 50, a pearl of wisdom hit me. Why not find the top book in the world on success and achievement ever written and then apply it word for word in my life? The logic was so simple and compelling. After a little research, I found there actually is one book that excels over all others on this topic. It’s Think and Grow Rich.

I loved what you said at the start. Here are two significant things about it. First, the book has sold over 100 million copies and the next bestselling book on success and achievement has sold under ten million copies. It’s clearly the top book ever written on success by a factor of ten. The second thing is the book’s central concept has created more millionaires and billionaires than any other book on the planet. As I realized those two things, I read the book and I was like, “This is what I’m looking for.” The central concept is what you envision in detail on a daily basis is what shows up in your life.

I then discovered a big problem. It’s a great idea, but how do I apply it in in a practical way? After moping around for a couple of weeks, I realized I had to create a practical application for myself. I did and I applied it to a new business that I was starting in the financial services industry. Over many years, I continually tweaked my twelve-minute-a-day methodology. Over those years, my income went from low six figures a year to over $5 million a year. I felt so incredibly blessed. It’s quite a change from my twenty-year history. It was a 25-time increase. Surprisingly, I could see why it was happening.

By applying science to my life, for the first time ever, I was influencing my daily actions and thoughts. Clearly, I was operating at a higher level than I ever had before and I could actually feel it. The best news was I also met the woman of my dreams from applying this methodology. The results changed me as an entrepreneur. I became fascinated by the fact that you could take two key scientific principles and apply them to your life so materially impacts your success and achievement in life. It amazed me that you could make such a small change that only took twelve minutes a day to radically change your outcomes.

90% of thoughts are fear-based and keep you stuck in survival. You want to live an exceptional life! Share on X

I found it so intellectually interesting that I sold my company. About three months after I sold my company, I had the good fortune to meet the former chancellor and president at the University of Texas. I told him my story and he said, “You’ve got to teach this at the University of Texas. Why don’t we teach it together?” I teach this methodology to high achievers at the University of Texas, but my passion is to teach it to entrepreneurs and corporate executives who struggle to crossover to making seven figures a year as I did.

You sit down with yourself and say, “There is no system that exists. I’m going to go create one.” I’m proud of you for that one.

That happens especially when you turn 50 because candidly you realize that time is running out and you better figure it out. I know you’d find this interesting. I read the book when I was 41 and it’s the same thing. I couldn’t figure out a way to apply it, but at 50, when I read it again, I was like, “You better figure out the way.” I felt the pressure and that pressure is what impacted me.

One of my favorite quotes, Bob Proctor, said this, “When you read a book for the second time, you don’t find something in the book that wasn’t there before. You find something in yourself that didn’t exist before.”

That is a great thought. I had never heard of that.

You did have some challenges, struggles and doubts when you were in your 30’s and 40’s. That manifested itself in the way you looked at Think and Grow Rich the first time. Can you share a little bit about your struggles and doubts when you were a little bit younger?

When I was in my 30’s and 40’s, I worked hard. I got up at 5:30 in the morning and I worked until 6:00. I’d work on Saturdays. I was putting in a solid 70 hours a week. When I was younger, I was like, “This is the path to success, just hard work.” One of the things that I’ve come to appreciate for being on this planet for 60 years is if you do life like everyone else, you’re going to get an average life. It’s pure math. What I mean by that is here’s how most people do life as I did in my 30’s and 40’s. You put your head down and work hard. Working hard will give you an average to a good life, but it’s not going to give you an exceptional life. An exceptional life is what most of us want, don’t you think?

Absolutely, it’s something that most people dream about. In fact, Napoleon Hill said, “98% of people are walking around with no real purpose, but they have what they are considering a dream.” You want to change that dream to a plan, did you not?

 

You’re right and this is reflecting back on it. Here’s my definition of an exceptional life. In your career, you’re making over a million dollars a year and you like what you’re doing. Secondly, you have a great romantic relationship and third, you’re fit and trim. To me, that’s the trifecta of an exceptional life, but you can’t get that by just working hard. I know a lot of your people are corporate people and they go, “I’m never going to make $1 million a year.” If you’re working for a public company, a lot of people at the highest levels are getting stock options and can make $1 million plus a year.

The thing is that we put these arbitrary artificial limits on ourselves that have nothing to do with the facts.

Here’s the key question I have for your audience, “Do you have a way of creating success in your life that you can actually succinctly articulate?” Most people don’t. I didn’t in my 30’s and 40’s, but that’s what I want to give your audience. As to its credibility, I don’t know how you beat the top book in the world ever written on success. That’s why I’m so excited to be here and share it with your audience.

One of the things that you’re alluding to is that if a person is out there working hard and they’re giving it everything they have, but they’re not as successful as they think they should be, perhaps it isn’t their fault. Maybe they’ve been missing a piece of information. What do you think that piece of information is?

You’re using an antiquated operating system to run your life that gears to daily survival. That’s how we’re innately, genetically programmed is towards survival. Here are three problems with that. 90% of your thoughts are fear-based, you have less than 20% control over yourself and you’re reactive rather than proactive on your important agenda. That’s all great if daily survival is the most important thing in your life. It’s exactly the opposite if you want to be productive, creative and happy.

I’m fascinated by that whole 90% of thoughts are fear-based.

Here’s what’s also interesting. Over the last twenty years, there’s been such an intense interest in what makes the mega achievers different than everybody else. All this research has come down to two things. The differentiator between the mega-successful and the moderately successful is control of self and focus. Control of self is your everyday actions. Your focus is your ongoing thoughts. That’s exactly what this twelve-minute-a-day technique addresses.

How does it work? How do you go about using twelve minutes a day to turn your life around?

What you envision in detail on a daily basis is what shows up in your life. Share on X

Let me share one other thing before I answer that. What is different about what I’m going to share with you than everything else in the success and human achievement field is that everything else is strategies. They’re oftentimes great strategies, but we’ve got great strategies coming out our ears. What we need is a tangible way to apply them so that they show up in our everyday thoughts and actions. It’s obvious when you think about it, but we don’t appreciate it as much as we should. Your everyday actions and ongoing thoughts, the cumulative effect of that is actually what determines your success in each area of your life.

That’s a big thing. Many sit around wishing they would take action rather than taking action.

I’ll share with you how this works. We take your life and compress it down to one sheet of paper, front and back. Picture this, this one sheet of paper is sitting in a plastic frame on your nightstand. Visualize that. On the front is the ideal you in the five key areas of your life: yourself, your health, your romantic relationship, your spirituality and your career. That’s what’s on the front. On the back is the improvements you want in each area of your life as well as your top three goals for the quarter. On the bottom, we’re tracking your key behaviors and your goals every Sunday morning. Essentially, what you’re doing is you’re reading to yourself every day exactly the person you want to be, exactly what you want to accomplish and precisely how you’re going to achieve your clearly-defined goals. Once you do that for approximately 21 days, then the science kicks in and what you’re feeding yourself starts to show up in your thoughts and actions automatically without thinking. That is the science kicking into it.

That’s a practical way to use what Napoleon Hill called autosuggestion.

I’ll give you an example, Corey. I did get married in my 50’s. Are you married?

Yeah, for many years here.

I discovered something that my married friends failed to share with me. That every once in a while, your spouse will say something irritating. I’m sure that’s never happened to you.

It’s an interesting thing because irritating is an interesting word because I’ve had to learn that it’s my reaction to what’s important to her.

 

I discovered this after I got married and I thought, “It took me so long to find somebody that would actually have me. I sure wanted to be a great husband.” I didn’t like what would come out of my mouth when Ginger would say something irritating. I was like, “I’m going to fix this.” Every day I would say to myself that I’m flexible, patient and thoughtful and fifteen days in, nothing. I’m no more flexible, patient and thoughtful than I was when I first started reading that. About the 21st, 22nd day, Ginger said something irritating and at that moment, I was flexible, patient and thoughtful. I didn’t have to think about it. That’s who I had become. It happened automatically without thinking. The reason it didn’t work fifteen days in is that the subconscious mind hadn’t accepted the programming yet. I’m going to explain why that happens when I explain the science. Around the 21st, 22nd day, it showed up in my thoughts and actions automatically.

That’s wonderful because a lot of people want a quick fix. They want instant gratification. After two weeks of trying something new, it’s not working and they stop.

I think back on my career in my 30’s and 40’s and I worked hard, which I know everybody does. The older I got, I was like, “Working hard doesn’t seem to produce an exceptional life. It produces a good life, but not an exceptional life.” I was frustrated. I felt like my life was passing me by. I wasn’t living up to my potential and I wasn’t making the most of my precious life. As I got into my 40’s, it bugged me and was troubling. When I was 50, I was like, “You better figure it out. You better get it together right now.” I know many of your audience feel the same way. They deserve a better life. They’re working hard. How do they do it? To me, this is a new way of doing life, a new way of thinking. I would daresay it’s the only proven success formula known to man. I know that sounds like an exaggerated statement, but I’m telling you, I was looking for that success formula for twenty years, easily and never found anything that came close until I found this.

I’m starting to think that we’re talking about the difference between working hard and working smart.

Exactly, you couldn’t have said it better. I’ll give you another example. I gave the example of how it impacted my marriage, but here’s how it impacted my business career and what caused my income to go from low six figures to $5 million plus a year. Every day, I’m going to feed myself my succinct business plan and also, my unique strategy for success and my business. I’d also figure out what the three things are that move the needle in my businesses. I feed that to myself every day. The fourth thing is I would read whatever the linchpin issue for my company was to go to that next level. I’m feeding those four things to myself every day. Here was the effect.

First of all, my business plan was so easy to implement because it was so top of mind. Secondly, I was focused only on what moves the needle because I realize time is my most precious commodity. When you step back and think what moves the needle in my company or in my career and you focus on that and you’re reading it every day, guess what happens? All distractions fall by the wayside. The third thing happened and this is the thing that surprised me. From reading those four things every day, I started to see that my business plan and strategy for success started to evolve much quicker than it ever had before, probably 20 or 30 times quicker.

I now understand why that was happening. You’re feeding this to yourself every day and your subconscious mind is taking it in, it’s actually challenging your strategy for success. Looking at, “Is there a better way? Is there a flaw in your vision of how you’re going to be successful?” It will sort out those flaws and it will give you a better approach. I continually saw that my business plan and strategy for success got more refined, detailed and nuanced. That was a game-changer. That’ll work whether you’re an entrepreneur or you’re in the corporate world.

We always talk about this idea of being laser-focused. You’re starting to describe how we can become laser-focused in the midst of all of this stuff going on that we call life. We sit there and think, “I had this big goal. I had this great idea. I had this thing and now it seems to have dissipated into the ether.”

The differentiator between the mega-successful and the moderately successful is control of self and focus. Share on X

That’s a challenge in life. We live in a world of clutter and you’ve got to take your life seriously. I know you believe in this. You’ve got to grab hold of your life. At some point, you’ve got to go, “Let’s pull this thing together and let’s have that success in my career. Let’s have that great romantic relationship. Let’s have control over my health and appearance.”

No one’s coming to do this for us.

Here’s something your audience will appreciate. This is at the fundamental or the science behind this. Here’s how the human mind works. The conscious mind sets your intention and it’s based on logic. It’s influenced by logic, but the subconscious mind controls your everyday thoughts and ongoing actions. It’s only influenced by repetition. It doesn’t care about logic. I’ll give you an example of this. Let’s say you want to lose weight. The conscious mind sets the intention based on the logic, the health benefits. The reason most people don’t lose weight is that they’re not influencing the part of their brain that controls their everyday actions and ongoing thoughts, the subconscious mind. When I say everyday actions and ongoing thoughts, I’m talking about what you’re eating every day and how much you’re exercising. At the end of the day, that’s what determines if you lose weight. That’s why I say the reason people don’t lose weight is that they’re not affecting the part of their brain that controls everyday actions and ongoing thoughts. Does that make sense?

Absolutely, because you start thinking about, “Why did I eat that thing that I shouldn’t have eaten when I told myself I was going to do better?”

You’ve hit on something right there, “I told myself I was going to do something better.” How did you tell yourself that? Probably it’s a nebulous thought, not a focused intention that you’re feeding every day. The lesson from that science is that the thing that controls your everyday thoughts and ongoing actions is repetition. The part of your brain that controls those things doesn’t care about logic. Everybody’s used to influencing themselves with logic. That’s the fundamental problem. The part of your brain that controls your actions doesn’t care about logic. It’s solely influenced by repetition. That’s why you feed this to yourself each day, the ideal person you want to be and how you’re going to accomplish your goals. That’s the key to this.

The difference is between telling yourself and programming yourself.

That’s a great way to put it. Looking back, when I turned 50, I realized that having a great romantic relationship was going to affect my life more than anything else. A lot of people miss the fact that that romantic relationship is going to affect your happiness more than any other external factor. I grasped that at 50. I wanted to find my wife, but I also saw that I wanted to create financial security because I was like, “Am I going to have to work until I’m 80? Am I ever going to experience that freedom?” Once I started making $5 million a year, I felt so blessed, but the thing that was cool is I saw it wasn’t the money. It wasn’t even the lifestyle. It blessed me with having a paid-for house on Lake Austin and eliminating worry about the future.

I evolved to where every day I get up and do what I love and on my schedule. The best thing was a sense of accomplishment and the feeling that finally, I had control over my life. That’s the essence. What we all want is control over our life. It gets back to what I said. If you’re not as successful as you think you should be, examine your life and decide, “Do I have a way of creating success and achievement in my life?” Most people don’t. Once you embrace this twelve-minute day technique, suddenly you do. Your motto becomes, “What I envision in detail on a daily basis is what shows up in my life.” We teach you how to make that happen every day.

 

That’s fantastic because that’s what it’s about. It’s this person that you have to become in order to earn that money is more valuable to you than the actual money.

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this. This is interesting. Success is not something that you can chase. It’s like trying to capture a butterfly. Success is something you attract by the person you become. Would you agree with that?

Absolutely, because the more you force anything, the less it works.

I’ll tell you something you would find interesting. This has been a five-year journey for me from the time I sold my company and started teaching at the University of Texas. After I met the chancellor, it took us a couple of years to get our course through the bureaucracy at the University of Texas. The first year, I wrote it down and got it worked. The second year, I spent making it work on other people. The third year, I created a video to explain how it worked. I had to do it for people at that point. I knew I had to ultimately create an online course. That’s what I did. We got it completed. It has been so gratifying to see so many people taking it and seeing the life-altering impact it had on them. It’s great that it worked for me, but unless I could make it work on other people and give it to them in a way that wasn’t overly expensive, then I didn’t have anything. I couldn’t make a dent in the universe unless I did that. It’s pretty cool now to see the impact it’s having on a lot of people.

One of the things that we talk about in the show is about this idea of being transformational and transcendent. You hit on both of those right there. When you are giving this information to other people in a way that they can consume it, you’re helping them transform, but you’re also helping yourself transcend.

You’d find this interesting. Years ago, as I was getting into this, I thought, “I’m going to go find the top expert in the world on success and achievement.” That person is Darren Hardy. If I’m going to spend the rest of my life working on this, I want to talk to the top expert in the world and see if, “Is there something else similar to this? What does he think?” I want honest feedback. I figured out a way to meet him and I had to write a big check to make that happen, but I wrote the big check and I spent three days with him.

I sat down with him. I was showing this visualization in the frame, and he was looking at it and going, “This is pretty good.” He looked at it a little closer and he goes, “This is exceptional.” He said, “John, you’ve got a problem. Most people are not going to spend twelve minutes a day on anything to increase their success and achievement in life.” I was like, “Darren, how can that be? It’s twelve minutes a day. It’s based on the top book ever written on success. They’re not going to spend twelve minutes a day on that.”

He said, “I know. You’ll do it, I’ll do it but most people won’t. That’s what you’re going to learn in the success and human achievement field is that most people won’t do anything to impact their success and achievement in life. For those few that will, the people actually do what you’re proposing, it’s going to be their advantage in life.” I was like, “That makes sense. It certainly was the advantage in life for me.” I see that if you’re going to have an exceptional life, you have to find an advantage in life. You’ve got to do life different than everybody else. This ends up being your advantage in life. It amazes me that it only takes twelve minutes a day, but I’m telling you, that’s true.

The mind thrives on order. When there's order in your mind, you're happy. When there's disorder in your mind, you're unhappy. Share on X

One of the things that Darren talks about is the way to get yourself to spend that twelve minutes is to find your why. Why am I doing this? How do you go about figuring out your why when you’re at 50 or so? Were you visualizing? Were you using affirmations or were you that frustrated?

The thing that was driving me in terms of the why was I wanted freedom in my life like everybody. We don’t want to be working all our lives and we want to do stuff where you can get up and do whatever you want to. For me, I play blues guitar in a band and I’m so passionate about sharing this with other people. It’s doesn’t feel like work to me. The why evolved to initially having freedom and control over my life and then it evolved into making a dent in the universe with this.

That’s so excellent because once you started to see some results, you were able to pick up momentum.

One of the things that are striking about this is people start this and immediately they go, “I’ve never compressed my life down to one sheet of paper.” There’s this innate feeling of control over your life. It’s interesting. The mind thrives on order. When there’s order in your mind, you’re happy. When there’s disorder in your mind, you’re unhappy. When you compress your life down to one sheet of paper like this, it gives you immense clarity, focus and a true sense of order. That directly impacts your happiness.

One of the people that I strongly admire is Brian Tracy. He talks about your level of stress is directly related to what he calls your locus of control. The more you have an internal locus of control, meaning that you direct the focus, you direct the shape of your life, the happier and less stressful your life is. Could you review a little bit more about how this twelve-minute technique works?

You create this. We give you a questionnaire that that makes you examine all the different aspects of your life and you fill out the questionnaire. We have in our course an amazing template that makes it easy to compress your life down to one sheet of paper. Before I created the course, oftentimes people go, “It’s got to be hard to compress your life down to one sheet of paper.” The template that we have, and I’m proud of that as many people comment about now, it allows you to take all your answers in your questionnaire and compress it down on the front and back on one sheet of paper.

We give you an example of my visualization, and a lot of people keep some of the stuff in mine and add theirs and tailor it to them. It’s way easier than you would think. That process is an examination process of your life to get that. As soon as they get that before they even start reading it, you get a sense of control over your life. When you start reading it every day, now you’re applying science to your life to up your success. That’s what I realize now in retrospect. That was such a change. I had never applied science to my life to up my success. I never even thought of the idea. I see that that was such a game changer.

I appreciate you sharing that because one of our main Successful Thinker philosophies is that you have to simplify your life if you want to get your life under control.

 

I know you believe this. People sleepwalk through life. There’s so much clutter, but they’re sleepwalking through life, and they’ll hear something that may be profound, yet they take no action on it because it’s just the clutter. I can’t make them realize the profound. Back when I turned 50, it hit me, “Find the top book ever written on success and apply it word for word to my life.” Now, I look back and go, “I don’t know why God gave me that, but that was profound.” That’s what I want people to realize. Don’t be sleepwalking through life. Life is precious. You’ve only got one shot at life and this is how to take it to the next level. I’ve got a gift for your audience. If you text me, I will give you our free five-day email course. Each day, Kelly and I do about eight to ten-minutes video. Each day has one video and we’re explaining here’s how it works, here’s the science behind it, here are examples of it working. If your audience will text me at 44222 and then in the message key is the word GENIUS, then they automatically get this free five-day email course.

That’s kind of you to offer. How is it best that people get ahold of you and learn more about your system? Is that the route you’re suggesting?

There are two ways. One is to text me. The other way is through our website. It’s ThinkItBeIt.net. That’s the name of my company.

I’ve been on that website. It’s absolutely phenomenal. John, this has been the most enjoyable time I’ve had in a good long while. I want to thank you for spending your time with us. Is there one nugget that you can share that we’ll send our audience off to their day with a huge bang?

If you do life like everybody else, you’re getting an average life. Count on it. I say that based on 60 years of experience on this planet. Trust me, you’ve got to figure out if you want the exceptional life, how to do life differently. That’s the beauty of this. You can do life like everybody else for the other 23 hours and 48 minutes, but if you do this for twelve minutes a day, your life will radically change. Look at our website and see all the amazing testimonials that we feel blessed to have.

John, thank you so much. Successful Thinkers out there, I know you can dig up twelve minutes, even six minutes two times. Whatever you’ve got to do, get out there and change your life because you’ve got somebody who you need to impact. You’ve got somebody out there who are wanting to revel in your genius. There’s a lady out there, a guy out there who wants you to give them the best that you have to offer. Never forget going forward that no matter what happens, I believe in you.

Important Links:

• The Successful Thinker
• Think and Grow Rich
• John Mitchell
• Darren Hardy
• ThinkItBeIt.net

About John Mitchell

Have you ever heard of the book Think and Grow Rich? It’s sold over 100 million copies worldwide. The next best selling book on success and achievement has sold less than 10 million copies. So it’s the greatest selling book on success ever written by a factor of 10.

My guest today is John Mitchell. He has what is recognized today as the top application in the world of this legendary book. His practical application takes 12 minutes a day. The science behind his technique was profiled on the cover of Time Magazine. When John applied it to his life, he changed a 20-year history of making six figures a year and began making $5 million a year.

 

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