Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life: How to Unlock Your Full Potential for Success and Achievement

EXHAUSTIVE RESEARCH
Dr. Thomas Stanley of the University of Georgia spent more than
30 years studying self-made millionaires. He interviewed thousands
of them and compiled his findings into a variety of books, research
studies, and reports, including two best-selling books,
The Million-
aire Next Door
and
The Millionaire Mind
. His research shows that
every single kind of person, from every walk of life, has been able to
start from nothing and pass the magic million-dollar mark by doing
certain things in certain ways, over and over again.
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START WHERE YOU ARE
When I began studying self-made millionaires, I was living in a
rented apartment with rented furniture. I had a used car that was
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not paid for and I was deeply in debt. I was between jobs and living
off credit cards.
The first thing I found was that self-made millionaires did
things
differently
from average people, and I was tired of being 
av-
erage
. I therefore decided to stop doing what I was doing, which
wasn’t working, and to start doing what they were doing. My life
has never been the same since this decision.
It wasn’t easy to change my thinking about money and my fi-
nancial future, but eventually these efforts began to pay off. Like a
large ocean liner changing direction, one degree at a time, my habits
began to change. Within five years, I was out of debt and making
good money. In another five years, I passed the million-dollar mark.
When I look back, I see that it was no miracle. All I really did was to
learn what other successful people had done before me and then do
the same things until I got the same results.
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