Ziad K. Abdelnour's Blog

After three decades in the venture capital/private equity business I decided to write "THE BOOK" about it.

Start-up Saboteurs: How Incompetence, Ego, and Small Thinking Prevent True Wealth Creation is an insightful and penetrating experience about breaking the "code of silence" of the venture capital/private equity industry and how to get funded, build a multi billion dollar business and create true wealth. This book is dedicated to the true serial entrepreneurs who live to the extreme. They push limits and spend their time building legacies. It is this legacy that ought to be transmitted to millions of entrepreneurs and financiers the world over. True success is all about "empowerment"

I really hope you will enjoy and share with your friends the world over. You can already pre-order the book at Amazon if you haven't already. A great way to start this "New Decade" in the making.

Distribution of the book will be managed by Morgan James Publishing in the US and the world and through over 100 points of sale all over the Middle East too. Morgan James is distributed by the nation's largest with English language coverage into 98% of booksellers, wholesalers and libraries in North America and 86% abroad.

In the meantime, please feel free to check out https://www.freedomforall.io/ for my book website, along with https://www.youtube.com/user/ZiadKAbd..., TWO platforms which will constantly keep you posted of all details including but not limited to my TV, radio, book signing events, public venues and other worldwide appearances as we get there.

Last, I will be hosting a series of book signing events in the US, Europe and the Middle East starting the 1st Quarter of 2020 as per the schedule below. Please let me know if you have any interest in attending or better leading the efforts and being part of a select group of participants in any of those centers of influence, and I will make sure to coordinate all with you regarding exact dates as we move along.

Updated and Final Upcoming Book Signing Events:

January 2020: New York City, Washington DC

February 2020: London

March 2020 : Miami

April 2020: Chicago, Dallas

May 2020: Dubai, Beirut

While we are at it, please feel free to register in here https://s.surveyplanet.com/jh8a3Ij for whatever venue you would be most interested in attending if any.

At the end of the day, "success" is not important except in the impact it has on other people’s lives....Fasten your seat belt and enjoy one of the wildest book rides you'll ever experience on your way to "wealth creation".

May capitalism always prevail .

You’ve got a blog.

You like blogging and you get a nice number of readers every day. It seems like a natural choice to monetize your blog and get something back for your efforts.

There is indeed a lot of press about people making a living from their blogs – and some people do, it’s true. There are a smaller number of professional bloggers out there who can also make reasonably significant money from their blog, part- or full-time wages.

I have a few friends that actually make a living from blogging and other social media ventures. I subscribe to their blogs, but always wondered how they draw an income until I did my homework and came up with the following tips which I thought I’d share.

Let’s face reality first… The small percentage of people who make real living wages off their blogs are almost always people who came to blogging already established as a popular, influential or powerful voice in their industry. In many of these cases, these people had a large following before they began to blog. In others, they focused on celebrity gossip and related topics. It’s unfortunate, but celebrity is the easiest way onto the money train. Today’s post is for the rest of us. So If the total audience you can possible reach is relatively small, you will never be a millionaire blogging. Size matters indeed.

So what are some of the most relevant tools that blog owners can use to make money besides Affiliate Marketing?

Banner Advertising

Banner ads have a pretty bad reputation – generally perceived to be both obtrusive and ineffective – However, the ad format isn’t limited to big publishers and well placed, properly executed iterations can make great sources of revenue.

Sponsored Content

Sponsored content involves the posting of specific content in exchange for payment of some kind. Whilst especially popular among fashion bloggers, this is now common practice in many other verticals. Sponsored content can be anything from a product review to a full blown campaign negotiated directly with the advertiser. Such relationships can be initiated by retailers and their agencies who may send you samples in exchange for a review, or you can get in touch with specific brands directly to propose a campaign.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is possibly the oldest and most popular form of online marketing. It’s cheap and reasonably effective, plus it tends to be the preferred form of marketing communications for consumers. If you don’t have one already, set-up a newsletter. People who sign-up are by definition interested in your content so (within reason) send them more! Make sure your communications are consistent, regular (but not excessive) and provide your readers with relevant content.

AdWords & Adsense

Google AdSense is a program run by Google that allows publishers in the Google Network of content sites to serve automatic text, image, video, or interactive media advertisements that are targeted to site content and audience. These advertisements are administered, sorted, and maintained by Google, and they can generate revenue on either a per-click or per-impression basis.

Alternatively, one site real worth looking at is Seeking Alpha http://seekingalpha.com/user/13111372... where Advertisers pay you to write content on your blog or social media property. You are compensated for exposure to your audience, often at much higher rate than you will ever get with ad sense, affiliate marketing or other display advertising. As your audience grows you are able to charge hundreds or thousands of dollars per post, but it will take awhile to get to that point.

Overall, I believe that choosing a niche that people have an unending itch to learn more about and connect with other people may be the best way to go about it. Once you are established as an authority in that niche you have numerous options to make money but the best way is always by promoting your own products and services. Whether that be an information product about your topic, physical products or even some type of service to help people it is the best way to go.

Most importantly, you need to build a fan base, or even a readership for your blog. Niche blogs are indeed the best way to make money without trying too hard. Of course, as usual, you’d have to do the work, as in everything from writing, to marketing, to product placement of your blog, to maintaining that market.

You gain more influence and star power this way, which turns into word of mouth. As your blog grows, you get better chances of reaching the top of the search engines for the keywords you want. Because honestly, it’s HARD to build a general purpose site without previous niche blogging. VERY hard. And I’m telling you from firsthand experience

None of these monetizing methods give you a bye from promoting your blog, expanding your network or doing the work to create good, relevant, compelling content. If you are already doing the work, these methods still might not bring in dollars while you have 100 readers. But, when you have 100,000 readers or 1,000,000 readers, you might be one of those few who can say they make a living at blogging.

Share your thoughts.

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I am a Lebanese-American, a conservative and a capitalist evangelist. I was born in Lebanon, and had one dream and one dream alone – to come to America, and make my fortune as a capitalist. I did just that. I studied at The Wharton School, went to work at the most entrepreneurial firm on Wall Street, Drexel Burnham Lambert, became a global entrepreneur-financier, and made my mark dealing with some of the largest capital pools in the world, orchestrating large scale buyouts and recapitalizations and trading physical commodities the world over.

I travel extensively around the world and every time I am abroad I hear naysayers complaining how America has – to their big dismay – turned to be.

I thought I’d share this blog with you and set the record straight for all the people out there who still don’t get how the American system works and why this great land is still as appealing to the world as ever.

1. It is a fact that despite all the negativism out there, the US remains the world’s leading and most appealing immigrant nation. Last year — 2013 — over a million humans legally migrated to the USA from around the world (more than any other nation); several times that arrived inside her borders illegally. They all didn’t uproot their lives and head to the USA for no reason.

2. Granted the fact that the US as the sole hegemony of the free world and now of the world in general, has a giant footprint and has regularly thrown its weight around in ways that are going to piss people off. Many of those complaints exist with good reason and the US should do more to understand that and ponder those reasons openly and honestly. But, without the US, the world would be far worse, especially if — by some weird reason — the US were to have disappeared at anytime post WWII.

3. When you go through the diplomatic quarters of every nation, there’s still only one nation who has lines of people outside their front gate, day and night waiting to get in. Not Japan, not Germany, not Russia, not India and not China. Occasionally you see similar lines outside the embassies of the UK and Australia and Canada, but none compare to the lines outside the US embassy. Care to guess why?

4. For those who claim that America is no longer a manufacturing power and lost its edge in this respect – America is still a manufacturing powerhouse more than ever. It’s just that most people don’t know it, because we no longer produce the most toasters, toothbrushes, and such. Now, our big areas of manufacturing are things like satellites. Also, keep in mind that although the iPod may be assembled in China, a lot of the parts are made here. As to the Toyota in your garage, well over 80% of the parts and labor that went into it are American.

5. For those who claim that America is no longer an economic juggernaut given the recent crisis the country has undergone through, well let me share with you the cold hard facts despite all what you hear out there.

· The US continues to dominate several large strategic industries (tech, entertainment, media, defense, fashion, financial services)

· The US still has the strongest universities in the world, and the best and brightest students the world over still want to come here

· The US is on the path to energy independence

6. For those who reminisce America’s good old days and want them back, please let me know exactly what you are reminiscing?

· when Blacks knew their place,

· when women were restricted to being secretaries, nurses, and teachers;

· when non-Christian children had to sit through Christian prayers in the public schools;

· when there was no Americans with Disabilities Act and folks in wheel chairs had no access to schools, libraries, or shopping malls;

· when no television show had Black characters unless they were maids or butlers;

· when children with learning disabilities were kicked out of the public schools;

· when 18 year olds were drafted and sent into wars even as they were denied the right to vote;

· when people whose political opinions were ever so liberal found themselves barred from teaching in our schools and universities, serving in our government, performing on our stages and on television, and having their works published.

· when, in the absence of social security, our most impoverished people were also our most elderly;

· when real estate contracts stipulated that the buyer was prohibited from selling the property to Jews, Arabs, and Blacks;

· when employers had the right to refuse to hire workers because of their race, religion, ethnicity, or sex.

· when places of public accommodation (restaurants, hotels, gas stations, pharmacies, amusement parks, etc.) could deny service to people because of their race, religion, ethnicity, or sex.

· when potential voters had to pay poll taxes or pass rigged literacy tests in order to cast a ballot;

· when it was not considered a crime for a husband to rape his wife.
If that’s what you mean by “the good old days,” I’m certainly grateful that they’re gone.

7. To close, aren’t you proud of

· American economic ingenuity and scientific inventiveness?

· The fact that we are a nation of wildly different ideas as to how to run a country that—for the most part—gets up and goes to work every day without ripping itself apart (see: Egypt, Russia, Pakistan, Greece, Syria and others)?

· Warren Buffett and Bill Gates for doing the right thing with their wealth upon their deaths?

· Apple announcing that they will begin building computers in the USA again?

· All the foreign car manufacturers who build cars here, well, profitably while taking care of workers thus demonstrating that the USA has an amazing ability to build great machines?

· Google, Amazon.com, Microsoft, Hollywood (in general), Wall Street (yes, Wall Street), Facebook, Chevron, BoA, Motorola, GE, Ford, JPMorgan and lots of other companies that are innovating and creating jobs (and making a very friendly workplace for women and minorities)?
So for all the naysayers out there still bitching what happened to America, how about rolling up your sleeves and helping where you can to make sure this huge, unwieldy, kind of leaky boat we call America stays on course. And the only way to do that is to look forward, be realistic, understand that we’re all “real Americans”, and that we sink or swim together.

Share your thoughts…

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While the economy has been miserable for small business, and many larger ones as well, the ranks of the self-employed have been growing. According to a research study undertaken by “Economic Modeling Specialists International”, the number of people who primarily work on their own has grown to 10.6 million as of today.

The rise is partially reflective of hard times, and many of the self-employed earn only modest livings in fields such as childcare and construction. However the shift to self-employment is likely to accelerate in the future, and into higher-paying professions, for reasons including the ubiquity of the Internet, which makes it easier for some types of business to use independent contractors, as well as the reluctance of large firms to hire full-time employees with benefits.

Obviously, if you want to be financially independent, your chances of achieving that are doubled when you are an entrepreneur. Of course, increased potential for rewards also includes increased risk factors.

Not everyone is a natural entrepreneur. Many people are happy to choose the supposed security of being an employee over the risks of starting their own business. That is fortunate. Entrepreneurs need employees. It is kind of funny though, because the employee who chooses the imaginary security of a job is actually gambling on the success of the entrepreneur’s business as much as the entrepreneur is gambling on his/her own success.

So do you have what it takes to be a top deal maker-entrepreneur?

After two decades working with entrepreneurs helping them build and fund their businesses, I thought I’d share with you what I think are the top 12 character traits that most real successful entrepreneurs demonstrate. Here are the basics.

1. A burning passion or intense drive to succeed.

A powerful drive to create success, wealth, legacy or fame is the primary motivator for most top-notch entrepreneurs. They are intensely passionate about what they do, almost to the point of fanaticism. Their goals are set high and when attained, are reset even higher. Money is not usually sought for its own sake, but as way of keeping score.

2. The ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

Rather than resisting or resenting change, the best of breed entrepreneurs have the ability to easily adapt to changing circumstances and conditions. In fact, many entrepreneurs thrive on change. On the negative side, some are so thrilled by change that they will force it, even when things are going perfectly.

3. The need for autonomy.

Some people just need to be their own boss. While many employees see a job as providing security, most real entrepreneurs see a job as a form of economic slavery and prefer to have personal autonomy to economic security. The worst part about being your own boss is that the expectations for your job function are set higher than for everyone else. The best part about being your own boss is that if you don’t like your orders, you can change them anytime you please…decisively.

4. A sense of personal destiny.

Most entrepreneurs have more than just a strong desire to mold their personal destiny; they have a strong belief in their ability to create their own destiny by their own choices and actions as well. If they are among the few who believe in a set fate or predetermined destiny, they believe that they are fated or destined to be successful.

5. Bigger than life energy.

Top entrepreneurs are like a moving hurricane. They put in more work hours than most people. They also often play hard and competitively. You won’t find many entrepreneurial couch potatoes. They are usually too busy working or playing to be spectators. This high personal energy level translates as constant enthusiasm and personal charisma. This enthusiasm and charisma attracts other people into the game plan of the entrepreneur.

6. Deal making ability.

Top Entrepreneurs are deal makers. They make deals with themselves. (When I reach a certain goal, I will reward myself with…). They make deals in their personal relationships. (A movie date is as much a contract as a business deal.) And, of course, they love to make business deals. They seem to be always negotiating something with somebody.

7. A highly developed intuition.

Most entrepreneurs rely more on gut feelings to make decisions than they do on conscious analysis of a situation. Even though they may be highly analytical and like to accumulate lots of data, their actual decisions are usually based on what feels right. A recent survey of top level executives and company owners reported that most high income decision makers gather as much information as possible and consult with their Master Mind team, but in the end, make decisions based on gut feelings or intuition.

8. Opportunity seeking.

Most people wait for the right opportunity to present itself. The true entrepreneur is always on the lookout for yet another new opportunity. It is often just a matter of perspective. There is the famous story (usually attributed to Joseph Bata) about the shoe company who sends an employee to a country in Africa to ascertain if there is a market for their shoes. The representative reports back, “There is no shoe market here. These people don’t even wear shoes.” The boss, on hearing this news, exclaims, “This is wonderful. No one has any shoes yet. What a huge opportunity!”

9. Perseverance and determination.

This is a big attribute. The obstacles that cause many people to quit are minor setbacks for the true entrepreneur. Winners persist. Losers desist. It is often that simple personality difference that separates the happy successful person from the frustrated failure. There is no better way to state the importance of persistence than to quote Calvin Coolidge, “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

10. Problem solving.

When others focus on existing problems, entrepreneurs focus on possible solutions. There is always a solution. There is always a problem. For most people, a problem is an impediment. For the entrepreneur, a problem is an opportunity to discover or create a better solution.

11. Risk tolerance.

The top entrepreneur has a high tolerance for risk. The average person is afraid of doing something in case they fail. The true entrepreneur knows that failing to attempt something is a greater failure than trying and not succeeding. In fact, they often don’t even realize that they are taking a risk. What others may judge as a risky situation, entrepreneurs see as an opportunity for a higher reward.

12. A strong sense of self-confidence.

Many people will look at a successful person and see a big ego and think that this superstar has a big ego because he/she is successful. In fact, most successful people have a very high level of self-esteem before they achieve success. They know in their hearts that they deserve success. The lack of sufficient self-esteem and self-confidence is what inhibits many people in their quest for success. Entrepreneurs (and other winners) are confident in their ability to achieve their ideals.
So there you have it. You know what it is that you need to develop in order to become a happy and successful entrepreneur. Although some people seem to have been born with these attributes, they can all be developed by anyone with sufficient desire and determination.

You have the power to choose to develop (or strengthen) these attributes in yourself. Even if you do not want to be self-employed, they are still valuable attributes that will serve you well in creating a successful and fulfilling life.

Wish you all the very best on the path to entrepeneurship.

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Having been through the rigorous process of writing my book “Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics” and promoting it very successfully all over the world, I thought I’d share with you some of my personal thoughts in the hope of helping you do the same.

So here are my basic tips…

1. Do not self publish

Find a real credible publisher that will get you in the door. Mine was John Wiley & Sons; one of the most prominent business books publishers in the world whose input was invaluable in getting my message across. Although big publishers are not particularly helpful in promoting your book, having them on board is key to getting to all the right targets – especially when you are still an unknown figure publishing your first book.

2. Have a website and a blog

For this to be effective you should set your book and your site to be relatively similar in name and focus on certain key words. Make your website entertaining, colorful and imaginative and you will go a long way. Check out my Economic Warfare website in here to give you a better idea of what I am talking about. Also, make sure you connect a blog to your website to draw in additional traffic and remember to link it to your sales page or your blog in the description for maximum exposure.

3. Use Viral Media By Video

One of the best way to market your products is indeed by doing video marketing. Why? Well videos tend to sell better nowadays and by uploading your video, you look “more real” and sounds more convincing. While you are at it, submit it on sites listed at http://BookPraiser.com and a number of similar sites too. You can also check out my YouTube videos in here https://www.youtube.com/user/ZiadKAbd...

4. Do the Face to Face

Once again, in my opinion nothing really beats the face to face. So find as many business/networking events that you can and give them each a copy of your book to review and give away as a prize (This could turn into consulting opportunities later on). In my case, I traveled to 22 cities both in the US and overseas to get the message across. This was for the first 6 months of my publishing my book pretty much a full time job but for sure worth it. Be courteous but never pushy.

5. Keep Getting Reviews Non-Stop

I still believe that nothing is more powerful than good solid reviews. You can market your book by visiting other bloggers and asking them to post content about your book or through your face to face meetings. Goodreads is a great option. Amazon will also put your work on its page and has its own way to reviews. Many ways of doing it indeed. Do your homework.

Good luck being the change that you wish to see in the world

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A podcast that will truly blow your mind. http://livingoutsidethecube.podomatic...

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As Congressman Ron Paul once said: “It is no coincidence that the century of total war coincided with the century of central banking”. Wise words from a wise man indeed.

It is a fact that almost every Fed chairman in the past 60 years has manipulated interest rates to brighten the economic outlook for incumbent presidents or newly elected presidents who won by large margins. The purchasing power of the U.S. dollar has fallen 94 percent in the past 100 years. The only way you can create inflation is by creating more money that is backed by the same reserve assets; the Fed is the only entity that can create more money. Ben Bernanke’s quantitative easing (QE) programs have pumped billions of unfunded dollars into the economy, thereby setting us up for massive inflation in the very near future. If this isn’t a form of financial terrorism, it is incompetence of the highest order.

So how do you reverse this trend heading for a total collapse of the US economy?

Listen to Congressman Grayson recent statement in this regard: “A simple solution to the impasse we are going through is to have the Federal Reserve simply cancel the Treasury debt that it owns. The government can just forgive the government’s debt. This wouldn’t solve the debt problem entirely as the Federal Reserve doesn’t own all U.S. government debt; but it owns a significant chunk of it – roughly $2 trillion”

I believe Congressman Grayson is right on the money in his analysis.

Come to think of it, the debt held on the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve can be canceled without any significant consequence, because it is a bookkeeping artifact corresponding to the money supply. In essence, the government owes this money to itself. If I owe money to myself, I can cancel that debt at will and without consequence, essentially taking it out of my left pocket and putting it in my right pocket.

Last year, the Federal Reserve declared a “profit” of roughly $91 billion, much of which came from interest payments from the U.S. Treasury. The Federal Reserve then quickly remitted nearly all of this profit right back to the U.S. Treasury.

The Federal Reserve does this every year. Reducing or eliminating this unearned “profit” actually will provide a more realistic view of federal finances.

While canceling the Treasury debt held on the Federal Reserve balance sheet might be considered unorthodox to some people, I believe it is no more unorthodox than the quantitative easing that has added much of this debt to the Fed’s balance sheet.

Indeed, quantitative easing is largely performed through buying U.S. debt … $45 billion each month.

Janet Yellen could alleviate the debt ceiling crisis simply by canceling the debt held on the Fed’s balance sheet.

For a person pretty much trained and educated by Bernanke this scenario is probably unlikely... precisely the reason why I think this whole shenanigan is a band aid leading to nowhere.

Unless some drastic actions are taken in a totally opposite direction, we are not resolving our long term debt problem. On the contrary, following the same policies of the last 60 years will exacerbate the problem even more.

Debt-free money could be created to directly pay for public goods and services, and government could be the employer of last resort for infrastructure investment.

Because infrastructure creates more economic output than investment cost, this results in falling prices. So, we can have full-employment, the best infrastructure we can imagine, and falling costs to consumers.

I guess when you want something you've never had, you have to do something you've never done.... Share your thoughts.

I believe the U.S. has already defaulted … even with the debt ceiling deal being worked out.

The best way to look at this, I think, is that there’s a spectrum of default severities. At one end, you have the outright repudiation of sovereign debt, a la Ecuador in 2008; at the other end, you have the sequester, which involves telling a large number of government employees that the resources which were promised them will not, in fact, arrive.

Both of them involve the government going back on its promises, but some promises are far more binding, and far more important, than others.

Right now, we’ve already reached the point at which the government has broken very important promises indeed: We promised to pay hundreds of thousands of government employees a certain amount on certain dates, in return for their honest work. We have broken that promise. By Treasury’s own definition, it’s reasonable to say that we have already defaulted: surely, by any sensible conception, the salaries of government employees constitute “legal obligations of the US”

My question becomes: Is the American political system the latest bubble?

Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S. in 2011 on the grounds that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges.

A scary possibility is that the market price on the U.S. political system doesn’t reflect what market participants are coming to believe about it: that a once capable and reliable system is now dysfunctional and unpredictable. That raises the possibility that a pivotal event could move markets dramatically because traders are prepared to believe, and to begin trading on, a much more pessimistic assessment of America’s political system. If everyone were moved to act on that belief simultaneously — by a debt-ceiling crisis, for example — the results could be earthshaking.

One could argue that the bigger default is that on America’s legal obligations. By publicly announcing that the government will not prosecute Wall Street crimes, follow the Constitution, or respect the privacy of people or nations, the government has defaulted on the rule of law … scared investors away from the U.S, inflicted a heavy blow to our tech sector and doomed our economy to sluggishness for years to come.

It is sad but it is a fact that the U.S. has already destroyed enough trust to have caused the market to treat this like a de facto default....and I believe this is just the beginning of the nightmare scenario in the making.

God help us all.

Share your thoughts.

I believe each one of us has a financial genius in him/her that is asleep and just waiting to be awakened. It lies asleep because our culture has educated us into believing the wrong things about money. We're taught to be employees and work for money rather than to be entrepreneurs and investors and have money work for us. We're taught to not worry about our financial future because our company or the government will do that for us.

I also believe the best revenge against liberals and corporate bosses idiots is “obscene wealth”.

The message about money we’re taught from a young age is work hard, earn money, spend it, and when we run short, borrow some more. Unfortunately, 90 percent of the Western world subscribes to the above dogma, simply because it's easier to find a job and work for money than to make your own way and build your own wealth.

But to those who want to buck the trend, I have 10 ways to awaken your financial genius which I'll share with you over the next couple months.

The first is Find a Reason.

If you ask most people if they want to be rich, they say “yes.” But then reality sets in. They realize it's a lot of work to become rich. There is no getting rich quick. Facing these obstacles, they throw in the towel and take the easy route—getting a job and handing investments over to a pathetic broker.

Yet, there are clearly those in life who don't take the easy route. And there are those who are wildly successful where others aren't. What separates the successful from the unsuccessful? The answer is found in a reason.

A reason is simply a combination of "wants" and "don't wants." My reason for getting rich began with my "don't wants," which defined my "wants."

I don't want to work all my life. I don't want what my parents aspired for, job security and a house in the suburbs. I don't like being an employee. I don't want to be emotionally absent from my family and friends because I'm always working to make ends meet. I don't want to have nothing to pass on at the end of my life.

Out of these "don't wants," I developed my "wants."

I want to be free to travel the world and live the lifestyle I love. I want to be young when I do this. I want to be free financially. I want control over my time and my life. I want money to work for me. I want to be a “master of the universe” and say whatever I please to anyone without fear of being fired or looked upon as an outcast. Well, money is the only way to get me there and insulates me from all the dependence crap out there.

Personally, I've faced many setbacks in my road to riches. I've lost a lot of money and seen many deals fall through. I wanted to be financially free by age 30, but it took me until I was 34, with many learning experience along the way. But through it all, my reasons pulled me through.

Today is the day to determine your reason for getting rich. Make a list of your "Don't wants" and your "wants." Make sure that your reason is strong and determined. If you find the right reason, I promise you that you will find a way to get real wealthy But it all starts with you.

Stay tuned to my 9 other ways over the next few months... In the meantime, share your thoughts

There is a massive misconception about where the Bernanke Fed’s stimulus landed. Although the Bernanke Fed has disbursed $2.284 trillion in new money (the monetary base) since August 1, 2008, one month before the 2008 financial crisis, 81.5 percent now sits idle as excess reserves in private banks. The banks are not required to hold excess reserves. The excess reserves exploded from $831 billion in August 2008 to $1.863 trillion on June 14, 2013. The excess reserves of the nation’s private banks had previously stayed at nearly zero since 1959. The banks did not leave money idle in excess reserves at zero interest because they were investing in income earning assets, including loans to consumers and businesses.

This 81.5 percent explosion in idle excess reserves means that the Bernanke Fed’s new money issues of $85 billion each month have never been a big stimulus. Approximately 81.5 percent (or $69.27 billion) is either bought by banks or deposited into banks where it sits idle as excess reserves. The rest of the $85 billion, approximately 18.5 percent (or $15.72 billion) continues to circulate or is held as required reserves on banks’ deposit accounts (unlike unrequired excess reserves).

You don’t need a Ph.D. economist to know that if you pay banks ¼ percent risk free interest to hold reserves that they can obtain at near zero interest, that would be an incentive to hold the reserves. The Fed pumped out huge amounts of money, with the base of the money supply more than doubling from August 2008 to August 2010, reaching $1.99 trillion. Guess who has over half of this money parked in cold storage? The banks have $1.085 trillion on reserves drawing interest, The Fed records show they were paid $2.18 billion interest on these reserves in 2009.

Bottom Line: The Bernanke Fed’s policy is a repetition of what the Fed did in 1936 and 1937 which helped drive the country into a second depression. Why does Chairman Bernanke, who has studied the Great Depression of the 1930′s and has surely read the classic 1963 account of improper actions by the Fed on bank reserves described by Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz, repeat the mistaken policy?

Go figure