hi I'm Sharon lecture and I am so delighted to be a guest on the root of all success podcasts just imagine you should listen to every episode because the real Jason Duncan has take he takes the time to curate his guests to make sure that you're getting absolutely the best information that can help you take you from where you are today to where you want to go and he pulled some things out of me that I don't normally talk about so we've talked about things that were my low points and my high points and you know that's the route to success is usually not a straight line ups and downs but your accelerate your path by listening to people and learning from other people so thank you Jason the real Jason Duncan for inviting me to share this time with you and I look forward to seeing everybody on the other side welcome to the root of all success with the real Jason Duncan a podcast that explores how the world's most powerful entrepreneurs unlocked success and how their stories can help you do the same a successful educator turned entrepreneur Jason has built multi-million dollar businesses that have been featured in ink magazine and Entrepreneur magazine his life's Mission now is helping entrepreneurs live what he calls hashtag the exit lifestyle introducing tedx speaker mastermind leader author entrepreneur Cigar Aficionado motorcycle Enthusiast and host of the root of all success the real Jason Duncan the real Jason Duncan welcome to another episode I'm the real Jason Duncan man I have a wonderful guest for you today none other than Sharon Lecter Sharon Lecter is an internationally recognized as financial literacy expert she is a keynote speaker she's a business Mentor she's a five times New York Times best-selling author and she has advised two U.S presidents both Bush and Obama on financial literacy so um but but I think what's really cool what you're going to see in this show today is that she is one of the co-authors of a book that you've probably heard of and read and thought it was amazing and you had no idea she was involved in that project and that's called Rich Dad Poor Dad Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lecter are the authors of that book but most people don't know that Sharon was involved in that so we're going to talk about that story and what happened and why her face and name is not now on the book but yet she was one of the authors and she has a copy of the original she'll show you if you're watching this on YouTube with her name on the front and her thick picture on the back she also is very much involved in Napoleon Hills Think and Grow Rich the foundation the Napoleon Hill Foundation which if you have read anything and know anything about Think and Grow Rich she is firmly entrenched in that hole uh that whole book series and everything around the Napoleon Hill Foundation writing three feet from gold she was a she was responsible for the release of the book outwitting The Devil that you've ever heard of that from Napoleon Hill one of the best ever this lady today is a Powerhouse and it's an honor to have her on the show we're going to talk all about what she's accomplished and how many books she's written and what she's done and it was a fantastic conversation that I can't wait to share with you so please help me welcome to the show Sharon Lecter hey Sharon welcome to the show thank you so much I'm delighted to be with you well I'm not as delighted as I am to know you and to be able to call you someone that I know and have on my show we've spent um not a whole lot of time together but we've spoken on stages together in different parts of the country and um honestly when I first met you I just the name Sharon Lecter I had no idea who that was it did not resonate but as you started talking I'm like I have to know who this person is and then you obviously as I said in the intro there's quite a few things that you've accomplished in your life that most people would be impressed as I would was to know so I'm honored that you're here so thank you thank you so much for doing the show today so let's talk about your books I I am a new author and you were so kind to endorse my new book uh exit without exiting which kind of fits into your your latest title uh exit Rich which I've got a copy of right here for those who watch on YouTube go check this out exit Rich the 6p method to sell your business for huge profit uh so uh Tucker and Lecter wrote this book so let's talk about that one first because it kind of coincides with my stuff and then I'm gonna back into the first few books that you're a part of with the Rich Dad series because I think a lot of people know about those and would love to know the back end story of that so tell us about exit rich well exit rich and my husband and I have always worked together to support people in building strong businesses that are not just successful but scalable and sustainable the vast majority of businesses people build they get their marketing they get their distribution but they don't focus on the foundation of the business and so when they want to sell it they find out they can't because they haven't gotten the right legal agreements they haven't done what they needed to to get the assistant the systems and what they end up owning is a job not a business and I know you know you sing that song as well in your book so it's really important for people to understand how to build it correctly and get that strong foundation so that when you have the ability to scale you can and then when you have the ability to sell somebody wants it and they want to pay you for it what you want to get for it I mean so many people they think I'm going to sell my business for 10 million and somebody comes in well you don't have those agreements so let's drop that price to seven or you haven't secured your intellectual property so that's now five and then they find out that you know some of your long-term contracts with their customers are non-transferable and all of a sudden you no longer have a salable business they walk away so it's really important to do the basics to protect yourself to get all those agreements in process and make sure that you have everything nailed down and so you do it before you try and sell make sure you've got everything do your own due diligence before someone else does well and I think that's something that a lot of entrepreneurs don't quite frankly ever think about until it's too late because if you wait until you're ready mentally to sell but your business not ready you're leaving tons of money on the table uh so I like it so exit Rich go check it out um that is a good book and it's been endorsed by some big names Brian Tracy Les Brown Jack Canfield Tom Hopkins but Mark Victor Hansen and Forbes Riley that's uh that's some Heavy Hitters right there Sharon you're walking in Tall Cotton there that's good that's good stuff all right so your your first maybe I don't know maybe it's not your first book but you were involved in co-authoring a book called Rich Dad Poor Dad probably if not the most famous well-known book in of entrepreneurs about finances and money so I'm really I've heard you tell this story but most people have never heard it I'd never heard it until I met you in person here in Nashville um how did you come about writing that book and being a part of that project well my dedication to financial literacy was um has pretty much been lifelong I realized early on in my career as a CPA that I had been given the gift of understanding and learning about money from a very young age we talked about assets and cash flow and appreciation at the dinner table and very few people understand the power and the need for buying building creating assets and so I we started sharing that information just as a mentor and as an advisor but then my oldest son went off to college in 1992 when left in September came home in December in credit card debt we didn't even know had credit cards he got to college and there was free pizza free money free t-shirt free money so he had a really good time his first semester in college until the bills came due so he came home at Christmas time and asked us to bail him out now we haven't always made the right to parenting decisions but we did then we wouldn't bail him out it took him a long time to get himself out of debt but that was December of 1992 and that's when I dedicated the rest of my career to financial literacy Financial education because I thought I had taught him what my parents taught me but we didn't know he had credit cards and so it's like okay we got we have to get this education out there and so I started working with school systems my hair used to be red but have you ever worked with schools that's why it's white now and fast forward a few years my husband is an intellectual property attorney and he called me one day and I always particularly female audience is like oh you know he called me one and he says Sharon I met a man that has what you've been looking for so say ladies what would you do if your husband called you and I said okay honey that sounds kind of kinky what is this and this guy had come into his office and flip-flops and Bermuda shorts with an idea for a board game drawn out on a piece of paper with crayons but it was teaching people about money teaching people about Vine building and creating assets it was exactly the same thing I was teaching and so I met Robert Kiyosaki at the first beta test of the board game cash flow and at the time I was the only one in the room that got out of the Rat Race but I loved it and I volunteered just as a friend to help him commercialize it because I had just sold with um the company that I was working with that I expanded the talking children's book industry around the world and it had just sold that and moved to Arizona so I had all the connections to help him commercialize what he wanted to do with the game and during that process he told me he was going to charge two hundred dollars now we're talking 1996. two hundred dollars for programming so you know Robert it's a little pricey but maybe you should write a brochure for on you know explaining why you created this game and that that brochure can be inexpensive and convince people they want to invest the money and that's when he asked me to be his partner and together we wrote The Brochure which was reached upward in we never expected to take on a life of its own and this is the original edition of Rich Dad Poor Dad you can see you know we had all kinds of fun things on the back and yeah much different hairstyle back then you still had a little red in it back then um but uh that started a 10-year partnership um we co-owned the company and co-authored 15 books together I launched a second series of books called Rich gen advisor and we just kind of took the World by storm before Amazon believe it or not before the internet we ended up in over 50 languages in over 100 countries and so we built really the largest personal finance brand in the world because it was the right message at the right time and it was teaching people what they never learned before the importance of vineville increasing creating income producing assets you know they they say I don't know who they are but behind every successful man as a as a successful woman uh and I think that does is not necessarily apply to this situation but nevertheless I think it does because when I when I knew about Rich Dad Poor Dad the book uh of course I have read the book and I love the book I mean I I don't know anybody who doesn't like the book but I had never heard of your name connected to it and so to learn that you were connected to it it's like wait a minute so Robert that Robert didn't sit down write that by himself that's there's a there was somebody else involved who's no longer well associated with the book in terms of her face is not on the book anymore but you were in fact the author of that book that you were the co-author of that book yeah 15 of the Rich Dad books we wrote together so that so that there's really the trilogy of the first three right you got Rich Dad Poor Dad cash flow quadrant and then um guide to investing and it was truly we thought that would be our Trilogy and we'd be done but uh oh no people wanted more so we kept writing so what uh so how much of those um well before before I asked that question this is uh We've we have the cash flow game I bought it and played with my family and we we want to do this again this is really a very clever game that teaches a really good uh good thing so if you're watching this on YouTube you got to go check out this game and it's not 200 anymore you can get it for less than 100 in most places I think it's like 60 or 80. but it's still an expensive board game it's a lot more expensive than Monopoly I mean how much of that content about the dads the Two Dads was actually Robert's experience versus your experience as a co-author versus Concepts to teach because the whole book is based on these these two characters that influenced in the story him to live life or face think about things differently sure well the the basic storyline of Rich Dad Poor Dad was um true from a standpoint of Robert's natural father biological father was the Poor Dad he became the head of Education in the state of Hawaii and then his Rich Dad was the father of his best friend who did not have a college education ended up becoming a Real Estate Mogul and one of the richest people in Hawaii and so he and his best friend he talked some of the stories he talks about in the book are very true now as we continued writing new books and even in Rich Dad Poor Dad there's a lot of stuff that I learned from my father and that was added into the books as we went through but the whole concept when you hear Rich Dad Poor Dad he automatically say my dad was rich chatter my dad was Poor Dad so it automatically engages the reader in wanting to read more and understand more so it was a definitely a labor of love writing 15 books in 10 years but um it was definitely helped us build this this library of personal financial education so what happened I mean why is your name now not on the book I mean I know that's probably not a very that's kind of a sensitive topic but we well in 2007 10 years into our partnership for owning the company together we were Partners when I was a CEO of the company um we were no longer aligned and I had I made a decision that I needed to stand in my own personal mission and stand in the truth he wanted to go into franchising which was a great model for us financially but not for the franchisees and my personal mission was to help people take control of their financial life and Elevate their finances with cost affording information and very affordable and so and our relationship had soured somewhat and I you know so I made the decision to leave in March of 2007. and um it was amicable for about 60 days until the valuation of our company came in and then and then I got stressful and then we ended up in litigation we settled in um in 2008 and as part of that he would you know my name and picture was supposed to stay on the books but that didn't happen and um I'm okay I'm not gonna I'm not gonna invite negativity into my life so I know he knows the people that you know we're around know the the contribution and what I will support and and now the world knows because they're listening to the root of all success so you now have heard it from the the horse's mouth as they say this is the lady who is involved in this in the beginning obviously he came to you with a concept you guys partnered up you helped him break all those 15 books but I want to I want to Pivot just a little bit a little bit because um I love the book Rich Dad Poor Dad I love cash flow quadrant I have not read the third one to be complete I'm completely honest um but I'm a big fan of the whole concept that's taught through that all the philosophies I think are 100 on point so you you guys did fantastic work there but I want to Pivot the conversation to oh eight you've left now you're not working with Robert you're now kind of doing your own own thing outside of that that that uh environment but then the Napoleon Hill Foundation reaches out to you and says hey uh we want to revive Think and Grow Rich in Napoleon Hills writings tell me about how that started because I I'm a huge fan of Napoleon Hill and the Napoleon Hill Foundation I read everything they put out I watch all the videos the master key Society like I'm 100 all in so how did they know of you and decide to bring you into that as a as a person sure well thanks for that question yeah let me let me take a step back first because I always tell people when they're watching us and when you're hearing me tell my story I want you to apply it to your own life sometimes you have to close the door in your life so other doors of opportunity will open so had I not left Rich dead I wouldn't have gotten a call from the fountain no poloniel Foundation nor would I've gotten a call from President Bush so the first thing that happened was I closed the door went into this you know this battle but not knowing what was in front of me I thought my legacy was Rich Dad and it's like okay now now what what am I going to do now and few months later I got the phone call asking me to be a presidential advisor to President Bush and later to Obama and I wouldn't have gotten that call had I still been at Rich Dad and then in March of 08 one year after I left Rich Dead Don green the CEO of the Napoleon Hill Foundation called me because he and I were friends we knew each other through Book Fairs and you know I'm always been a big fan I read thank you garage when I was 19 and he's just an incredibly wonderful quintessential Southern gentleman from from Virginia he's just an incredible man so we had become friends and we found out that I left Rich Dad he called me and asked me to step into the three feet from gold project and that I mean home what a gift I just built the largest personal finance brand and then they'd be asked to step in the world's largest personal development brand was just an incredible honor and an incredible responsibility but it really gave such validation both being on the president's advisor Council and being invited into the foundation to support them with great validation to me as an individual with a talent and with an expertise and it allowed me to say okay rich is part of my legacy but it's not it's not there's more and so it gave me the opportunity to feel better about myself to fine-tune my skills to be able to reach a broader audience and it was an incredible honor three feet from gold came out in the same month were released that is when they called me with this transcript had been hidden away for 73 years called outwitting the double and then as we were releasing that thank you very much for women and then success is something greater so it's just been a great working relationship and one that where it's just been one of mutual mutual appreciation love and support uh so I have been um I've been trying to get in touch with Don for quite some time actually probably seven eight months um the the the sound wisdom um the publishing company for the pulling Hill Foundation sound wisdom it's off David I think is his name the guy that in terms of that anyway so David I got to give them props and since you're related I think it's an appropriate story for me to tell I I do not buy things on Amazon even though my book is out there because Amazon and I have have a relationship they owe me money and won't pay me back that's a whole nother story but so when I found out about outwitting the devil which I I want to talk about that book in a minute too because and I want to talk about three feet from gold because it's all it's all gold it's all really good stuff I reached out to the Napoleon Hill Foundation because they had the out winning the devil and the the Think and Grow Rich books that I wanted to get and I and I sent an email said hey I'd like to buy these but it looks like the only place you sell them is on Amazon I don't buy from Amazon can you help me and he goes just send me your address and I will send them to you I'm like that was not what I was asking for but that was awesome so he sent me that winning the devil action guide and he sent me a the original version of The Thinker growich the original transcript or the original version but uh so then I reached back out to Dave and said I would love to interview you because I just thought he was with the foundation he goes you need to talk to Don so I've been trying to get in touch with Don I love the interview Don on the show but let's talk I wasn't fishing for that but I'll take it but but uh so I would just I teach the power of Association All of My Success in my life has been through making sure I had the right people around me the right mentors the right uh you want to have people on your team that are strong where you are weak and I'm happy to well honored and thank you and and I and what I what I'm realizing even in the moment although I kind of knew this I'm just realizing as we're talking here how pivotal your work has been in my life and I didn't even realize it because of the Rich Dad connection and I am I'm you know eyeballs deep into all of the Napoleon Hill everything that he teaches so outwitting the devil I want to talk a little bit about that because I don't most people might have heard but they don't know that that book was hidden for 70 plus years before it was released it was written in 1937 eight eight he released Think and Grow Rich which was a 25-year project in 1937 and he was frustrated when he released it and he actually added the last chapter the six Ghosts of Fear because he said here I am giving you the thesis of success it's like the doctoral paper on success and you're going to read it you're probably not going to do anything you know you said people have the information but they don't act on it and so he and he said even for himself he was not at the level of success he should have been been given the fact of all the things that he knew because he interviewed the most successful men in the world and so in 1938 he sat down and wrote this book called outwitting The Devil and it's really a interrogation of the devil and he can say you can believe I'm talking to the real devil or a man-made devil meaning myself what's going on up here on the questions whether you'll derive any benefit from what I share and he goes into he he attacks every taboo there is sex politics religion education cigarettes alcohol I mean I probably missed a few but it diet amazing a man before his time but his wife worked for the Presbyterian College and she was scared to death of the title so she forbid it to be published so got locked away in the vault and he died in 1970 she died in the 1990s and but her sister had it until just a year or two before we published it and that's when it was turned over to the foundation and they said I remember the month we released three feet from gold Don called me and said Sharon I have this manuscript I don't know what to do with it and so he sent it to me and literally if you look at the first page you'll see one of the type the whole thing was typed on a manual typewriter and had handwritten notes from Napoleon Hill in the margins so it's as if I was having a conversation with him and so I went over to the beach where I do all my writing and have the ocean in the background and I I literally poured through it in about two hours and I was so moved and so um unbelievably impacted by reading the book that I said this has to get out this has to get out because of what and it never even more so important than it is today and I do believe that it was not released in 1938 for a reason I think there was a greater power because I think it might have stunted the impact of thinking Grow Rich and it truly is so much more important for people today because it talks about how we allow fear to hold us back and fear can either paralyze us or motivate us and 98 of the people he talks about are paralyzed by fear and they're Drifters this concept of drifting is huge you know go they go with the flow they they're reactive not proactive they don't use their own mind they don't have a definite purpose and they Coast through life and I'm sure everybody watching listening this can you already have thought of somebody you know that qualifies as a Drifter well that book uh I stumbled across that book uh the audio version on YouTube and listened to the whole thing in like one setting and I was just blown away this is so this is even I think it was before I even read Think and Grow Rich all the way through I think I read that one for or listen to that one first we'll all make you part of the younger generation because that's exactly what's happening um you know at the time when they asked me to get involved with them many young people didn't know who Napoleon Hill was or never heard of Think and Grow Rich and so outwitting the devil has allowed us to really impact younger generations and so they read that and in fact I made them get two different actors for the voices in the audio because the so the devil's got to sound grobbly and I have people call me all the time I had to pull off the side of the road I scared me to death but um it was quite quite the impactful way to do it and the a lot of younger people today listen or read to outwinning the double and then go back well I think that's what happened for me because I I picked up Think and Grow Rich probably eight or nine years ago for the first time I'd heard of it probably for 10 or 15 before then I just I didn't pick it up I didn't I didn't know so I started to read it and honestly Sharon I got to I got to a place in that book early into the book probably within the first three or four chapters and it hit me wrong like I just it felt to me not wrong wrong not in not in like eternally wrong but I just couldn't just name it claim it is way I saw and I think my religious filter was in the way and so I put it down and didn't go back to it and then I listened to outwitting the devil and that is what sparked like oh this is good this is really good and then I went back and that's when I contacted sound wisdom so please send me a you know I want to order this book and uh Sharon it is is completely completely changed my life without winning the devil action guide I bought a copy and went through it with my son who's 22 we spent about three months going through it together meeting every week and going through a couple chapters it's changing his life changing my life it is so phenomenally good and I can't believe that I'm talking to the lady who was involved in that project and brought that to life so thank you for for doing that let's take a 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so I'm getting this to this draft out winning the double my daughter's a minister and she says mom I gotta pray over you and I said yeah I went to the ocean to read it and I said okay I'm what what if this paints a Target on my back so be it this at this information has to get out and I will tell you that one of the most surprising things because it you know I'm a Christian and if you read the book you know that it is not at all anything that should challenge anybody of faith and yet we had a couple we had Christian churches around the world seizing it and sharing it and doing studies but every once in a while I'd get pushback from somebody because they said they felt that it was you know just anti-christian and I was like did you read it you know and invariably the answer is no so again it was almost like they were proving the point yeah of the book is that we you know when you go into life with a negative attitude and fear-based you're not going to attract positive results so it's like okay all right I got that you know there's they're pushing back on me because they're actually living that principle of when it came when it talks about religion Jason I grew up literally grew up I practically was in at the church every day of my life um in the Southern Baptist Church and on Sunday's fire in Brimstone I just know I was going to hell but you know if you smile you dance you you know you laugh you're in trouble and yet the youth Minister was full of love and light and love of Jesus and so when I read the book and it talks about your your religion did you learn your religion through fear or faith and it's like for me it's like totally Define my experience in growing up and it's like okay so if you learn it through fear it embeds that fear in you and your life is colored by that fear if if you learn it through faith and giving an abundance that impacts you in a positive way well I don't think that there could be a better combination of books uh than Rich Dad Poor Dad on the financial things and how you can set your life up for Success financially with the Rich Dad Concepts combined with the the mental fortitude and the positive mental attitude and the mindset that Napoleon Hill's books talk about with Think and Grow Rich and then outwitting the devil and three feet from gold so like this is this is the combination of the best sources of Financial and just success Concepts pulled into the same beautiful lady that we're talking to today so um this is this is this is this is really great let's talk about the three feet from gold tell the story because the book is named after a true story that Napoleon tells in think or Grow Rich about a person who experienced the three people go tell that version of the story and then let's talk about how the book came about certainly in the original book Think and Grow Rich Napoleon Hill tells a story about are you Darby a young man who went out west during the Gold Rush determined to find his fortune in Gold borrowed money from family members got out west staked his claim went out actually discovered gold it was high quality he was so excited went back home borrowed more money so it could actually build the mine and went back and started going and was great and then no more gold you ran out of gold and he got frustrated threw up his hands sold his mind to the junk man in town and went back home to the East and then the junk man who had been studying gold mining for many many years had all the right people that he knew the engineers the miners you know the people that could test it went out and the engineer said he just punched right through the vein if you go back three feet you're gonna hit and he did hit one of the largest gold veins in history at that time and it was understanding what you're doing having the right experts and are you dirty are you Darby Becky's learned about this and yet he probably was upset but he did he wasn't in Anger he said I will never again stop three feet from gold and he went on to build a very large insurance company became very successful but that story in the original Think and Grow Rich book is what we used to kick off three feet from gold which is all about perseverance because we were again talking about what was going on in 07 and 08 where many companies went under but those that survived how what was some mental fortitude they had and so in three feet from gold we share the personal success equation which I still use on every interview every speech I've done it three times today already because I've had that many interviews already and this is your P plus T which is your passion and your talent and for me my passion was anger that we weren't teaching kids about money my talent was 35 years as a cea and CPA and many years as a as a publisher in writing I could combine that but and most of us stopped there because we think we have to do everything on our own but true success comes from having your passion and your talent and then finding the right associations you are a new Association for me relatively new and I'm excited about it and imagine what we can do together by supporting each other passion plus Talent times Association having the right people on your team people are strong where you are weak having a mentor somebody that has been where you want to go so they can accelerate your success and then times a ction how many times do we know what we're supposed to do we just don't do it you know we have to take action and that's the Think and Grow Rich people think well you're just going to sit there and you know hope for good things and you're going to be showered with results no Napoleon Hill talks about go the extra mile um work and live with enthusiasm so he talks about doing you know doing putting in all your effort passion plus Talent times Association times action and we almost went depressed that way but I said there's still something that sets these people we're interviewing a part and it was take it all and then plus faith faith in themselves faith in what they're doing faith that is needed and necessary and faith that they will succeed and that is the basis formula for success of everybody every company and but most of us particularly I have high level mentoring clients and I go through this formula and it's usually the faith that is really fear and the power of Association that they have stopped expanding stopped going to new audiences that need the most work and when you have the right people around you the right mentor and you have a bad day they won't let you stay there they bring you back up and so examine your associations who do you need to get to the next level maybe the mentor who got you to where you are today is not the mentor that can get you where you want to go and faith and if your faith is questioned it's going to impact everybody in your organization so you need to re-establish that faith and confidence by getting the right Mentor so how do you define the word success
love that question because you would think the fact that I'm a financial literacy expert would have something to do with money but it doesn't my definition of success is how you feel about yourself when you look in the mirror it's as simple as that all right and so what does that mean do you have to feel a certain way to be successful you feel like you've been a good servant I mean you may not be a Christian but you might have a higher power do you feel like you've been a good person growing up my father who was not a Christian would ask me every night have you added value to someone's life today so when you look in the mirror do you feel like you've been a contributing member to society do you feel proud of your character are you do you feel proud of your accomplishments um are you proud of how you treat your family and your friends so success is truly living a life of significance not just money so if you uh by that definition would you consider yourself to be a successful person yes I love it yeah I am absolutely blessed with the people in my life I absolutely and so honored with my family my friends I lost my youngest son 10 years ago and I would never survived it had it not been for the my friends and my associations around me that kept my head above water for a long time you're um if you think back to your your very successful career you know as a CPA we didn't really talk about that but I assume you were successful as a CPA and then the whole thing with you know getting involved with Robert Kiyosaki with Rich Dad and then get involved with Napoleon Hill there's there's these series and chains of success but as you look back could you the the title of this show is called the root of all success so what would you say is the root of what allowed you to grow into such a successful person
the power of Association you know I I learned early on in fact I'm going to reach and grab something because I had this for an earlier talk these are the books that I started we built this industry around the world and before that I had built a successful woman's magazine and so those successes helped me learn about publishing production manufacturing but more importantly about the power of Association because when we started this kids I know it's hard to believe but they didn't have screen times they didn't have screen and they didn't have electronics and so we are this little company creating this electronic book and we said how can we get parents to trust us and it was through aligning with little companies like Disney Warner Brothers Sesame Street Marvel Comics I mean we were on the first wave of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles right so in doing that I learned so much about it and I said you know next time I build a company instead of me having to write big checks to Disney Warner Brothers and Marvel Comics I want to build a brand and a company where people want to work with us they write me checks and so that's what I did with Rich Dad we built it established our brand got to our level of success earned the right to where people were coming to us wanting to um so we were able to use other people's money time and resources when we wanted infomercials Time Life came to us they paid us to spend their money and there are people in their time to do a high-end infomercial and to use their systems to sell it and we got checks loved it same thing with our coaching I didn't want to build my own coaching floor my own Software System I found the top coaching company and had them create a rich dad environment where we train the teachers but we use their systems and they did all the management so I just had to work CEO to CEO which is a beautiful thing they had to deal with all the daily you know daytime stuff we just had to make sure we had very strong licensing agreements with quality controls that we could monitor it and make sure it maintain this the level of quality that we decide needed the book 50 over 50 Publishers around the world took what we wrote and put it in their language and they did all the work about marketing Distributing everything you know we have our my books both Rich Dad and Napoleon Hill were are in over 110 countries now I personally have been to 70 countries which is a lot but I haven't been to the other 40 and yet the books are there and many of them are best sellers because it's the right message for the time for the people wow such a wonderful wonderful story I don't know power of Association the power of Association and that's what's interesting too because you know I'm we are only on this show today because of the power of Association because I was associated with somebody you knew you were invited to speak at that event I show up as a uh MC at that event and that's how I ended up meeting you and then we are on the stage together in Denver and we you know we've that that our association has kept this uh this relationship alive to get to the point where I can share what I think are the crazy good stories behind Rich Dad Poor Dad and Napoleon Hill stuff so yes the power of Association so what is the the question your your oldest son is the one who came back with credit card debt right what's his name all right so Philip so does critic does Philip have credit card debt today
no he's as passionate as I am how many is do he does very very well he's running a company that uh Logistics and he still does teaching he's an incredible incredible coach so proud of him he does a lot of programs with Boeing and Leadership type program presentation skills in addition to to being one of the top people in the company that he's working so right now so so as bad as it was for him to go off to his freshman year of college and get that credit card debt if he hadn't have done it we wouldn't be talking today probably right
yeah isn't it you know in every adversity there's the seat of the equivalent benefit that's what Napoleon talks about I think we'll go rich I tell people people always ask me you know what's the worst business mistake you ever made and when I left public accounting I did it not because I wasn't successful or happy I was I just wasn't in control of my life because all the hours and I had a client invite me to go with them he was buying a company out of bankruptcy and I went back to my condo and did the old pros and cons on a yellow legal pad because this was before PCS before cell phones so old legal you may not remember them but yellow legal pads pen and paper and pros and cons didn't help me a bit because I could argue both sides but my hand took off and rode across the top of the page why not and that's really still My Philosophy today why not do something different why not take a path Less Traveled why not solve a problem why not serve a need why not be in control of your life why not be the CEO of your life so I made the decision to leave public accounting with this client and I got to this company within a few short weeks I realized it was a terrible mistake I found all kinds of corruption and craziness in the accounting and I literally ran away for a few days to kind of calm down and say what am I going to do I'm this newly minted CPA now scared to death I'm going to lose my license because of the stuff that I found in the company and I'm you know I just kind of calmed down said okay I have to I have to leave I don't know what's next another Closing one door not knowing what was in front of me so I came back from my few days off and they were in the company had been in a bunch of litigation because they had been in bankruptcy nothing I had anything to do with but they waited for me to come back to look through my office on Discovery in this lawsuit and the young man I tell people I met my husband when he was going through my drawers because I say very true statement he was in my desk chair going through my desk um and I was on the guest side and it was love at first sight electric handshake and we've been together ever since 43 years so a perfect example of Napoleon Hills every adversity creates a seed of an equal or greater benefit my worst business decision gave me my best life decision that is so good that is such such a good story so um what is the what is the archives uh is there anything left that's 70 80 years old in Napoleon Hill archives that yet still hasn't been released that you know about and you can tease us with it's coming yeah yes they have I mean you talk about prolific it's amazing all the things that Napoleon Hill did he actually was the original editor of Success magazine and he had a magazine before that so there's tremendous mental Dynamite was a series he wrote that really didn't get much play years and years ago and the foundation has reissued I don't know if they've completed the series yet but they've started reissuing the mental Dynamite series of books and um yeah they just continue to uncover things from well I mean he worked for 25 years on that project and interviewed 500 plus people that doesn't just produce a book there's a lot more to it than just a single book even though that book is probably the most impactful book ever written um you know in our in our lifetime well thinking Rush was actually a uh edited version of the law of success which was much longer it was the original work that he wrote and you can still get the original work as well but thinking Grow Rich was the like I said the term paper the thesis well I uh just uh I've discovered not too long ago Napoleon Hill's Chicago lectures of 1954 on YouTube it's like 10 and a half hours and I listened to the whole thing and uh my intern Justin is behind me and that's all just something that's the year I was born oh okay so about 69 years ago well I'm going through that digging through it and really kind of categorizing the points because it it is it is what I teach my clients I mean obviously he didn't originate the concepts I didn't originate him but the I love how succinct they are and I love and that's what a great authors like you have done is they you take these complex Concepts and you put them in ways that we can understand so thank you for doing that for being a part of Rich Dad for being a part of the Napoleon Hill Saga as it continues and Carries On because both of those books have been very pivotal not only in my life but the lives of millions and millions of other people so uh Sharon it's been a it's been a fantastic time talking with you I know this has been a long time coming we've tried to get this scheduled for a long time I'm finally glad that we are I'm glad that we finally were able to do it I'm going to give everybody the access to you so it says you could go here to sharonlechter.com and it's l-e-c-h-t-e-r-l-e-c-h-t-e-r sharonlecter.com she's also on Facebook at author Sharon Lecter she's on Instagram Twitter and Linkedin at just Sharon Lecter just look up Sharon Lecter and you've got an offer on a personal success equation would you like to talk a little bit about that well certainly you know when we did the personal success equation and three feet from goal I said you know we want but I kind of did a workbook it's an ebook that helps you walk through your personal success equation and it's free and it's that personalsuccessequation.com or you can get to it through my site if you forget that personalsuccessequation.com and it walks you through your passion your talent you know sometimes we don't know what our passion is and a lot of time you you hear do what you love love what you do well for me my passion came from anger and I kind of that's what generates you know I take action when I get mad about something you know not everybody's they want to do what they love so passion plus talent and then looking through your associations and helping you say you know who do I really need to help me get to the next level who do I need need in my circle that's going to put me in a position of greatest and Highest Potential and then taking action and then of course that confidence in yourself well I want everybody to go check that out personal successequation.com Sharon it's such a pleasure to know you and to get the real school on the stories that we've talked about today so it's an honor thank you for being here and I wish you continued success thank you so much Jason and thank you all for um watching and listening to this segment and I appreciate you very much the real Jason Duncan making sure that this show is available to you all well there you have it another very successful entrepreneur about her journey to success and what she's been involved in is absolutely phenomenal um I count the Rich Dad Poor Dad book now this book this obviously this copy is the one with just his face and name on it doesn't have her face and name on it but she is actually one of the authors as we talked about I count that book and the Think and Grow Rich book is to the best books I've ever read period Bar None those are absolutely my amazing and she is involved in both of those now Think and Grow Rich of course not so much the actual book but the foundation and all the other stuff that they're releasing as a result of the success of Think and Grow Rich she's involved in that so go take a look at Sharon and remember she's offering that personal success equation.com you can go get your personal success equation for free there at personalsuccessequation.com go follow Sharon at sharonlechter on Instagram Twitter and Linkedin or on Facebook at author Sharon Lecter and I also want to say I'm very happy to know that if you're watching this on YouTube you can see this is a copy of my book Exit without exiting and if you look on the very back on the back cover and if you look on the back cover you can see Sharon Lecter endorsed my book and here's what she said about it she said an exit without exiting Jason Duncan introduces the exit lifestyle he shares how to create and build a successful business that allows you to transition from owner operator to owner investor while maintaining profitability and continuing to generate enough cash flow for you to live the life you choose when you can exit without exiting you have Financial Freedom but even more importantly freedom of your time it is an important read for every entrepreneur says Sharon Lecter and if you just listen to the show you got to do what that lady says go pick up a copy of exit without exiting at the real jasonduncan.com book please tune in again next time when I talk with you yet another very successful entrepreneur about his or her journey to success and until then I am the real Jason Duncan and Jesus is King thank you for listening to another edition of the root of all success with the real Jason Duncan if you've enjoyed this week's episode visit the rootofallsuccess.com to access the show notes and other helpful resources follow Jason on social media at the real Jason Duncan are you an entrepreneur who feels Trapped In The Weeds of daily operations not experiencing the freedom you thought you'd have as a business owner want to know the way out take Jason's free exit Readiness assessment to see how close you are to getting ready to experience true freedom and success as an entrepreneur go to am I ready to exit.com today that's am I ready to exit.com see you again next time here on the route of all success [Applause]
