Ralph Zuranski: What is your definition of heroism?
T. Harv Eker: I like to look at definitions in the dictionary because I think they are very prevalent but having asked to give a definition of a hero in my own words I would say a hero is a person who is living their purpose or living out their mission
Ralph Zuranski: What is your perspective on goodness, ethics and moral behavior?
T. Harv Eker: I don’t think you can go without those things. Of course I am the one who teaches that belief cant be right or wrong or true or false. They can only be supportive or not supportive.
T. Harv Eker: I think the goodness; ethics and moral behavior are all in the eye of the beholder and are all different for all people. “Matt’s Consciousness” has come up with an agreement as to what those things are but they are not true.
T. Harv Eker: What I think is accurate though is how people are becoming more ethical and supportive to peoples lives and to communities lives as a whole so I think they are essential because they are supporters, not because they are right or wrong or true or false.
Ralph Zuranski: What principles are you willing to sacrifice your life for?
T. Harv Eker: I think people don’t realize that they sacrifice their lives every minute of everyday. What that means is that you have life energy and you have a certain amount of seconds with that life energy that you have to live.
T. Harv Eker: Everything you do you sacrifice some of that life energy for so if you spend four hours in front of the television and just kind of dozing there than you have sacrificed four hours of your life to do that.
T. Harv Eker: If you give a smile to someone or acknowledge them and let them know how important they are, that is a different kind of sacrifice. People don’t always know that they are sacrificing every second of their life every second of their life.
Ralph Zuranski: When was the lowest point in your life and how did you change your life path to one of victory over all obstacles?
T. Harv Eker: First of all I want to make sure we don’t use the word poverty because I never used that word myself. Certainly I wasn’t well off financially, and then became a millionaire. My parents came from Europe and they came with the proverbial clothes on their backs and nothing else.
T. Harv Eker: For us money meant survival, that s what I learnt when I was young. All my friends wanted to be baseball players and astronauts, fireman and policeman. I just wanted to be a millionaire. I left school early, at the end of the first year of college for my quest to the holy financial grail and for the next twelve years I was nothing but frustrated.
T. Harv Eker: Finally, I met up with a friend of my fathers who was a multi multi millionaire and he gave me some good advice. He said “Stop trying to reinvent the wheel if you want to be rich do what rich people do.” So I started studying what rich business people do and in my next business I became a millionaire in only two and a half years.
T. Harv Eker: The problem was that a couple of years later it was all gone again. I happen to have made my money in the fitness business and I knew about this thing called a set point when it comes to your weight and I realized that I was going to come down to the exact amount of money I had started with and I was back down in my bank book.
T. Harv Eker: It just kept on coming no matter what I did after getting to that spot and I realized that not only do we have a set point that comes to our weight but we also have a set point when it comes to our money. I was very involved in personal development at the time because I was attempting to be a much better father than I had been and I had a newborn son and I wanted to make good on that and so I used those principles to reset what I called my financial thermostat or my money blueprint and I haven’t looked back.
T. Harv Eker: Probably that time when I lost my money was one of the lower points and I just kind of looked up at the sky and said “God help me. If I make it I promise I will help other people do the same thing in the same way I know how.” I was very blessed to remake it and now that’s what I do.
T. Harv Eker: I have kept my promise and my role, to help other people with the same frustrations that I had. The interesting thing is that people, my name is T Harv Eker, the T is an initial that I gave to myself and the reason was because at one point when I was so frustrated I went to a friend of mine and I said “Its not worth this I am going to just go out and get a 30,000 a year job and be happy with that and just drop off the face of the earth without trying to do anything big.”
T. Harv Eker: And he said “Stop feeling sorry for yourself you have to remember that there has never been anyone before you who is you and there will never be anyone after you who is you, you have a thumbprint of your own and there is never going to be another Harv Eker in the world and never will be.
T. Harv Eker: You are very special like everyone else and you have got to utilize what you have got.” That kind of had an effect on me and to remember that I put a T in the front of my name to remember that I am “The” one and only Harv Eker and I better start acting like it and keep acting like it.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you have a dream or vision that sets the course of your life?
T. Harv Eker: Well, I keep on adding zeroes but not financially, it’s more to the people that I can help. I think one thing people don’t realize is that if you want to be financially successful you need to go out there and help people and if you want to live a fulfilled life you need to help people so you really kill two birds with one stone almost.
T. Harv Eker: Helping other people is how you get paid. One of the things we talk about in our program is how you get paid and a person in business is nothing more than a person who resolves problems for pay meaning that you are nothing more than a problem solver and people are always saying “Oh I want to make more money, how do I make more money?”
T. Harv Eker: That is a bad question because there is no answer to it but a much better question is “How can I help more people?” That you can answer and the more people you help the more you are going to get paid, it’s pretty simple. So the idea is to go out there and help as much people as you possibly can.
T. Harv Eker: So far we have been able to put 200,000 people through the millionaire mind intensive and millionaire mind program. I just this week hit a new goal and put a new zero behind it so now our goal is to help 2.5 million people. We were able to utilize the book and the book within its first ninety days has sold a little over 160,000 copies and it went number one in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and USA Today for a reason.
T. Harv Eker: What I love is when people show me their book and every page has got highlights and underlines and they say they keep this book with them all the time, even in their bathroom with them. It has just been a very effective tool for people to recognize some principles that work for me and that work for thousands of other people.
T. Harv Eker: It is not that hard to be successful, you just have to get out of your own ways and what that book does is show people how they are in their own way and their own thinking patterns stop you but how other thinking patterns propel you.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you take a positive view of setbacks, misfortunes and mistakes?
T. Harv Eker: That is a good question. Nobody likes that stuff. I think that is living in the dream world to think that when mistakes and setbacks happen that people are going “Oh that’s just great.” Nobody feels that way unless you’re the Dolly Loma and im sure he doesn’t feel that way either.
T. Harv Eker: There is a word people use and that word is called failures and I do not like that word, I never use that word and I just do not like it. That word is a poison word because failure seems very permanent and I look at all those things is temporary. You have temporary setbacks and another thing people don’t get is that everything is energy.
T. Harv Eker: Everything travels in frequencies and vibrations, vibrations travel in waves. Everything is an up and down and up and down, that is what a vibration looks like when you plot it out so it is not unnatural for people to have lows or setbacks or downs.
T. Harv Eker: It is impossible as a form of energy for that not to occur. So one of the things I say in our courses at the end of the program is that you will have low days. One of the things that I teach is called “Zigzag Your Way to Success” which is based on the Law of Correction which means your constantly correcting, there is no straight way, there is no straight line in the Universe and that is a fact. So setbacks and mistakes are just a normal way of being. You just have to let them slide and learn and go on to the next thing as soon as possible.
Ralph Zuranski: Are you an optimist? {What do you think of the importance of optimism?)
T. Harv Eker: It’s better than pessimism. You know one of the things again that I teach is that we are making up this story as we go. There is no better, there is no worse. One of the big principles I teach is that “Nothing has meaning except the meaning you give it.”
T. Harv Eker: So everything is neutral until you paint it a color and it goes through the filters of your own mind and your own character. So literally optimism is not true or false. Positive is not true or false or good or bad.
T. Harv Eker: It is just more helpful to be an optimist and positive than to be a pessimist and negative. It is just a happier life and it is an energy that attracts light. The Law of Attraction states that if you are in a negative energy than you will attract more negative energies and if you are in a positive energy than you will attract more positive energies.
T. Harv Eker: Personally like to attract positive energies and I like to live that way. I call it power thinking meaning that you focus on thoughts that are going to power you and if thoughts come up that are going to disempower you, you just let them go and come back to the present or change that thought in to a more powerful thought not that it’s wrong or good or bad, its just more helpful and its more useful.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you have the courage to pursue new ideas? (Does it take courage to pursue new ideas?)
T. Harv Eker: Not for me. I have never looked at it that way; I think it would take, for me, courage to not pursue ideas and to be stuck in some rut all the time. I can’t help it, for me even when I am in the shower my minds going a billion miles a minute with fifty-eight new ideas. One of the things they say at the office for myself is just trying to keep up is the hard part.
T. Harv Eker: I have 144 fulltime staff and that’s because we are constantly coming up with new ideas, better ways to do things, better improvement. There are always new programs, our courses, people say are a ten out of ten at least.
T. Harv Eker: My goal is every time I do a course to make it better every year so I am constantly improving things with the innovation and newness, so that’s where I’m at. It’s not courage to me, I couldn’t think of any other way. The definition of courage is really being to act in spite of fear so there is no fear there for me so, it is a way of being and I couldn’t live any other way.
T. Harv Eker: The mind it a mechanism, its job is survival. Your minds job is not to make you happy, rich or successful. Your minds job is survival, to keep you alive. That is its only job. Unfortunately people think they are going to use it for a different purpose and that is not its job.
T. Harv Eker: What we have to do is understand that and just recognize that and that our mind is going to constantly say things that will bring us into fear and so what courage is is that when you do have fear, the little voice in you mind is telling you things that are getting you upset just need to realize that is just in your mind and to take a nice deep breath and continue on.
T. Harv Eker: I challenge all my students to get uncomfortable, practice being uncomfortable because in all points in time you are either growing or you are dying, that is a known fact. I assure you if you have a plant at home that’s not growing what’s it doing? It’s dying, so with any organism if you are not growing you are dying. The goal is to constantly grow yourself so when you are in your comfort zone you are not growing and if you are not growing you are going down.
T. Harv Eker: If your intention is to be comfortable you will never be rich. You will never be rich and you will never be happy. Comfort is not a growth stage; it is a going down stage. It is not homeostasis, you are not going to stay static, and again it is all energy up and down. If you are comfortable you are going down.
Ralph Zuranski: Who are the HEROES in your life?
T. Harv Eker: My mom is a big hero to me. She is just a very strong person and full of heart and is very family oriented and full of love so I count my mom. I count my family and my kids and my wife. I don’t know that I have a lot of heroes. I think you have to be your own hero, let me put it that way.
T. Harv Eker: Again I don’t use the word so I think you have to respect yourself and have your own confidence not to be arrogant and all but anytime your looking outside of yourself for answers you’ve got a problem because they are never outside. Nothing is outside of you, it all filters in so that why they say life is an illusion, because it is all the way you see things or the way you project things. If you paint someone as a hero, they are a hero.
T. Harv Eker: If you paint someone as a bum they are a bum it has nothing to do with them, it is all about you. I do think that that there are definitely some people making a difference in this world. I like watching a lot of the people who are doing well financially and then they help their community or help the world at large.
T. Harv Eker: I like seeing the actor and actresses and singers and athletes who are helping the aides victims in Africa, Jerry Lewis or those type people who have made it for themselves and then go and put their life’s energies into helping other causes and things like that. Everyone can do it.
T. Harv Eker: I don’t look at the work I do is some type of charity although we do give the first program away with the book which is pretty phenomenal, a three day intensive but I look at it like this is what I am suppose to do and this is how I can help. We a have program called Life Directions and the big question we constantly ask is “How can you help?”
T. Harv Eker: Again this may be a little foo foo to some people but hey at a certain point the amount of money stops being the importance and the fulfillment of helping is the importance. Everybody who has ever gotten rich is going to tell you that. That after a while, after your few years or couple years of toys and feeling good about the whole thing you got to look elsewhere and the only way you can do that is to fulfill. You can actually feel fulfillment.
T. Harv Eker: It is not going to money or love or a relationship. Fulfillment can only be felt by filling your life mission, by fulfilling your destiny. That is one of the things we are able to do for people is help them recognize their mission and then create a vision that makes that successful in the real world because if you cant live your mission on a daily basis what is the use of it? If you say “This is my mission” and then you have to have some crappie job that you hate to make a few bucks to earn a living what kind of life is that?
T. Harv Eker: So the ultimate situation is to find out what you are suppose to be doing on this earth, live it on a daily basis, make your money from it also so it’s a win win situation for everybody and then you to will be called a hero.
Ralph Zuranski: What are the things parents can do that will help their children realize they too can be HEROES and make a positive impact on the lives of others?
T. Harv Eker: You cant help it you are going to be a role model. We are conditioned in three ways, verbal programming meaning what we heard when we were young, modeling meaning what we saw when we were young and specific incidences that we had when we were young. So as a parent you don’t even have a choice you are a model.
T. Harv Eker: They are either going to model you identically or the opposite, one of the two not in between. For example, when I am with my children and I say something I shouldn’t have said like when I am upset or something I have to correct that immediately or if you scream at your kid you have to take a deep breath after that, let them know what they did that bothered you but then own it.
T. Harv Eker: You have to say “Listen, mommy or daddy made a mistake, I shouldn’t have raised my voice like that, I shouldn’t have gotten upset like that and I should have gone out in to the hall for a few minutes and that is what I am going to do next time, etc…”
T. Harv Eker: Whatever it is I am not telling people how to be parents but you need to own up to the messages then correct the messages you are giving your kids as quickly as possible, letting them know that if you made a mistake you made a mistake and so on.
T. Harv Eker: Also sometimes people will say something about money or success. Words that are so harmful like, “People like us will never be rich.” That is a very detrimental thing to say to your children because you are introducing that right in to the files of their minds and that is going to stick there forever so be sure and give them more positive messages about money and themselves and be the best role model you can be.
T. Harv Eker: If people want to be a good role model about money for their kids don’t be broke. Do well financially, manage your money well. Talk is cheap, you have to do it.
Ralph Zuranski: Is there one last piece of advice you want to give young people?
T. Harv Eker: Young people? I would say work on yourself. There is nothing outside of you. Work on your character, work on your mindset, work on who you are as a person and the money and the success and the relationships will all fall into place because those are all results.
T. Harv Eker: Results of whom you are and that was probably the biggest mistake I made was looking outside of myself for the answers. You can have a lot of great tools but if you have a leak in your tool box you are going to have a big problem. You have got to get the tool box together because that is who you are.
T. Harv Eker: I would advise people that success is a learnable skill in every way. You can learn how to play the piano, you can learn how to play tennis, you can learn how to golf, how to make money.
T. Harv Eker: There is a saying “You take yourself with you wherever you go.” So if you want to have a successful life, be a successful person, of who you are in character, virtue and mindset, in strength of character and work on that because you are going to take that with you in every element that you are involved in whether it is your relationships or your business or your money or whatever you will be successful at anything because you are a successful person.
Using the principles he teaches, T. Harv Eker went from zero to millionaire in only 2 1/2 years! He combines a unique brand of ‘street-smarts with heart’.
Eker’s high-energy, ‘cut-to-the-chase’ style keeps his audience spellbound. T. Harv Eker’s motto is “talk is cheap” and his unique ability is getting people to take “action” in the real world to produce real success.
Eker is the author of the best-selling books, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind and SpeedWealth. He has also developed several highly-acclaimed courses such as The Millionaire Mind Intensive, Life Directions, Wizard Training and Train the Trainer. He is also the producer and trainer of the world-famous Enlightened Warrior Training.
T. Harv Eker is the son of European immigrants who came to North America with only thirty dollars to their name. He grew up in Toronto, but spent most of his adult years in the United States.
Money was scarce throughout his childhood, so at thirteen, Eker began his work career. As a teen he delivered newspapers, scooped ice cream, sold novelties at fairs, and suntan lotions at the beach. After a year at York University, he decided to take time off to pursue his dream of becoming a millionaire.
During his early adult years, he lived in five different cities, including Lake Tahoe and Ft. Lauderdale. He had a variety of jobs and started more than a dozen different businesses, but regardless of what he did, or how hard he worked, he just couldn’t achieve success.
Finally after many years of frustration, Eker hit the jackpot. He opened one of the first retail fitness stores in North America and grew the business to ten stores in only two and a half years. He then sold part of the company to a Fortune 500 corporation.
With the sale, Eker reached his dream. He was finally a millionaire; however, in less than two years, the money was gone. Through a combination of poor investments and unchecked spending, Eker was back at his original net worth … again.
It was at that point that Eker began developing his theories about people’s mental and emotional relationship to money. He realized that his “inner-money thermostat” was set for a specific amount of financial success, and that everyone else had a financial set point too. His most profound discovery was that this money blueprint could be changed. Using the principles and practices found in his book, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, Eker reset his own blueprint to not only create success, but to keep it and grow it, and become a multi-millionaire.
During his years of struggle, Eker vowed that should he ever get rich, he would help others do the same. He has kept his promise. He has already touched the lives of over 1.5 million people, helping them move closer to their goal of true financial freedom.