His new book is called “The Charge: Activating the 10 Human Drives that Make You Feel Alive”. I encourage you to get your copy right away before they’re all gone (and because he’s giving them out at no charge they will go quickly): Pick Up Your Copy Here

Everyone is already saying that the book is INCREDIBLE:

“Brendon Burchard has an uncanny ability to point out the things you inherently know, but for a variety of reasons have ignored up to this point. The Charge is a life-changing exploration of the human mind that will leave you with the immutable desire to reach for what you always thought was impossible to reach. Brendon has once again found a way to help us harness what lies dormant within most of us and bring it out to make us feel that the impossible is possible. He impacts our core and taps into our emotional reservoirs, which then enable us to stand up to the challenges of our daily lives and reach our goals with vigor and excitement. Tony Robbins, watch out!!!”
–Ben R. Neumann, MillionairesMentor, Success Coach & Internet Pioneer

Pick Up Your Copy Here

“The Charge is an inspiring guide to the one thing we all want: more life in our lives. Brendon Burchard proves that we can harness our emotional drives to feel more alive, and that it’s our internal charge that helps us meet life’s challenges with joy and courage. I love this book.”
–Paulo Coelho, New York Times best-selling author of The Alchemist

Pick Up Your Copy Here

“There hasn’t been a game-changing book on personal development in a long time. The wait is over. The Charge confronts our very notions of what drives us as humans, and it brilliantly illuminates the path for how you can feel more alive, productive, and fulfilled. After reading this book you’ll find a new internal charge that’s stronger and more energized than you ever imagined possible.”
–Jack Canfield, co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series and author of The Success Principles

Pick Up Your Copy Here

“Every once in a while you read a book that completely changes how you think about your life, igniting within you a new internal drive to be more, do more, and give more. This is that kind of book.”
–David Bach, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Automatic Millionaire and Start Late, Finish Rich

Pick Up Your Copy Here

“I look for authenticity and proof when I learn from someone, and I can share that Brendon Burchard is one of the most engaged, energetic, and enthusiastic people I’ve ever met. I’ve always wanted to know how he developed such a remarkably strong internal charge. This book reveals his secrets. If you too want to perform at higher levels of joy, engagement, and productivity–buy this book. It’s a must-read for any serious student of success and high performance.”
–Darren Hardy, Publisher of SUCCESS magazine and New York Times best-selling author of The Compound Effect

Pick Up Your Copy Here

“The Charge will change your life. Our brains are hard wired to meet specific human drives, and learning to harness and activate those drives is the secret to success and happiness. This is a smart and beautifully written book, and it will electrify your life. Get this book!”
–Daniel G. Amen, MD, New York Times best-selling author of Change Your Brain, Change Your Life

I suggest you get the book now while Brendon is giving them away before the official release. You can definitely see in this video he’s EXCITED!

Pick Up Your Copy Here

Brendon’s last book was a #1 New York Times bestseller. I’ve heard this one is even better! Get your copy today!!!

Life belongs to the living and he who lives must be prepared for changes.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I’ve looked at the above quote by one of my favorite members of my very personal “Dead Poet Society” many times over the past month because of the changes I personally went through lately and it rings now more true to me than ever. “Life belongs to the living…” what an interesting concept! To me that meant that I had to take charge of my life and take massive action to fundamentally change the things in my life I didn’t like.

I have always wanted to find a way to lose my excess weight and regain my incredible vitality I used to have most of my life. I tried all kinds of diets, programs, pills, etc. and yo-yo’ed up and down about 100 pounds. Whenever I thought I had “it” beat “it” caught up with me again – slowly and silently – and the weight started to come back on with a vengeance.

Then in 2010 and throughout 2011 I began to read and study anything I could get my hands on about weightloss, health, vitality, nutrition, diets, micro-nutrients, macro-nutrients, metabolism, glycemic index, etc.

I also compared and in part tested many popular diets and weightloss programs such as Weightwatchers, the Atkins Diet, the Zone Diet, Slim-Fast, Jenny Craig, the Baby Food Diet, the Hollywood Diet, the Junk Food Diet (boy, did I wish this one would work on me), Nutrisystem as well as bariatic surgery and lap-band surgery.

I was determined to figure out what similarities these programs had and why some worked better than others. I also spoke to people that had successfully tried these programs years ago to find out how well the participants did in keeping their weight off (not good, unfortunately).

I spent an extra long time researching and testing the concept of a raw food diet, juicing, juice fasting, fasting and the impact this has on the body’s ability to heal itself. I am a very lucky guy because my sweetheart Tam is a true self-made expert in the raw food and juicing area. Tam was a vegetarian for many years and also had made the raw food diet part of her daily life. She knows juicing and how different juices and juice recipes can affect the body and different organs. I personally had lost nearly 100 pounds in 2009 after I made juicing part of my daily lifestyle. So I knew that juicing would have to definitely play a major part in my journey to vitality, health and permanent weightloss.

To make a long story (I could go on for quite some time, but I’ll save the details for my book), I didn’t leave any stone unturned in my quest for the perfect and absolute last weightloss program I would ever need to be on in order to meet my weight and health goal. I realized that things weren’t as easy as willpower + less calories in vs. calories out + exercise = Ben version 2.0. I mean, I realized that would in all likelihood work, but since I had done this before I knew that by using this age-old formula my chances of long-term success were slim. So, I decided to take elements from the many things I had learned and build my very own custom health and wellness program. This was a big step for me in my own mind since a look in the mirror always made me question if a guy who’s as overweight as I am can really know as much about health and weightloss as I do. Well, I ultimately came to the conclusion that it’s possible, but I would have to prove to myself that I can put my knowledge to good use and that my program actually works. I realized that I need to help myself, before I can help ofhers. That’s when I decided to test my program on myself. Just like that, Ben, the biggest guinea pig in the world, was born!

That brings us to today, January 2, 2012. The officially Day 1 of my self-test. I’m about to step on the scale, measure whatever body circumference I can get my measure tape around, get my blood numbers/lipid profile and will put it all into a spreadsheet I specifically developed for this (I’m also going to put this part online soon to make it easier).

If you are interested in following my self-test and weightloss journey just click in the Weightloss Journey link on top of my website. I will be posting numbers, results and some videos there. I encourage you to put your name and email address in the little box to the right of my posts and I’ll update you whenever I publish a new blog post.

Oh, I didn’t want to forget to mention that Tam, Pete and my mom have rather spontaneously decided to join me in testing my program. Assuming they give me permission, I will post some of their results and experiences here as well.

Ok, off to my first weigh-in now. Wish us success. Talk soon.

I, like so many other people, use this week to reflect on the year that has nearly past, relive some of the things which happened and even briefly feel some of the emotions I felt. I look at all the good things I experienced and how I can do more of that in the coming year, but I also remember the not so good and the bad things that happened and how I can do better next year.

I can state with confidence that 2011 was a pretty turbulent year for me personally. My relationship with my love Tam and our four sweet boys allowed me the incredible opportunity to experience love in a dimension I never thought possible before. My companies NetDNA.com and MaxCDN.com started to really take off. I moved my family into a new and beautiful home and embraced new challenges and opportunities. I launched my new InspireMoreHeroes.com project and finally completed the research and development on my Powerful Vitality™ Wellness, Weighloss and Fitness program (I’m going to test the entire program on myself starting Jan 2, 2012, and post all updates on my website, so stay tuned).

Along the way I met many incredible and inspirational people such as Tony Robbins, Brendon Burchard, Mike Koenigs, Pam & Chris Hendrickson, Jeff Walker, Rick Frishman, Grace Jamra, Mike Hanasab, Charles Sophy, Rich Segal, Max Contadino, Phil Staples and also reconnected with many old friends such as Humberto Gray, Robbie Blumenfeld, John Walker and Theo Agranat, just to name a few. On the flip-side, my long time relationship with some of my dearest friends, business partners and protégés was put to the strongest test yet due to mistakes we’ve made in the past, especially how we communicated with each other. I’m still hoping we will be able to salvage our friendship(s) once everything else is settled, as they mean a lot to me, but only time will tell.

One of our awesome kids was diagnosed with ADHD in 2011 and a few other learning challenges, which caused Tam and me to learn more about the human brain and its functions and how nutrition affects these functions than we ever thought we would know. In addition, my seemingly never ending divorce story took way to much of my valuable mind-share, which unfortunately caused me to stress-eat and gain more weight (as if I needed any more of that). Toward the end of the year I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with the incredible Tony Robbins, who brought out the “King of Health” in me and lastly I needed to be strong for my mom, who I love very much, who unexpectedly lost her mother (my grandmother) a few days before Christmas.

The absolute most important lesson I learned in 2011 is that life truly is way too short to dwell on the negative things. I now embrace the notions that life is happening for me instead of to me and that whatever you resist, will persist.

As a successful serial entrepreneur I naturally want to be in control of all the things around me, but I finally accepted the fact that certain things are simply not within my control, no matter how much I want them to be. At the same time, other things (i.e. what I put into my mouth) definitely are very much within my control and should be controlled.

My vast experiences of 2011 combined with my 45 minutes on stage with Tony Robbins at his Date with Destiny seminar and the incredibly positive impact my loving family has had on me profoundly changed the way I look at myself and the world around me going forward.

2012 will be dedicated to my health, my family and finally to 100% embrace what I am truly passionate about: helping and mentoring others to reach their full potential in their business, their relationships, their physical and emotional vitality as well as their very own life goals. I am convinced, the many people who’s life I will touch in 2012 will in return help me to finally find the same happiness and fulfillment in my professional life that so far I have only found in my relationship with Tam and my family.

One of my most important goals for 2012 is to be much better in touch with you personally and to be a truly great resource for your success in 2012.

So, let me begin 2012 by sharing one of the the most important pieces of advice I can give you,  before 2012 even started!

Whenever I am asked what the most important skills I have that I would attribute to any unusual success I have achieved in the past is, my answer has always been the same: value and build my relationships and stick to my Goal-Action-Success system, which I have used and continue to use to strategically plan and achieve all my bigger goals.

The very week I am writing this article during  is also the first week I use to go through my process. This is one of the most important weeks of my goal-achieving year. Right now!

If you want to know all the intricate details of my Goal-Action-Success system I’m giving the entire system away to my InspireMoreHeroes.com members. Visit www.InspireMoreHeroes.com before this week is over and simply put in your name and email. It really is that easy.

I wish you all a very healthy and incredible 2012, filled with love, gratitude and success!

Ben

PS: Please connect with me anytime right here or on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

After lots of soul searching, countless meetings, significant encouragement by my amazing spouse Tam, my 4 boys Devin, Ben Jr, Justin & Dominic as well as my many incredible friends (you know who you are) that I finally made the decision to embark on a mission that will most certainly push me to my limits, test my strengths, my will to succeed and my desire to make a difference in this world. I decided to:

Put America Back To Work – One Small Business Hero at a Time!

See, to me entrepreneurs, freelancers and small business owners have always been heroes. They create jobs, goodwill, products, tax revenue, provide amazing services, invent, innovate and make a huge difference in their own and countless other people’s lives. Based on that philosophy and my core belief that many people want to build something for themselves and others I met with thought leaders and master marketeers such as Brendon Burchard, Jeff Walker, Joe Polish, Darren Hardy, Mike Koenigs, Chris and Pam Hendrickson and many others. I started to put together and I am in the process of building a truly inspirational, very goal oriented, completely hands-on and success attracting program to help anybody who has the desire to make a difference and create an online business to make it happen. My declared goal is to inspire, motivate, assist and guide willing entrepreneurs to become highly successful online business owners with a minimum of $5,000m to $10,000+ per month in revenue and, of course, growing from there.

It is well documented that since 1994 I have founded, built and ultimate sold several well know multi-million dollar Internet businesses. Over the years I have developed an online business blueprint that I used and that is replicable and something that can be taught and learned by anybody who is willing to invest the time and energy. All of this and much more will be part of my new program. The rewards will be nothing short of amazing.

For anybody interested in finding out more about this new project of mine I invite you to check out my exciting pre-launch website at:

www.InspireMoreHeroes.com™

and get on the early bird pre-launch list. Can’t wait to hear what you guys think.

Here’s to all of your Heroes out there! See you on the other side.

Here’s the great news: Not only can you survive a recession, you can even grow your business and thrive in a recession!!!

I’ve build and even sold businesses during downturns and recessions, and while it seems like an insurmountable challenge when you think about it in theory, once you’re behind the wheel and start to focus on what’s important it becomes clearer, easier and ultimately second nature.

Below I’ve put together my short list of options to consider and implement to maximize your business growth, even if the economy turns down. Are you ready? Ok, here we go. We’re cutting all the BS and get down to what really matters during tough times! Here are 10 ideas you can (and should) implement to maximize your business growth; if the economy sucks (they also work during good times, btw).

Ben’s Rule #1. Get back to the basics! Hunt for new business from new prospects. Don’t make the mistake of waiting for prospects to find you! Start cold calling! Feel uncomfortable about cold calling? Get over it! Losing your business is going to feel much worse! Rule: In a slow economy, you NEED to find business – don’t wait for business to find you!

Ben’s Rule #2. Remember you talked about this for years? Now it’s time to act! Increase your sales and marketing efforts, repackage your current offerings with new names and a lower price. Offer an automatic product or service upgrade (in feature or units) with the new name or tie the new offering to a timed date. Use automatic renewals wherever you can. I have done this in several of my companies with massive success.

Ben’s Rule #3. Feel the pinch of recession in your wallet? Well, so do your customers! Make it easier for them to pay you by offering extended payment terms. You can increase your price by 10-20% to offset the cost of not getting prepaid for your work, but this will make it easier for your buyers to buy.

Ben’s Rule #4. Network! Network! Network! Go to trade shows, conferences, mixers, chamber of commerce events, coffee klatches, even Tupperware® parties – whatever even remotely applies to your line of business – etc. to expand your partnerships and subsequently reduce your acquisition costs per sale. In a poor economy, partner with other companies to increase your networking and lead generation success, which will ultimately lower your lead capture costs.

Ben’s Rule #5. Have a world map? Get it out of your kid’s room and start looking at it! Take advantage of the global village. The sky is the limit! Widen your sales and customer geography. If your market is saturated or too hesitant because times are tough, expand beyond where you are right now to find more opportunities.

Ben’s Rule #6. Spend money!!!. No, I’m not kidding. Yes, spend more $$$ on marketing during a recession! Marketing is definitely not a line item you want to cut back on now. If times are tough, spend more money. During a recession, the cost of marketing lead generation usually goes down because advertisers become desperate for business. Also, product cost might go down and volume discounts are suddenly much easier to get. Your supplier, who used to laugh at your earlier attempt to haggle, might suddenly be much more pliable – use your awareness of timing to your advantage.

Ben’s Rule #7. Lower cost! Yes, there is a time and place to save money. Renegotiate all your supplier contracts. Focus on reducing your COGS (cost of goods sold). What options do you have to drop its production, labor or direct costs? Hey, we’re in a recession, right? Once again, use that line and NEGOTIATE!

Ben’s Rule #8. Use psychology! No, I don’t mean you should talk to a shrink! Just be creative and read about consumer behavior. One good example for what you might get out of this: Generate three pricing levels for your products and service with the mid-level price being the targeted price you want to sell at. Here’s where your reading comes in handy: Several studies have shown conclusively that buyers consistently purchase the middle price when offered three options. Use your knowledge to your advantage.

Ben’s Rule #9. Be bold – make them come to you! A great way to effectively reduce your travel and expenses is to offer your prospects cash (i.e. $500 off their first invoice), if they travel to you and buy — instead of you and/or your team going to them. This approach not only keeps your money in the bank, but it also helps you qualify prospects by making them take an action (they need to come to you).

Ben’s Rule #10. Show them that they’re much better off with than without you! Change your value proposition to focus on cost savings. To drive your prospects to buy during a recessionary time, you need to focus your product or service messaging on how your offering reduces their business costs, directly or indirectly. Make them love you and remind them of all the money they are saving with your product or service.

Still not confident? Need a little more pep talk? Ok! Don’t be a victim! Repeat after me: “I will not be a victim of this recession!” Say it out loud whenever you feel tightness. Look at a recession as an opportunity! As some sort of wealth re-distribution. Wayne Dyer once said “if you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” That holds very true especially in the event of a recession.

Think positive and understand that recessions are a natural part of an economic cycle. If you know how to act and react during a slow economy you will find that recessions also offer a tremendous number of opportunities. No, I really am not delusional. Here is an example: Remember a year or so ago, when you looked at the stock market and saw GE trading at $40/share and you wished you would have gotten in at $20? Well, you could have picked up some GE shares for less than $6 just a few weeks ago (they’re already back up to $11 now, but still a bargain in my book). I’m not sure about you, but I call that one heck of an opportunity!

I can even pick this example apart a bit more for those of you who like a more pragmatic approach. Opportunities are defined as possibilities due to a favorable combination of circumstances. GE’s pricing was pushed down by the recession and investors selling their GE stock in fear of losing value. That is your combination of circumstances, which is needed to create an opportunity. Now, just as a recession is a natural part of an economic cycle, so is an expansion. It will happen and you know it! That is your possibility! Put both together and you should hear opportunity knocking on your door with a vengeance right now. Can you hear it? No? Ok, read this post again, then discuss it with your friends and fellow business owners and definitely let me know once you do hear the knocking. I know you ultimately will. You have it in you and I’m rooting for you!

“How on earth did I get in here?” I kept asking myself in those early days as an overwhelmed entrepreneur back in super-conservative Germany. There wasn’t a single accounting or finance class in my background. My only exposure to business in my family was my uncle who was a self-made millionaire who build a hugely successful specialty restaurant and hotel. Looking around me, I saw ruthlessly focused young men and women who seemed to all know more than me about business. They’d gone on to crunch numbers or analyze spreadsheets in companies they or their families had build and seemed to do really well. Some were from wealthy families, and had pedigrees and legacies and the occasional “von”, “van” and “de” in their names. It was pretty intimidating.

How was a guy like me from a working class family, with a high school degree, and a bunch of black belts going to compete with purebreds from Uni Heidelberg, or former Daimler Benz and Deutsche Bank interns who, from my perspective, seemed as if they’d been starting companies from their cribs?

The “Other” Thing
Good old hard work, I reassured myself, was one of the ways I’d beaten the odds and gotten into really good schools and obtained several black belts in various kind of martial arts. Sure, I’d read hundreds of business books and snug into University classes that were not part of my curriculum, but there was something else that separated me from the rest of my peers, and gave me an advantage. I seemed to have learned something long before I arrived on the entrepreneur level and it looked as if many of the other folks did not.

Eye Opener
As a kid, I bought groceries at the local supermarket for the elderly living across the street from our apartment building who had a hard time walking all the way to the market themselves in return for tips. I also did anything I was allowed to do at the local country club for the homeowners and children living in the wealthy part of town. It helped to open my eyes at an early age to recognize some of the things that set apart those who succeed and those who do not.

During those endless walks to and from the market, as I carried my grocery bags, I thought about how the people who had reached professional heights unknown to my mom and dad (or my family in general) helped each other. They found each other jobs, they invested time and money into each other’s ventures and ideas and they made sure their children got help getting into the best schools, got just the right internships, and ultimately landed best jobs.

Before my very own eyes I saw living proof that success breeds success and, indeed, the rich do get richer. Their network of friends and associates was the most potent club the people I worked for had in their bag. Poverty, I realized, wasn’t only a lack of financial resources; it was isolation from the kind of people that could help you make more of yourself.

The Game
I came to believe that in some very specific ways, life, like my beloved martial arts, is a game, and that the people who know the rules, and know them well, play it best and ultimately succeed. And the rule in life that has unprecedented power is that the individual who knows the right people, for the right reasons, and utilizes the power of these relationships, can become a member of the “club,” whether they started out as a grocery boy or not!

Coming to America
What many of my fellow peers lacked, I discovered, were the skills and strategies that are associated with fostering and building relationships. I became good at networking early on and have continued to build my own web of friends and associates over the years. After I came to America in 1994 I came to realize that no matter where you want to build your company or life the same rules still apply. Success in any field, but especially in business, is about working WITH people, not against them. No tabulation of dollars and cents can account for one immutable fact: business is a human venture, pushed forward and determined by people.

In the U.S., and especially in business, many people are brought up to cherish Lone Wolf individualism. Folks who consciously court others to become involved in their lives are seen as schmoozers, brown nosers, or smarmy sycophants.

Bow before the Master
in 1994, while learning English, I met a guy who went on to become my voice coach at first and ultimately my best friend. “Pete” (the Ben Neumann way of spelling “Petie”), I learned quickly, had gotten a license from an apparently higher power to be everybody’s best friend. People were (and still are) flocking to Pete like insects to light. This guy, I realized, was the manifestation of my connector theory and to see a true natural master of connections work was exciting and humbling at the same time.

Pete, while introducing me to virtually 75% of the people who today make up my friends and social environment, taught me how to reach out to people as a way to make a difference in people’s lives, as well as a way to explore and learn and enrich my own; it became the conscious construction of my life’s path. I didn’t think of it as cold and impersonal, the way I thought of “networking.” I was, instead, connecting – sharing my knowledge and resources, time and energy, friends and associates, and empathy and compassion in a continual effort to provide value to others, while coincidentally increasing my own. Like business itself, being a connector is not about managing transactions, but of managing relationships.

The Principles
I learned that true networking was about finding ways to make other people more successful. Over the years I have mentored people into very successful business and relationship people and hopefully also enriched their personal lives. It was always about working hard to give more than you get. And I came to believe that there were a long list of tough-minded principles that made this soft-hearted philosophy possible. My other best friend Chris keeps encouraging me to write these things down and one day publish them in book form. I’m not sure, if that is what I will ultimately do, or if I just pass them on to my two boys, but it sure is a flattering thought.

My “Ben Neumann Principles of Success in building successful Relationship” (still working on the wording) would ultimately help me achieve things I didn’t think I was capable of. They would lead me to opportunities otherwise concealed to a person of my upbringing and they had come to my aid when I screwed up, as we all do on occasion. I’m so glad, I went grocery shopping so many times as a kid and feel grateful to the elderly people who actually tipped me for time spent teaching myself to become more successful in life. AsJohn F. Kennedy once said, “Learning and leadership are indispensable to each other”.

The traditional Thanksgiving is a combination of religious and harvest celebrations. The Pilgrim Feast of 1621 is generally what we think of when we think of the very first Thanksgiving. The pilgrims just had a really good harvest after a very difficult winter. To celebrate, the pilgrims called for a huge feast! In addition to the pilgrims, 90-some Native Americans attended. They all probably had to sit and eat outside at a huge table. The celebration lasted 3 full days, and included games, races, and other activities. Plus, of course, loads of food! Though nobody’s really sure if they actually ate turkey back then, we know that they did have venison and some type of fowl. And even though they couldn’t eat pumpkin pie (because of a flour shortage), they did have boiled pumpkin. They also had berries, seafood, and fruits.

But that feast wasn’t repeated every year. And it wasn’t until 1777 that all 13 colonies had a Thanksgiving celebration together. Nowadays most people credit Sarah Josepha Hale with making Thanksgiving an annual and national event. Sarah was an influential magazine editor who wrote lots of letters (and I mean thousands) and articles about why America should make Thanksgiving a regular, national holiday. Finally on October 3, 1863 President Abraham Lincoln agreed and in the midst of the civial war he created the Proclamation of Thanksgiving where he set the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day. Other presidents followed Lincoln’s example. But, in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt changed the date from the fourth to the third Thursday of November to accommodate the wishes of business merchants, who were eager for more shopping time before Christmas. This caused so much opposition that in 1941, a Congressional Joint Resolution again made Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday of November and it was finally a national, legal Holiday. For interested people who wish to dig in even deeper, The History Channel has a really well prepared and fun section on the History of Thanksgiving.

Many different countries all over the World celebrate a holiday like Thanksgiving. Whenever it is, it’s a great time to be really thankful for all of your friends, and family, and the life we have! Have fun and a Happy Holiday!