When it comes to making a lot from having nothing, Michael J. Maher knows all about it. His life started in extremely humble conditions. He jokes that his family looked up to the dirt-poor people and he hoped he’d get their hand-me-downs.

So how was Michael able to go from being one of the poorest of the poor to a highly successful businessman and best-selling author? His answers may surprise you.

Finding Success is Mostly due to Your Mindset

Early on in his career, Michael was highly influenced by a book he read, The Greatest Salesman in the World, written by Og Mandino. The book tells the story of a poor camel boy Hafid, who achieves a life of abundance. The lessons of the book teach a philosophy of salesmanship and success. It’s an old book, not a very big book, but the way of thinking presented in the book led Michael on a path to thinking differently and that he could have more than just living in a shack. This book has continued to guide him through the years.

But his approach to mindset and changing his situation started earlier than that. His high school football coach once challenged Michael, when he was in what he thought was an impossible situation and he was thinking about quitting the team because he believed he could never perform up to the expectations. His coach asked him, “How bad do you want it?” He realized he actually wanted success on the field badly, and his performance on the football field drastically changed with his change of attitude. This mindset shift and his level of effort in training resulted in some big victories for the team that would have been seemingly impossible before this mindset shift. This experience taught him that we all have another gear. That gear is excellence. That gear is mastery. That gear is “How bad do you freaking want it?”and what are you willing to do to get it?

How Do You Apply This to Your Real Estate Business?

So many people get into real estate by default. Maybe it’s by divorce or by losing a job or because the kids are going back to school and they want something to do on the side. The problem with taking something on as a “side” job is that you can easily get overrun and spit out by the Real Estate business. You’ll be another one of the statistics and be out of the business within three years. But Michael insists that anyone can be successful in real estate. It comes down to whether you’re able to shift into this other gear. How bad do you want it?

If you’re going to do this business and be successful with it, you have to do it with a passion. Michael believes you need a plan and you need fire. You need to become a master of your trade. This is done both by becoming an expert in your trade but also by working on developing yourself.

Anybody can be a Master

To be a master, you must master your industry. This takes hard work and dedication, of course, but it also takes a massive amount of mindset. Instead of wondering why others are seeing success that you are not seeing, turn the question around.

I think the question you need to be asking yourself is why not me? Why not me? And the truth is, is that it should be you. – Michael J. Maher

We can all find our niche of what we want to master and take it to the next level. If we spend enough time on it, 10,000 hours according to Malcolm Gladwell, we can master it and, and make a living with it. But the other part of this is finding something that you enjoy spending 10,000 hours mastering. What are you going to enjoy through the drudgery? What are you going to stick with when the hustle doesn’t seem to be producing? It’s easy to hustle when you can see the results but it’s harder to hustle when you’re tired and in the middle of the game and not certain whether you’ll win or lose.

Most Successful People Start from Within

Go build yourself and then you go build a business.

Michael says that sometimes business isn’t about business at all. It’s about you. He truly believes the purpose of a business is to be referable. If people are referring you, it means you’re doing it right. Your service is high quality, your product is good. People are marketing you because you are good at what you do.

All of that starts with the person, right? You can be the expert, but if you’re not running things well enough for people to refer you, if you’re not respected, building a successful business will be harder. A large part of working on yourself is by building yourself up through a higher vibration.

Build Yourself by Raising Your Vibration

Michael is a big fan of daily affirmations to raise his vibrations.

The Law of Vibration states that everything in our universe, seen or not, can be quantified as a frequency or an energetic pattern. The more positive your thoughts are, the happier your thoughts are, the higher your frequency will be, the higher your energy, and the higher your vibration. You will get more done at a higher vibration and you’ll also attract people who have a higher vibration.

People operating on a higher vibration are more successful. Michael raises his vibration level through daily affirmations. He starts his day each morning with five affirmations. An example would be, “I am a best-selling author.” Or “I am a seven-figure real estate agent.” Raising your vibration and doing daily affirmations allows you to manifest the things you want most into your life.

The other daily morning ritual he is to say five appreciations. These are simple, like, I appreciate my wife’s smile. Or, I appreciate my coffee. He finds it’s incredibly important to balance our desire for what we don’t have and want in life with a great appreciation for what we already have. It’s gratitude for what we already have.

He describes affirmations as a “soft” skill, but believes fully in the power of affirmations to raise his vibrations, which improves everything else in his day.

What slows so many people down?

Most people are procrastinators. We can overcome procrastination with three words. Do it now. To remind himself throughout the day to stay focused, he wears a “Do It Now” band; a band that has a secret message inside of this band: “Let’s do it now.”.

If you’re willing to dig into the mindset, shift your mindset, raise your vibrations, set your intentions and affirmations, and work on yourself as a person while working on your business, you’ll be amazed at the places you’ll go.