The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life

Before I get into discussing this book I would like to tell a bit of a personal story relating to this book. It is a story that hopefully might even make the book even more interesting to prospective readers. To relate this story to you will make my review a good bit longer than normal, but please bear with me because this story really does have to do with what's in this book... Last year I watched the international phenomenon, The Secret, which has swept the globe with its message: "Everything that you have, make or do happens because of your thoughts. Everything that happens to you, whether you wanted it to happen or not, was attracted to you by your subconscious mind. This is known as the Law of Attraction. If you want to have a better life, use the Law of Attraction to your benefit." What The Secret was putting out there was that we are responsible for our own conditions but we need to align what we want in life with our subconscious before we can truly change. I took this in as positive thinking, as a "philosophy", so to speak but I decided to give the Law of Attraction a try. But after putting a small amount of effort into its practice by trying to manifest some small things - a second trip to Egypt in the same year, an interview in a newspaper, etc., I found the Law of Attraction to be rather true in my life. Thus with no more guidance than the information in that film I started experimenting with one of my businesses last year, a business that hadn't been faring too well in the recent past. To my joy this business turned around and doubled in size within ten months. I then used the same principles to find my sweetheart and in a matter of weeks I found a wonderful girl, just as I had imagined her to be even before I knew her. And after that I turned my attention to a second business I had in December of 2007 and now it is double the size that it was when I started using these principles. In the course of all of this I moved to Bangkok, Thailand, from Saigon, Vietnam. In Bangkok I have met many new and very interesting people. One day I was called out of the blue by a friend I hadn't seen in a while. She asked me to come to a showing of The Secret which was being held by a Belgian man named Guy, who was interested in the Law of Attraction. I dropped everything I was doing that Sunday and came to the showing. I came not so much to see the movie again, although that was a side benefit, but I really was interested to meet people who were using these principles in their lives so that I could compare notes and see how this was working in their lives. I was there to offer my experiences and to gain from others. Guy and I with another Belgian, Chris, formed our own monthly meeting group. But something had always bothered me about The Secret: It wasn't enough. I felt like the information in The Secret was more of an advertisement than a practical way of doing things. I decided to focus on finding a guide, a teacher who

As a small-business owner, I was drawn to the title of this book like metal to a magnet. The Answer! The subhead reads: Grow any business, achieve financial freedom, and live an extraordinary life. That's quite a promise. I give this book five stars because of how it delivers on that promise; with a blending of philosophy on how to think more successfully with practical approaches on how to implement that success. It's not just theory, but rather a mix of metaphysical and step-by-step instructions bringing it all down to earth. "Thought is the most powerful force in the universe." This inspiring idea forms the basis for the theories in this book. The Answer gives you tools to harness your thoughts and turn them into your dreams. Here's the chapter list: Introduction: The Question 1. Inside the Box: John's Story 2. The Search for How the World Works 3. The Law of Attraction 4. The Universe Inside Your Brain 5. How to Change Your Mind 6. Your Dream Business 7. The Neural Reconditioning Process 8. Neural Reconditioning FAQs 9. The Important Things: Murray's Story 10. Vision, Focus, Action 11. Your Ideal Customer 12. Innovating Your Business 13. Finding Your Business's DNA 14. Reaching Your Ideal Customer 15. Big Thinking Conclusion: The Path Appendix 1: Customer Survey Forms Appendix 2: The Five Major Industries: Common Hot Buttons Appendix 3: Distribution Channels, Marketing Strategies, and Marketing Tactics Appendix 4: The Five Major Industries: Common Distribution Channels and Marketing Strategies

John and Murray have done a wonderful job of bringing the Law of Attraction down to the runway level of business and showing you specifically how to take ACTION to get done what you need to get done in order to start your own business or take your existing business to the next level. Each chapter builds on the last in a proven 'how to' system that anybody, who is serious about their success, can implement. Everything you need to know in order to reach the next level in your work and in your life is in this book. This is a MUST READ for any serious entrepreneur! Machen MacDonald Author The Power of CoachingThe Power of Coaching - Managing the TIME of Your Life

As a self-help author myself, I read over 100 books a year on success, happiness, and making money. I have taught Financial Stress Reduction Workshops for the past 18 years, and I am intimately familiar with the problems business owners encounter while trying to create and build their businesses from scratch. It takes a lot to impress me these days, but I have to say this new book by John Assaraf is one of the best I've ever read. A featured teacher in "The Secret", he and his co-author Murray Smith have built 17 multimillion-dollar companies in the last 20 years. They know "The Secret" of making money in your business, and their new book gives you not just "The Answer" but many answers to the questions business people have in their minds, number one of which is "How am I going to make money in my business?" They outline the quantum physics in a way that is completely understandable (did you know that Hungarian author and philosopher of science Ervin Laszlo calls the field that underlies and connects all things the "A-Field" in homage to the Akashic Records?), and I loved this description of the building blocks of our physical reality: "...once you look deep within the heart of atoms, these `indivisible particles' are not at all like the neat little miniature solar systems of billiard balls everyone had expected, but were something far messier: They were something like tiny packets of possibility." Your atoms are made of possibility! But they are completely practical in their exhortation to apply the Law of Action as well as the Law of Attraction: "Because if all you do is sit around and visualize, the men in the overalls with the big trucks will come and take away your furniture." How true! And it made me chuckle at the same time. The book illustrates the work you need to do to become successful, training your mind to focus on success and organizing your business to produce the money, security, happiness, and leisure time that everyone desires. How to create a revenue plan, design a sales process map, understand the three conditions of the Law of Compensation, demographics and psychographics, and more are outlined in step-by-step, easy to follow instructions. This is a book I will re-read again and again - it will be a constant resource guide on my desk from now on! Chellie Campbell, author Zero to Zillionaire and The Wealthy Spirit: Daily Affirmations for Financial Stress Reduction

"The Answer" cost me a night's sleep.I picked it up to read after tucking the kids in at 9 and finished it at 1:30 and then was excitedly journaling and mapping out plans the rest of the night. It's nothing short of amazing! Great philosophy is all well and good. But, when you can take what seems to be an ethereal subject matter like the law of attraction and lay out a real system of application and on top of that actually weave in PRACTICAL ACTIONS one can take to ensure we're "doing our part" to set ourselves up for receiving in business - that's just downright LIFE-CHANGING!!!! To me, "The Answer" is the missing ingredient that brings the principles of "The Secret" to concrete fruition! The authors have given such a complete plan of both the mental and physical actions one must take to achieve success, that literally ANYONE armed with desire and enough determination to stick to it can and will see their dreams come to life! I am excited to share this great treasure with family, friends, my readers, audiences, coach clients ... everyone I know or come in contact with. It's THAT good!"