CHAPTER 1

We Live in a World of Copycats

Children have never been good at listening to their elders. But they have never failed to imitate them. - James Baldwin, author

One of the first books i remember reading as a kid was a joke book. I can still remember one of the corny jokes that used to crack up my friends and me: It takes money to make money - you have to copy the design exactly.

Hey, I told you it was a corny joke, didn't I? But the sentiment is dead serious. Why haven't we found a way to copycat creating wealth?

Think about it - we copycat everything else in our lives, don't we? But the one thing we havent learnt to copycat is creating true wealth! Let's take a few moments to talk about the power of copycatting. And then we'll look at some of the reasons most people haven't found a way to copycat wealth creation.

One Thing We'll All Good At Is Copycatting
Each of us is blessed with certain talents and gifts that make us one-of-a-kind individuals. Some people are great dancers, while others can't tap their feet to the beat. Some of us have talent for art, while others have trouble drawing a stick figure. Some of us a great athletes, while others can barely walk a straight line without stumbling.

But the one thing that each and evrey one of us is good at - WITHOUT EXCEPTION - is copycatting.
Have you ever thought about how good we are at copycatting? When it comes to copycatting, we're all gifted. We're copycat genuises!

Copycatting is one trait that we all excel at and that we all have in common , no matter where we live, no matter what our individual talents are. it makes no difference whether we are rich or poor ... black or white ... male or female ... the one thing we're all great at is copycatting.

So why haven't we found a way to copycat creating wealth?

Copycats From The Cradle To The Grave

Copycatting starts the day we are born. We copy the language we speak ... the food we eat ... the way we wear our hair ... the way we walk ... the way we dress. When we enter school, we learn to read and write by copying letters in the alphabet. If you were born in a western culture, you copycatted the system of writing from the left side of the page to the right. If you were born in parts of Asia, you copycatted wrinting from the right to the left.

As we grew older, we learned to drive a car by copycatting, didn't we? The instructor showed us how to check the rearview mirror ... turn on the turn signal ... push slightly on the gas pedal ... drive the speed limit ... and come to a full stop at intersections. The better we were at copying our instructor, the easier it was to pass our driver's test.

When In Rome, Do As The Romans Do

We're so good at copycatting the people around us that we are often shocked by the customs and habits of people from different cultures. That's what the expression "When in Rome, do what the Romans do" is all about. It's a plain way of saying that we need to honour and respect different cultures, especially when we are visiting other countries.

But that's a lot easier said than done. We get so comfortable copycatting the customs around us that we're amazed and amused when we hear what other cultures are copycatting. This short list of favourite snacks of TV watchers around the world will show you just what I mean:

United States - Popcorn
China - chicken feet
Japan - tea sandwiches
Mexico - ears of roasted corn
India - mutton sandwiches
Korea - sun-dried squid

Did you think to yourself, "How could they eat THAT? Sun-dried squid? ... Chicken feet? ... You've got to be kidding! But guess what you'd probably be snacking on while you watched TV if you grew up in Korea ... that's right, sun-dried squid.

Copycatting The Way We Work

Here's my point: There are countless differences between cultures, but the one thing every, single culture has in common is the way we go about learning the customs we practice - we copycat! We copycat so much that we take it for granted. Copycatting is so prevalent that it is second nature to us, like breathing air. So I ask you again, Why haven't we found a way to copycat creating wealth?

Make no mistake about it, copycatting is the most powerful learning tool known to humans! Copycatting impacts virtually every single phase of our lives, from our smallest habits to our biggest life-altering decisions. For example, we spent a big part of our lives at work. Did you ever stop to consider how you learned to perform the tasks you perform at work? How did you learn to write a letter on the computer? How did you know what to wear to the office? And how did you teach others who were new on the job? By teaching them to copycat what you did, isn't that true? The psychologists call it "modelling and mirroring". I call it being a professional copycat!

No question, we copycat our way through life from the cradle to the grave because copycatting is easy to do ... we don't have to keep creating everything from scratch all the time ... it works ... and we're born genuises at it! The expression "Monkey see, monkey do could just as easily be "People see, people do". That's why I say we live in a world of copycats. If there's one thing every, single person in this world is good at - it's copycatting!

A Short History Lesson On Copying Jobs

We even go so far as to copycat how we earn money. For thousands of years, children of farmers copycatted their parents and bacame farmers ... children of shoemakers became shoemakers. That's why so many of our last names come from the trades, names like Farmer, Smith, Carpentar, Tailor, and so on.

With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, millions of children with last names like Farmer, Smith, Carpentar and Tailor broke away from the family trade and headed to the city to copycat a new concept of work - the job.

Copycatting the job worked pretty well for several generations, especially in America, the undisputed king of the Industrial Revolution. Because the first half of the century was overshadowed by two world wars and the Great Depression, most people were overjoyed to copycat their family and friends and work a nine-to-five job. And as long as people's expectations didn't exceed their standard of living, people who copycatted the "gotta-get-a-job" mentality were content with what they had.

Think Before You Copycat

Like most everything in life, there's a flipside to copycatting. Just because we copycat something doesn't necessarily make it good ... or efficient ... or productive. Unfortunately, all too often copycatting is an excuse to get lazy in our thinking.

It reminds me of the story about the old shopkeeper on Main Street who placed a grand-father clock in the front window of his store. Over the years the shopkeeper noticed a distinguished-looking man who would walk by the store every day at noon ... pause in front of the grandfather clock ... pull out a pocket watch ... and carefully set the time. One day the shopkeeper's curiosity got the better of him. When the gentleman paused in front of the grand-father clock, the shopkeeper ran out of the store and asked the man why he set his watch each and every day.

The man smiled and replied, "I'm the foreman at the town mill," he said. "I blow the quitting whistle at 5.00 each day, and I want to be sure it goes off exactly on time."

The old shopkeeper gave him a startled look - and then burst out laughing. The man stepped back and aked indignantly, "What so funny?"

"I'm sorry," replied the shopkeeper. "I didn't mean to be rude. But I just had to laugh. You see, all these years I had been setting my grand-father clock to your 5.00 whistle!"

This story is a perfect illustration of the downside of copycatting. We copy others ... others copy us ... and all too often we assume that the people we are copying have the "right answer". I repeat, we ASSUME we are copying the right people! That's exactly what happens when we take a job without really thinking WHY we took the job. I think most people assume that jobs are the best way to create wealth, when in fact, jobs don't create true wealth - jobs create temporary income. And there's a big, BIG difference between the two.

Let's Re-Examine Copycatting The Job

Like I said earlier, copycatting is the most powerful learning tool ever known to humans. But every now and then we have to step back and examine our assumptions about what we are copying - and why - to make sure copycatting will, indeed, give us what we think it will give us.

Throughout this chapter, I've repeatedly asked the question, "Why haven't we found a way to copycat creating wealth? The answer is painfully obvious - most of us have been copying the job track instad of the wealth creation track. Why? Because most people assume that a job is the only way to actualize their financial dreams. Perhaps they are unaware of the alternatives to the job. Perhaps they don't believe there are other sources of wealth. Or perhaps they don't think they are capable of creating true wealth by working outside the job routine.

Whatever the reason, the result is the same. Most people become 95%-ers instead of 5%-ers because they are copycatting the job track and creating temporary income instead of true wealth. What about you? What are you choosing to copycat? Are you choosing to be like 95% of the people who are copycatting the job track? ... Or are you choosing to be like the 5% who are copycatting the wealth creation track?

Get Off Your Assumptions!

As a wise person once observed, "Your mind is like a parachute. It works only when it's open." Today, more than ever before, it's imperative that we open our minds and become aware that jobs are a system for income creation, not wealth creation.

I believe that if people are serious about getting ahead in life - instead of just getting by - then they have to get off their assumptions and open their minds to alternative ways of creating wealth!

I believe that the 95%-ers - that is, people who continue to enter the door marked JOB - will continue to end up right back on the street where they started.

I believe, however, that if we are TRULY sincere about getting different results and becoming 5%-ers, we need to start entering doors that will open to wealth creation.

In the next chapter we'll talk more in depth about the difference between income creation and wealth creation - and we'll learn why true wealth is more attainable today than ever before in history!