PowerGoals / Chapter 1 / The Power of You

Do you know that you can have it all?

And I really mean it all. You can have all the freedom, abundance, joy, fulfillment, health, wealth, and happiness that you desire.

To most people, it sounds impossible. But just follow me. In this book, I am going to show you that it is your birthright.

It starts with you.

Having it all begins when you become aware of the greatness that is in you. That is the moment when the awakening happens.

If you have become aware, really aware, you have to claim your abundance. You must take action. No one else is going to give it to you.

People suffer because what we know about creating and living a life of abundance, of wealth and health and happiness, is incomplete. We seek answers and advice and empowerment and guidance and wisdom externally, outside of us.

But nobody can tell you what is best for you – what you should do and how you should live. The only person who truly knows exactly what is best for you is you.

You already have all the answers. You already possess all the wisdom that you need to resolve any challenges, problems, and issues that you might be facing today.

You possess the ability to move forward in your life, to grow, and to evolve by living a remarkable life of joy and abundance.

The only thing that you need to do more is to communicate with yourself more often and on a deeper level. That is the trick.

But, unless we understand the process of how to do it, we cannot get the benefits – the joy and the fulfillment, the success and the abundance in all the areas of life.

What do you want?

Do you know what you want? Have you thought about it?

What is it?

Do you want a Ferrari or a Bentley or a helicopter? Or do you want your dream house?

Or maybe you want a million dollars (or pounds or euros) per month. Maybe you just want to lose weight. Or you want to find a job – or a better job. Or maybe you want better relationships. Maybe you want to get a degree or finish a degree.

Or maybe you want to start a business or grow an existing business. Or maybe you want to retire early. Maybe you want financial freedom or time freedom.

Or maybe you want to provide for your parents. Or perhaps send your children to a certain school or college or university.

Workbook Q1.1: What do you want?

Answer this question in your workbook before you continue.

Unfortunately, most people will never get these things. They will never make their dreams come true because they do not know how to set goals.

For the most important things in life, and they know even less about how to achieve them. And let me just take a moment here to say: if you hate the word goal and you do not want to know anything about goal setting, do not worry. People hate goals and goal setting because we have not been taught how to do it the right way.

It is not boring. It is not tedious. It is the most exciting thing you can ever do. And it works for everyone. Yes, even if you believe that goal setting is not for you. I will teach you a better way. That is why I am writing this book.

An example from my life.

Let me give you a recent example of a goal that I set. If you were on my database on 15 April 2019, you would have received an email from me. Or if you followed me on social media, you would have seen the video that I posted.

In it, I said that exactly 365 days from that day, my wife and I were going to start with an incredible adventure with a group of people. We were going on a 4x4 trip starting in Cape Town, South Africa, up through Africa along the eastern side, ferry over to Turkey, and go up all the way to Russia. And then we were going to travel all the way back through Europe, England, Ireland, and then down the western side of Africa to our home in Pretoria, South Africa.

All in all, the trip would take us through around forty-three countries. At that stage, we had already done a lot of planning. The process had started a year and four months before that video. We knew it was going to cost us in the vicinity of US$70,000.

The thing is, on 15 April 2019 when I shot that video, I decided I do not want to take a cent out of my own pocket for it. I decided the trip was not going to cost me more than $1.

I decided I would like to play a game.

Some background.

If you had been following me before this video, you would have known that I am well-known in South Africa as a property investor. I retired in 1995 at the age of 37 years, thanks to the property portfolio that I had built.

After seven years of retirement, I had had enough of it. I was living a dream life, but life without a purpose and a goal were meaningless to me. I was depressed. I was unhappy.

In that depressed state, my wife Tanja told me one day that it was enough now. I needed to do something. “Go teach people what we did. Teach them how we paid off our debt. Teach them how we built our property portfolio.”

Like the good husband that I am, I listened to her. It was the best advice for me at the time (of course).

I found that I love to teach. I love to mentor. I love to coach.

I got a name in South Africa as that crazy property guy who jumps up and down in his workshops and who gets all excited about “doing the calculation”.

I found that I really love to show my students that what I teach them works in real life. That is why I teach my students by showing them what I do and how I do it so that they can do it too.

Back to 15 April 2019.

If you had been on my database or had been following me on social media, you probably would have known these things about me.

You might have known that I like to play these kinds of games to show people that the impossible is possible. So, in the video that I posted that day, I said that my next goal was to invest a maximum of $1 and grow it to a minimum of $70 000 in a cryptocurrency portfolio on or before 15 April 2020.

But that was only part of the goal. At the end of that year of travel, the goal was that I would still have more than $70 000 in my cryptocurrency portfolio. In other words, I was going to live and pay for my expenses while doing this entire trip, which to many people is a life-long dream. And then when I come back, there would be as much money or more than when I started using the money for the trip.

Now, here’s my question: what is your reaction when you hear that goal?

I want you to put down this book and think about it. What are your thoughts?

If you have a journal or a diary, pull it out. Or take a piece of paper or open a document on your phone or computer. Write down your reaction. Don’t overthink it. Just write down all the thoughts and feelings that you have.

Go, do it!

Workbook Q1.2: What is your reaction to my goal?

Answer this question in your workbook before you continue.

What is your reaction?

Now, most people will not have put down this book and written down their reaction. (This is your last chance, by the way, if you are not catching my hint.)

What was your reaction?

What I’ve found is that the majority of people think it sounds so untrue, so impossible, so too-good-to-be-true that they did not even watch the whole video or read to the end of the email.

Most people think that there must be a trick or that I am joking.

They think that it is only possible for some people, for the few elite, for the richest of the rich.

I hear all kinds of excuses.

But, Hannes, it is easy for you to do it.

But, Hannes, you are rich already.

But, Hannes, for you that money is pocket change.

But, Hannes, you have done this type of thing before.

Yes, it is true. I have done this type of thing before.

But there was also a first time for me.

And let me tell you, if I can set and achieve a goal like this, anyone can – on condition that they believe they can and that they do what is necessary to get it done.

Qualifying for success.

My dad died when I was seven years old, and I grew up poor.

I failed Grade 12 the first time around – and only just passed the second time.

I dropped out of university. At the age of 25, I was broke, with several failed business ventures to my name to hammer home the point. At the age of 27, I was up to my neck in debt. And not even the so-called “good” debt – consumer debt. I was living a life way beyond what I could afford.

And, yet, ten years later at the age of 37, I was financially free. I retired. What happened in those ten years?

I paid off my debt, yes. And it is a crucial thing for you to do too. I built a property portfolio in seven years that produced enough reliable monthly income that I could live from it. And I have spent the past 17+ years of my life teaching others to do it too. So, yes, I believe building a property portfolio is one of the best things you can do.

I started and scaled several million-dollar and multimillion-dollar businesses. And, yes, starting and building a business is very important too.

But everyone knows that it is a good idea to pay off debt. Everyone wants to build a property portfolio. It is everyone’s dream to own not one but several cashflow-positive, million-dollar businesses that give them the freedom to live the life they want.

But they don’t have it. They don’t do it.

Why did I make my dreams a reality, but most people with my background do not? In fact, most people with much better backgrounds and much more opportunities in life do not achieve what I did. And only a very, very few who achieve what I have done it in the timeframe that I did.

Why? The reason, my friend, is in this book.

The reason for this book.

As I’ve mentioned, from 2002, I have been teaching my students how to become financially free and to live a life of true wealth. I realized in my own life, and I saw with my students, that money, what we think of as wealth, is only a very small part of the picture. It is important, don’t get me wrong. But it is not the ultimate goal. It is only an enabler.

Money alone without the rest – physical health, healthy relationships, and life purpose – is pretty empty, as many rich people will tell you.

But I’ve seen that people have it the wrong way around. They think if they have money, the rest will come: health and relationships, and purpose.

Money can indeed buy certain things which amplify the health and relationships and purpose that you have already. That is why it is an enabler. But the thing is, it is actually your current lack of physical health and relationships and purpose that is keeping you from making the money.

As I taught my students, I realized that even if I give them all the information to do what I did, they are not achieving the results. Why not?

Well, I thought, they are not applying what I taught them.

And, yes, that is definitely the case. Applied knowledge is wisdom. To know something and not do it means that you actually do not truly know it at all.

I know some people say that you can only sit there and visualize something and, Bam! There it is. But everyone who has any of those things that people visualize and visualize and visualize, well, all of those people do things that make it possible for them to have those things. Even the ones who say you must just sit there and visualize.

So, yes, my students will not get my results if they do not act on the knowledge that they have.

But then I asked myself: why do they not act on that knowledge? Why do some act and get great results, and others don’t?

And why do some act, and if they don’t get the results they wanted, they learn, adjust try again? And they keep on going and learning until they get to success.

But others stop at the first whiff of failure.

Why?

The answer is in this book. I went back and looked at my own life and why I succeeded or failed. I looked at my students, my teachers, and my mentors. And I saw a pattern. I found the reason.

I started teaching this reason to my students. And, now, I am writing this book. Because I want you to be free too. I want you to have it all. What I am sharing in this book has the power to let you have all that you want, and I really mean it all.

On condition, of course, as I always say to my students and as I say over and over in this book, that you do it.

So, what is the answer?

OK, Hannes, you have been teasing us for long enough now, you are probably saying.

Just spit it out. What is the secret?

Well, first, I have not been teasing you. I have been teaching you.

In fact, I already gave you the answer on the first page or two of this chapter. But if you are still reading, you probably missed it. Otherwise, you would have closed the book and said, Aha! Hannes knows it too, I see.

But my guess is that if you knew the answer, you would not have started reading this book. You are reading this book because you know there is more. And you may even know that you are more and that you have more – to do and to experience and to give.

And that is the answer. It all starts with you.

It’s actually quite simple, if not always easy. You have to become the person who can achieve that goal. To have a Ferrari, for example, all you have to do is become the person who can buy the Ferrari cash.

And, just on the side, as a little bonus lesson, watch what I said there: buy the Ferrari cash. Sure, you can finance the Ferrari if you are a medical specialist or an engineer who earns heaps of money a month. But that Ferrari will have you, not the other way around.

The bank, or whoever holds that loan, will have you.

Trust me – I have learned that lesson the hard way. It may seem to others that you are living the dream. And you might even think that you are living the dream. But you won’t have it all. You will just appear to be having it all. And you will be working day in and day out to pay many times over for that appearance.

At the time of writing this book, you need to have about $300,000 cash to buy your brand new Ferrari.

But how do you get that money? It’s simple: become the person who can make an extra $300,000 more than what you need.

In fact, if you have the skills to make an extra $300,000 a month, you can buy a new Ferrari every month. You can buy 12 Ferraris a year and give them one away each month – because you have the skills to be able to do that.

But to get there, you have to transform. You must change and grow to become the person that makes that dream come true.

And that is where most people get it wrong. They focus on the goal, what they want, instead of focusing on being the person who can have that.

And that is the answer.

It is not always easy, even though often it is much, much easier than what you make it out to be in your head. Because it is actually simple.

Putting the puzzle pieces together.

Yes, it is simple. And it can be easy. But for most people, it is not.

For most people, transformation is difficult, if not impossible. So they stay stuck in their reality. They remain stuck in the reality of their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. They stay stuck in the status quo.

Owning a Ferrari is just a daydream for them.

But it doesn’t have to be.

For you, it is probably not a Ferrari. But you know what it is, that thing that you always come back to and that you wish and hope and pray could become a reality somehow. Maybe you’ve even started pursuing it, once or several times, but you had to give up because you were not making any progress.

I am here today, at this moment as you are reading this book, to tell you: don’t give up. What you are feeling inside of you is the key, the doorway, the path into a whole lot more for you.

As I’ve studied this topic and taught my students about it, I have learned that there are steps. I am someone who does not like things to be complicated. So I have broken down everything I have learned and that I have been teaching my students and watching them do and achieve. I have broken it all down into steps, into formulas, into processes.

I have made it simple and, yes, often even easy for you to have all that you want. And remember where I came from. If I can do it, you can do too. Just like so many of my students.

From dreams to goals to reality.

This book teaches you how to transform your dreams into PowerGoals? and achieve those PowerGoals? to make your dreams a reality. Remember that I said that goal-setting is not boring or tedious? And that it works for everyone?

Well, traditional goal setting can be a bit boring and tedious. That is why it works for so few people.

But a PowerGoal? is something else. It is founded on principles of transformation. And you are not at the mercy of your goals. They are tools in your toolbox. You are the master, and you are using goals to get you what you want. It is an entirely different ball game.

I attribute all of my success in life so far, financially, yes, but also in all areas of life, to setting and achieving PowerGoals? in the way that I explain in this book.

When I started, I did not even know I was setting goals, and I certainly did not call them PowerGoals?. But I was beginning to discover these principles and apply them. As I experienced success, I stacked these principles on top of each other. The result is the system I teach you in this book.

At the end of this book, I believe you will agree that anyone who achieved anything worthwhile followed the principles that I teach here. And, let me say it again: if you do what you learn in this book, nothing is holding you back from doing the same and achieving the most amazing levels of success.

In your own unique, special way, of course. I believe doing what I teach in this book is part of the very reason for your existence here in this world. (More about that later.)

The outcome of the goal I set.

Let’s backtrack quickly to the goal that I set on 15 April 2019.

You may be reading this book far into the future, but at the time that I am writing this book, we are about ten months into this challenge, or as I like to call it, this game that I created for myself. On 15 January 2020, I recorded another video to report my progress. In this video, I reported that my cryptocurrency portfolio was already at $97,256.19. With three months to go, I had already surpassed the $70,000.00 mark!

Aha, you are thinking, cryptos! You were riding one of those crazy waves that gave you incredible growth. But the next day, or week, or month, it probably crashed.

Yes, cryptos are unbelievably unstable. But I did not make that money speculating in cryptos. The value of the coins in my portfolio on average decreased slightly from when I bought them. It will go up again, and over time the growth can be tremendous, but it is volatile. Choosing cryptos did not make this challenge easier. It made it harder.

Cryptos offer fantastic benefits, and I firmly believe in the value of the decentralization and potential growth that they offer. They take the power out of the hands of institutions like countries and banks, and they put it back into our own hands, which I see as extremely valuable. But they are volatile.

So, for this challenge, I had to learn how to evaluate and offset the risks of cryptos. It was one way in which I had to transform to achieve my goal. I had to become the person who can make this goal a reality. I had to change, I had to grow, and I had to learn. I learned so much that I was able to launch a course where I teach my students how to do it too.

So, no, I did not “make my money with cryptos”, even though I believe cryptos are a fantastic investment.

I used the skills that I had and the new skills that I learned, and I applied them step by step for nine months to get to my goal.

And not only to get to my goal but to surpass it.

I can’t wait to show you how I did it and how you can do it too.

How to read this book.

Except for the introduction and the conclusion, this book has three sections: the first on setting goals, the second on achieving goals, and the third on the science behind goals. All three parts fit together and inform each other.

I left the theory for last because I believe learning must be practical. Once you know how to do the steps, knowing more about the theory helps you to do it better. After finishing the book and having the complete picture, you might want to return to the earlier chapters to review some of the practical steps.

Setting and achieving a PowerGoal? is not something you do once-off. If you do it right, you won’t be able to help yourself but keep on doing it for the rest of your life. It is somewhat addictive, I must warn you.

This book is not meant to be a nice read. We made it as enjoyable for you as possible, but the point is for you to learn rather than be entertained. This book is not mental candy. It is about the meat and potatoes (or kale and chickpeas, depending on your diet of choice) of living a life of abundance and freedom.

That is why we created a workbook that goes along with this book -- For more info on the workbook and PowerGoal method, please see here;

You can keep it open on your computer or device. If you like to write with pen and paper, print it out. You can even stick the pages into your journal.

However you choose to do it, do not only read this book. Apply what you learn. Do the exercises. Measure the results and adjust. Wrestle with the concepts until you understand them.

Do. Not. Give. Up.

I believe in you. I believe in the power that is within you.

This stuff is not just for a few people. It is for all of us. It is our birthright.

It is only up to us to take hold of it.

Well done for taking up a copy of this book. I am proud of you.

Now do not put it down until you get the results that you want.