That’s a fairly grand kind of statement but it is true. Let me tell you a little background first about where I came in contact with Steven and then I’ll tell you about the life changing part.

Rewind about 3 years. I had been running 2 offline businesses … an IT consultancy business and a small regional ISP (I still own those businesses). At the start of 2005 I decided I needed a change and was going to make my fortune on the Internet. I’d been using the Internet since the late 80′s and had been programming since 1980 so I figured if anyone could make it, I could! To cut a long story short, I spent thousands on various programs, some which were for me at the time ‘big ticket’ programs costing around $1000. With all my experience, at the end of the day I was an Internet nobody. I had all of these products to sell but no mailing list and no web traffic. I may as well have just set up a coffee shop on a deserted island somewhere – I would have got just as many customers.

To make matters worse I had serious ethical and moral issues. I didn’t WANT to build a list of people who were all interested in something I wasn’t interested in. I tried that too. Pet medications, adsense millions, natural health solutions … I created web sites, did some SEO and then hoped that they would get some web traffic but at the same time kind of hoped they wouldn’t. After all, I had no interest in any of those things so I felt that if I were to build a list and try to monetize that list I was really just cheating the subscribers and myself. So I guess it was a half-hearted attempt and I got as much out of it as I put into it … zero. I should clarify that by saying that I don’t think there is anything wrong or bad with setting up niche sites, building mailing lists etc. It just wasn’t for me.

At that point in time (3 years or so ago) I was well and truly into the ‘internet marketers are all scammers and snake oil salesmen’ mindset. I’ve since learned to take responsibility for where I am. No-one scammed me, ripped me off or sucked the last penny from my credit card. I did all that. It’s not like someone was standing there with a gun to my head, telling me to buy that product or else! I should say that I wasn’t totally broke. All the time that I was trying to become a successful infopreneur I was also taking on programming jobs and getting paid for those. I still had times when there was too much month at the end of the money but at the end of the day the bills got paid and I still have my house and car!

So, there I was… totally devastated at my lack of success and browsing the internet looking to give my credit card another beating. I guess I was looking through Clickbank and saw the name ‘Honest Income Program’. That name immediately caught my eye. I figured it was either another one of those big bad marketers trying to play on peoples emotions and PRETENDING to be honest or maybe it was the real thiing. I was curious enough to pay the $47 and download the set of e-books. I knew straight away, after reading the introduction to one of the e-books that the author was indeed the ‘real deal’. The methods that he was teaching were things that anyone could do and there wasn’t any hype. As I read further I discovered that Steven had a similar mindset to me in some ways. He wasn’t into hype or trying to get sales by tampering with people’s emotions. He was a straight talker who had spent a lot of time being a failure before he became a success. Funny how when you start looking at people’s life stories it kind of fits in with the sort of things that people like Napoleon Hill wrote about. That is, rather than accept failure as an option you take responsibility, make changes and then try again.

Now this isn’t the point at which anything changed. I bought a couple more of Stevens products but, for the most part, continued to fail in my infopreneurial endeavours. Then in August last year (2009) I was browsing through 5 years of e-books, videos, audios etc wondering what I could do to make some money and I happened to browse into the ‘swagen’ folder where I kept all of the Steven Wagenheim e-books that I’d downloaded (I had quite a lot of his e-books and reports by then). In a particularly dark moment some months earlier I’d unsubscribed from nearly every mailing list I was on and so I decided that I should re-subscribe to Steven’s list. After all, he was one of the few online marketers that I felt I could trust. I found one of his squeeze pages and signed up and downloaded his e-book titled ’4 Steps To Starting A Successful Business’. You can download that e-book HERE (no mailing list signup required).

Now I don’t know what it was…whether it was timing… that I just happened to be in the right frame of mind or what, but as soon as I started reading the first chapter there were 3 words that really jumped out. Those words were ‘Make a Decision’. A light went on somewhere and I realised that even though I thought I was focusing on one thing at a time and doing all the right things I had really just been kidding myself. What I needed to do was make A decision. That’s it … one decision. I had been making decisions alright but I never stopped to think about what *I* really wanted to do online and what *I* really wanted to be. I spent way too much time trying to be what other people were instead of thinking about it for a while and becoming something and someone who *I* really wanted to be.

That e-book and those words started me on a whole new journey of self discovery that has culminated in where I am today. No, I haven’t made my fortune YET but I have a real sense of purpose and a whole new outlook. I know what I want to do and what I want to be and I’m going to pursue those goals until I’m satisfied that I have achieved them. And it was Steven Wagenheims e-book that was the catalyst for this whole life changing experience. I can’t help but wonder whether it was like Napoleon Hill said at the start of his book – Think And Grow Rich. He talks about ‘the secret’ and says:

“Somewhere, as you read, the secret to which I refer will jump from the page and stand boldly before you, IF YOU ARE READY FOR IT!”

Perhaps when I read ’4 Steps To Starting A Successful Business’ I was ready to read and understand what was being said. Either way, I know that it was a life changing moment for me.