THE TYPE-Z GUIDE TO SUCCESS Also By Marc Allen Books The Millionaire Course: A Visionary Plan for Creating the Life of Your Dreams Visionary Business: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Success The Ten Percent Solution: Simple Steps to Improving Our Lives and Our World A Visionary Life: Conversations on Personal and Planetary Evolution How to Think Like a Millionaire (with Mark Fisher) A Two-Second Love Affair (poetry) Audio The Millionaire Course Seminar (3 CDs) Stress Reduction and Creative Meditations (1 CD) Visionary Business: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Success (complete book on 2 audiocassettes) E-book The Type-Z Guide to Success with Ease Music Awakening Solo Flight Quiet Moments Breathe Petals THE TYPE-Z GUIDE TO SUCCESS A Lazy Person’s Manifesto for Wealth and Fulfillment MARC ALLEN NEW WORLD LIBRARY NOVATO, CALIFORNIA Copyright © 2006 by Marc Allen All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Editing: Steve Anderson, Alexander Slagg Text design and typography: Tona Pearce Myers Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Allen, Mark, 1946– The Type-Z guide to success : a lazy person’s manifesto for wealth and fulfillment / Marc Allen. p. cm. ISBN-13: 978-1-57731-540-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Life skills—Handbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Success—Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Title. HQ2037.A42 2006 650.1—dc22 First printing, May 2006 2005036826 ISBN-10: 1-57731-540-5 ISBN-13: 978-1-57731-540-7 Printed in Canada on partially recycled, acid-free paper A proud member of the Green Press Initiative Distributed by Publishers Group West 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is dedicated to you, with the hope that you can see how to create the life of your dreams, in an easy and relaxed way, even though you may be lazy, disorganized, inexperienced, overwhelmed, or financially challenged. Contents INTRODUCTION A Lazy Person’s Guide to Success PART ONE The Four Simple Steps to Success with Ease CHAPTER 1 The First Step DREAM CHAPTER 2 The Second Step IMAGINE CHAPTER 3 The Third Step BELIEVE CHAPTER 4 The Fourth Step CREATE PART TWO Ongoing Course Correction CHAPTER 5 Course Correction CHAPTER 6 The Ongoing Journey ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR INTRODUCTION A LAZY PERSON’S GUIDE TO SUCCESS You will be as great as your dominant aspiration. . . . If you cherish a vision, a lofty ideal in your heart, you will realize it. — JAMES ALLEN I’m lazy. I admit it. For years, it was one of the things that kept me from succeeding in life — after all, you’ve got to work really hard to succeed, right? That’s certainly what I was told, and certainly what I believed. We call it a work ethic: It’s good to work, right? It’s good for the soul. It builds character. And hard work creates success. But I had a problem with that, if I was really honest with myself, because I didn’t want to work all that hard. Given the choice between a day when I have to set the alarm clock and get up early and shower and shave and go to work and a day when I can laze in bed for as long as I want and then do whatever I feel like, I’ll take that second option every time. I’ve never been a “morning person.” It takes me three or four hours to get going, and some days, to be really honest, I never get going at all. Some days I do very little. I’ve always been that way, since childhood. “But look at the books you’ve written,” people have said to me. “And the music you’ve recorded. And you run a publishing company. You can’t be lazy and do all that.” Oh yes you can, I say. All it takes to write a book (or record music, or run a publishing company) is persistence.