How to Make a Million – The Old-Fashioned Way
Brandon Pipkin
Author, 21 Questions for 21 Millionaires:
How Ordinary People Create Extraordinary Success
Available on Smashwords at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/95832
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2012 Brandon Pipkin
For more information visit www.21for21.com
Twitter: @21for21com
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This ebook is absolutely free. Go ahead, give it to your friends, family, sales people that
come to your door, fellow church goers, members of your biker group, coworkers, or
anyone you think would benefit from it. You should read it yourself, too.
****
“I just worked real hard and the moneymaking came by accident.”
Millionaire 21 Richard Zuschlag
The success experts are wrong, dead wrong.
And in their excited frenzy to sell their highly marketed, tightly packaged, hyperbole-
filled, guaranteed systems for success they are causing others to get it wrong, too.
Take back their books, CDs, and systems and get your money back from the motivational
seminar. You don’t need to learn “The 15 Surefire Steps to Success,” or “The 8
Principles for Financial Freedom,” or “The 72 Secrets of Super Wealth Building,” to be
successful. You don’t need written goals or the advice of a mentor and you should put
your subscription to travel and luxury magazines on hold because simply dreaming about
it doesn’t make you rich either.
These gurus, enlightened ones, business leaders, authors, and consultants each declare
that their system is the system guaranteed to bring you the happiness and wealth you
desire. They claim to have the secret. They assert that their book or package holds the key
to prosperity. They share platitudes and principles that they say are absolutely essential
for attaining success. And they claim that their techniques are so powerful and the results

It’s all about–wait, could it be? A book that is willing to share its message on page two
instead of baiting you to read forty pages into its self-absorbed, incomprehensible
profundity? Yes, now continue reading–WORK.
There is no plan that will compensate for work. There is no success principle that is more
powerful than work. There is no desire, visualization, or goal that accomplishes anything
until it is coupled with work. There is no advice that replaces action and there is no
“system” to it.
“Work will win when wishy-washy-wishing won’t.”
2
Not only are work and its resultant sense of satisfaction their own rewards, work also
creates opportunities.
In my book 21 Questions for 21 Millionaires and on my website I share the stories of
how work got 21 millionaires where they are and how it compensated for everything else.
If you read the interviews with each millionaire you’ll see how work is the “secret” to
any success, no matter what your definition is. You will also see how hard work brought
some of the millionaires even more success than they were thinking they would achieve.
These people created success not by relying on experts, gurus, or supposed enlightened
ones, and they certainly didn’t read books (not even this one!) to become successful.
Instead, they listened to what was guiding them internally and they worked. By working
hard, no matter what the circumstances, their unique path to success was created.
These millionaires worked constantly without being fanatical. They put effort into the
little things. They put their nose to the grindstone and did so, in most cases, without
knowing where it would lead. They were happy just to be doing something productive.
They simply worked.
There are many forgotten virtues in our world today and one of them is good old-
fashioned hard work. If I am guilty of selling anything, it is the truth of how 21 ordinary
people created extraordinary success through hard work.
Through this book I wish to restore the value of work in the hearts and minds of any who
seek happiness – financial or otherwise.
And I’m the guy who would know.

them, and told others what those goals were; consulted with a mentor; envisioned
success; dreamed big; did something every day to bring me closer to my dream;
maintained a positive attitude; and all of the other things the experts say are necessary to
create success. I thought success, spoke success, and dreamed success. I posted pictures
of what I wanted, visualized the desired end state and planned my path working
backwards.
It didn’t work.
Rather than success untold, I had debt untold. Rather than happiness, I had frustration.
I didn’t reach the success I was told I should have been able to and consequently
wondered what was wrong with me – after all, it couldn’t be the experts who were wrong.
I wondered if it might be my financial circumstances that were preventing me from
reaching success; maybe I needed to make more money so I could invest in the experts’
complete systems. Maybe the real secrets were in there, not in their free and low cost-
information that I was using. (Note the irony here of thinking I needed to make more
money before I could find out about how to make more money.)
Then I thought maybe my mindset was the problem and needed to be changed. When I
still couldn’t create success, I thought maybe it just wasn’t the right time. But then I
thought about the experts’ advice of “you can do anything you set your mind to,” and
“you’re in total control of your life,” so again I wondered what I was doing wrong and
kept searching for the secret to success that eluded me.
Adding insult to injury, I finally figured out that I was anything but good looking or
charming – so much for being able to rely on those qualities to help me on my journey.
The good news, though, is that through trying to figure out what creates success I picked
up on one thing: the value of work. I was finally putting in real work and that led to a
perfect storm of circumstances.
Idea for the Book 21 Questions for 21 Millionaires
While I was seeking answers about how to be successful, I came across an idea by Robert
Allen who described how passion and financial compensation are tied together. He said
we all have unique gifts, talents, and interests, a passion, with which we have been
endowed to bless the world. He equates the sharing of one’s passion to the playing of a

Success), Matt shattered what I thought was a surefire way to find my own success and
inspire others to do the same. More importantly, though, he sent me on a quest for the
truth.
From that point on, my focus in the interviews was different. Rather than trying to
validate the blueprint of passion creating success and prove my hypothesis right, I wanted
to hear in the millionaires’ own words, from their own experiences, the how and why
they did what they did. I wanted the truth, whatever it was.
I wanted to know if the other millionaires, like Matt, didn’t really know what their
passion was. I wanted to know if they had had goals and if those goals were written. I
wanted to know if they used visualization, had a written business plan, or any plan at all.
I wanted to know if there was a formal system they followed, such as an expert’s
guaranteed system. I wanted to know if they had had mentors and who those mentors
were. I wanted to know if they ever had a desire to become a millionaire. I wanted to
know about their belief system. I wanted to know what advice they would give to
someone looking to be successful. I wanted to know what really creates success.
In seeking the truth, I found it.
****
“I think at that point in time you need to dispense with everybody’s opinion
and just go with your own instincts.”
Millionaire 15 Cynthia McKay
Millionaire 2 Jeffrey Luftig set out to be a high school shop teacher. He got a bachelor’s
degree in industrial science, did his student teaching, and had a job lined up. Then one of
his professors told him that he should get a master’s degree instead. Jeffrey thought the
professor’s reasoning for doing so made sense and he trusted him, so he pursued a
master’s. It was a turning point in his life and ultimately Jeffrey went on and earned his
Ph.D.
After graduation, he started teaching as an assistant professor at State University of New
York [SUNY] at Oswego and settled in, thinking he would work in higher education for
the rest of his life. He quickly took on new roles within education, including Assistant
Department Head at the University of Northern Iowa. After a time, the head of that

and teaching and make a significant amount of money in a relatively short period of time.
But ‘significant’ changes throughout time.”
Like many of the other millionaires I interviewed, it wasn’t Jeffrey’s intention to become
a millionaire or to create a large organization. His original intent was simply to provide
enough money for his children to go to whatever college they wanted.
Jeffrey’s story perfectly illustrates what I learned from the 21 millionaires I interviewed
because he, like most of the rest, could not have planned for the outcomes he achieved.
He, like the rest, achieved what he did without a master plan, a formal mentor, or a grand
vision. Instead, he and the other millionaires worked hard, took logical steps when the
time was right, kept moving forward by finding and doing things that worked, and
pursued his unique path to success.
Here it is in a list. The millionaires:
1. Worked hard.
2. Went line upon line.
3. Moved forward by course correcting.
4. Followed their unique path.
These are the four commonalities the millionaires share. I call them “commonalities”
instead of “traits” because “trait” seems to imply something tangible and scientific;
something with which you are born or can develop through conscious effort.
“Commonalities” fits better because the millionaires are not necessarily gifted with
extraordinary qualities, nor was there concerted effort involved to acquire or develop
these. It’s just what they did. It is only in looking back on their lives and through the
interviews that it comes clear what worked to get them where they are.
These commonalities among the millionaires are so interconnected that it’s difficult to
speak of one without tying it into one or more of the others, but I’ll try.
Commonalities
1. Worked Hard
All of the millionaires worked hard at each stage in his or her life.
Some had paper routes or sold things in their younger years and in their early adulthood
they worked hard, as is evidenced in their educational pursuits. Twenty of them have at

prove others wrong, to improve something, or to get out of something they didn’t like.
Similar to Millionaire 21 Richard Zuschlag’s experience, they “just worked real hard and
the moneymaking kind of came by accident.”
These millionaires took consistent action that over time created huge results.
An important note is that because work is ennobling, it naturally improves and enhances
self-esteem. As a result, most of the millionaires didn’t practice positive speech, positive
affirmations, or external motivation techniques. There was no need to manufacture self-
worth or convince themselves that they would be successful. They went to work and
success followed naturally.
Of the characteristics the millionaires share, the most common is “doing” – not waiting
until circumstances were perfect; until someone provided the right tools, the right
motivation, or the right help; or until they knew enough. In fact, Millionaire 15 Cynthia
McKay and others credit naivety for their success.
At every point, they just started working on what made sense in the moment, which is the
connection to the next commonality.
2. Line upon Line
“Line upon line…here a little and there a little,”
3
is the most accurate way to describe
how these millionaires approached their lives.
“Step by step” might be another way to think of it, but that phrase isn’t as accurate since
it implies a uniform progression, which is not how the millionaires did things. With the
exception of one or two, they did not have concrete plans for their lives and did not start
by visualizing the end and working backwards to create it. They didn’t force the moment
or have a clear path on which they stayed unwaveringly.
Instead, they took life as it came and built their success little by little, piece by piece,
without knowing what the finished product, or even the next step, would look like. They
were happy just to be productive in the moment.
Think about Jeffrey’s story from above. He didn’t have a grand vision of what he wanted
to accomplish nor did he know where each preceding step would lead. He didn’t envision

Line upon line also means not being fanatical. Although the millionaires worked hard and
enjoyed building their businesses, most of them struck a very good balance between work
and family. A few were even heavily involved in volunteer positions at church or in
coaching their children’s teams.
Additionally, moving line upon line means that the millionaires were not what you might
call “risk-takers.” Sure, some of them took risks, and some talk about having to put
yourself out there to be successful, but most started their businesses in small and simple
ways and moved a little bit at a time so the hazards were minimal.
The millionaires also weren’t looking for their big break or the big next step. They
“executed on the opportunities” as they were presented without knowing at the time that
they were opportunities; it was only in hindsight that they recognized their significance.
In the moment, they didn’t know where a decision would lead, only that that it made
sense to take it.
Even those who were good at planning and goal setting, like Millionaire 9 Theresa
Szczurek and Millionaire 20 Rob Emrich, moved line upon line.
Szczurek left a corporate job to start her own business because it was the next logical
step, not because she had always planned to do it. And although she had an intention to
start a business, she and her partner had to go line upon line to discover what that
business would be.
Emrich felt moved to do something and along the way it grew and morphed into many
other things. He also talks about the need to be flexible with plans and goals.
None of these 21 ordinary people became a millionaire by doggedly pursuing their
original plans.
“We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.”
4
Maybe it was the lack of rigid plans that gave them the freedom to take advantage of
opportunities that came up. And when they took advantage of something that didn’t turn
out so well, they had the next commonality working for them.
3. Kept Moving Forward by Course Correcting
These millionaires casually mention that they made a lot of mistakes and found a lot of

advice to avoid mistakes and make the right next move.
No, he just made what seemed to him to be the right move at the time and it worked out.
It worked out because he knew better than anyone else what his unique circumstances,
needs, interests, skills, and background were – a common story among the millionaires.
These millionaires’ experiences are why I say the success experts miss the mark by
encouraging a guaranteed pattern for success. Your path is not my path, is not Jeffrey’s
path, is not anyone else’s path.
I’m not saying that others’ advice can’t be helpful and you shouldn’t listen to them at all.
Indeed, the millionaires listened to informal mentors–friends and associates whose advice
they trusted–but they took that advice for what it was worth and more heavily relied on
their gut, intuition, and God. For at least Millionaire 7 Vance Andrus and Millionaire 17
Bryan Willis, it also included listening to their wives.
Interestingly, many of the millionaires are leery about giving advice to others, saying
things like Millionaire 17 Bryan Willis did in response to the question, “What should
others who want to be successful know?” His answer was, “I’m not qualified to say what
anybody else would need to know.”
When it comes to success, especially entrepreneurship, I’m not sure there are many
experts. By its very nature, entrepreneurship is about the individual and the
circumstances. You can’t capture that in a bottle and package it.
And even though I’m sharing with you what I learned from these entrepreneurial
millionaires, this book does not constitute expert advice. You have to learn for yourself,
from your own successes and mistakes, because there’s more than one way to skin a cat.
There was no right way or wrong way for these millionaires. There was just the way they
did it.
Unconsciously, they understood that they were in the best position to make decisions
about their own life and career and knew that if they made a wrong decision, it wasn’t the
end of the world (refer back to commonality #3).
Bonus Commonality: Right Place, Right Time
Although not consistent across all stories, several of the millionaires also mentioned
being fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time or having benefited from

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