I remember it like it was yesterday. I was sitting on my couch in my 2-bedroom bungalow about a month after I escaped the Dilbert Cube.

I had a rickety but exciting brand new business, I had mostly replaced my income, the world was before me and I was thrilled.

AND I WAS SCARED.

It was a cool evening in the fall, the colors were changing. September 11 had just happened and a month and a day later the Dilbert Cube had been in my rear view mirror for the last time.

I had 6 months of health insurance, a laptop I’d negotiated in my exit, a wife, 3 kids and a mortgage.

I was talking to Laura about what to do next, and we realized:

That twelve dollar and thirty-eight cent marketing membership was great when I was a wage slave selling industrial stuff. It was enough to cut the mustard.

But not anymore.

Frankly if I have to pay 20 times more for my advice I had better do it now, if that advice is even twice as good.

Cuz we don’t get no second chances here.

We’ve got just so much runway and if the plane doesn’t get off the ground, it’s gonna crash and that ain’t gonna be no fun man, that ain’t gonna be no fun.

I was considering joining a training program (it was $250 a month or something like that) and Laura and I were discussing it. This business has to work the first time.

When it’s do or die time, that’s what you do.

I remember a few months later, Dan Kennedy was hosting a member’s only special mini-roundtable in Ohio. I drove 6 hours to be there. It was at Denny’s restaurant. Dan bought appetizers for everyone and started going around the table.

Events like that with Dan are long since impossible, but he was doing that then. I hung on every word.

My first discovery was that one of my very own first customers was there too.

I was floored. “What are the chances…?”

I’d been marketing myself all kinds of ways but one time Dan had mentioned me in a newsletter and one of his readers looked me up and bought my product.

I suddenly realized for the first time that “source of where a customer comes from” is a HUGE factor in whether they buy. That guy came from Dan. Major lesson.

I also suddenly realized a bunch of other marketing I was doing was probably useless.

That alone was worth six hours there, six hours back and a hotel to stay the night in Cleveland.

I also remember watching Dan evaluate someone’s sales letter. He only spent 10 seconds flipping through it. He might have been speed reading but I don’t think so. He was just letting his lizard brain form an impression and listening to what it had to say.

That 10 second lizard brain response turned better advice than hours of someone else’s analysis.

I learned then how world class professionals function the heat of the moment.

Another thing I learned was:

Making money was easier than I had thought. There were even more ways to grind a buck out of planet earth than I’d realized, the possibilities were almost limitless.

Making money is easy. I discovered the real challenge isn’t making money; it’s choosing things to pursue that are going to turn out well 5 years out, instead of imprisoning you.

Also around that time I managed to go to a Gary Halbert seminar, and I soaked up every drop. I made new friends in earnest and sought out every morsel of advice I could.

That’s where I first became friends with Tom Hoobyar and John Carlton.

My willingness to go anywhere, do anything, hunt down whatever advice or expertise I needed and pay the price was ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL. Only now do I understand how crucially that set the stage for future promotions that were in store in 2003 and beyond.

Sometimes you’ve only got one shot. I’d love to say something more cheerful than that, but it’s the truth. Sure, I believe in “abundance mentality,” and I’d like to say I believe in second chances. But sorry, I can’t guarantee you that. Sometimes it really is do or die time.

When it’s do or die time, you can’t cheat your education.

There are different levels of education.

Many people just need a community that will give you a sanity check for your ideas.

Other times you need to hire the best expertise you can find. A few months ago I had a guy spend $30,000 on Private Client Group. He flew here from Australia with one of his staff members.

At 11:30 I gave him the gem he was looking for. He had the Big Eureka Moment. He said “OK we’re done. We probably won’t spend much more time this afternoon.”

We ate lunch and he left at 2:30, even though officially he was entitled to stay until 5.

He’d gotten his thirty grand worth – it would pay off 100X – and he was very happy.

Not so hard when you run a $30 million company. Private Client Group is perfect for a guy like that.

Other people are trying to get from $7,000 a month to $30,000 a month. 4-Man Intensive is perfect for them.

Meanwhile the pulse of Planet Perry, the heartbeat, the resource that just about anybody can afford, is the Mastermind Forum. Mastermind is the highest quality gated community that you can buy access to.

99 bucks, CHEAP. I’m convinced we have the best community of its kind on the entire internet.

The only places that are better require pedigree and/or very large amounts of money.

This has no equal.

Mastermind Club has been quietly flourishing for ten years now (!) and just recently I realized it’s seriously the most-awesome, most-untold story in Planet Perry. It is a mature, thriving community. It is well cultivated and people look out for each other.

People there care about each other.

There is hardly any tactical problem that you cannot solve with the help of Mastermind Club members.

When you hit a brick wall – take it to the Mastermind and if a tactic will solve it, you’ll probably get it there. Or they may tell you it’s not solvable, so you should try something else entirely.

Fail fast.

Some folks come to the forum so they can ANSWER questions – not because they need answers. They just love to help! (Plus, being so smart strokes the ol’ ego. Plus it sometimes lands them consulting gigs.)

There are other forums – we all know that – but the free ones are full of cynics and snipers and snide remarks. None of the ready-access paid forums that I have ever seen equal this group in its knowledge, balance and diversity.

Think of your $99 monthly membership as an insurance policy against stupidity spasms… an instant sounding board for any idea that HAS to work right the first time, cuz there can be no second chance.

Think of it as a body guard who follows you faithfully at night through dark alleys, poised to spring to your defense if thugs jump out of the blackness and attack you.

Give Mastermind Club a try – and see if you don’t agree, this really is the best 24/7/365 community of marketers on the entire internet.

http://www.perrymarshall.com/marketing/community/

Whatever do, do EVERYTHING you can to get the exact advice and support you need. Chances may come back again, but time does not.

Perry Marshall