Book Summary: Cash in a Flash – Fast Money in Slow Times – By Mark Victor Hansen and Robert Allen

This book is a New York Times bestseller and I can see why. If you are not familiar with the authors, they are hitters. Mark Victor Hansen is co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul with Jack Canfield. This book and series have sold over 65 million copies. That is really amazing. I read one of Robert Allen’s books in the late 90’s called Multiple Streams of Income. This was and is a great book and it is more relevant today than ever before. Think about it. Years ago, one person could work and support the family and then both spouses needed to work to support the family. At times like these, two people working are not enough due to the employment situation and price pressures on living expenses. Multiple Streams of Income shows you the power of making your money work harder than you do in multiple areas. I will outline that book in a future summary.

Why is this important to me?

By asking you to spend your time reading two books in one, it has to be worth it. This book is worth reading because it talks about the importance of recurring income streams. Setting up systems that pay you every month is the master key to wealth. This concept eludes most people and that is why this book and the other books by these authors are worth reading.

Incentives drive behavior. This is one of the most powerful concepts of the human condition. Think about it. Have you ever tried to lose weight and failed? What was your compelling “why” for doing it? If it was because you want your pants to be one size smaller then that’s not much of a reason, but if your energy ran out and you weren’t happy then you MUST switch and that’s a compelling incentive. Compelling incentives drive behavior, so when there is enough pain, change will occur.

This book is aimed at both the left and right brain. They are two books in one. There’s a fictional history of an intellectual group and there’s a non-fiction book on “how to” facts, figures and actions. In this summary, we will talk about 3 fundamental things:

1. Wow Now – Have you ever been impressed by something? Can you remember it vividly? Wow Now, in a nutshell, it has to do with you not only visualizing your future but virtualizing it. This means that you need to imagine it with your whole mind and body. Remember that thoughts are things. The IPOD was born in the mind of someone at Apple. Wow Now is designed to surprise you by virtualizing your future with all 5 senses. Another critical component of this is silencing your inner crybaby. Blair Singer’s book Little Voice talks about this concept in great detail.

Your Little Voice, if you don’t control it, ends up being your inner critic. This is a big problem because it is the number one cause of inaction and a lackluster lifestyle. This is the voice that says “I’m not good enough”, “I can’t do that”, “and Cash in a flash is a joke and it’s not possible”. All these excuses come from the primitive brain designed to protect you. It’s fight or flight. If you see a bear in the forest, you don’t think what to do. Your adrenaline rises and you react. The negative inner critic does not want you to fail and is very risk averse. This is why 82% of Americans say they want to write a book and only 5% do.
Your dreams must be bigger than your fears!

2. The Inner Winner – The Inner Winner is your inner voice that comes from your heart. This is where the true passion for life lives. The Inner Critic comes from your head. In outlining several books, one clear point stands out. Highly successful people in ALL books love what they do for a living. None of them would call it work. Warren Buffett, the world’s largest investor, loves to accumulate money and watch it grow. He doesn’t want to earn a few extra bucks, HE LOVES TO EARN MONEY. If you really listen to those words, you will see the difference.

3. Dream Team: In Napoleon Hill’s book, Laws of Success, he talks about the power of the Mastermind group. This concept is really simple. Two heads are better than one. Of all the learning techniques, mentoring and partnering are by far the best. Mastermind allows you to emulate the best of the best. If you want to run companies like Steve Jobs, study him. Find out what makes you tick. If you want to grow your company from X to 10X, look for a team that has already done it. This will save you years of heartbreak. Take it from me; I wasted a lot of time trying to figure it out myself. This turned out to be a huge waste of time. Things that took years to “learn” by trial and error could have been completed in months through the use of masterminds and mentors.

Cash in a Flash is an excellent resource from two highly successful authors. They both bring their uniqueness to the table and the principles they share are strong.

Once you get past the mental limitations of your inner crybaby, the “how” is easy. Creating strong cash flows using real estate, licenses and information are very sound concepts that require little cash investment. It requires study and time.

I hope you have found this brief summary useful. The key to any new idea is to work it into your daily routine until it becomes a habit. Habits are formed in as little as 21 days. One thing you can take away from this book is the power of Mastermind. When you have a problem you want to solve, he talks to someone who has already solved it, which is the essence of the mastermind. Do this every day and good things will happen. With the power of the Internet, everything is possible and almost all the answers are at your fingertips. Get into this idea every day and your whole world will change.