We seem to experience some of our best growth when we find ourselves in uncomfortable situations. That’s when we have to dig down into ourselves for something new that we have not used before. That’s what makes us grow. I find this to be true even more so as I get older. Age makes you believe you know more about what works and what doesn’t work, because you’ve gone through so many uncomfortable situations already. There seems to be something in us that wants to avoid uncomfortable situations. And if we do that, we are going to stop growing. So as you grow older and figured out how not to be uncomfortable, reverse the process and throw yourself into situations that are uncomfortable so you can keep learning and growing.

The only people in life who really like change are wet babies and busy cashiers. The rest of us go kicking and screaming if anyone introduces change into our life. But the world has turned into a force of constant change. Nothing seems to last long. Nothing seems to work twice. Can you name the top 10 TV shows from 2 years ago. It seems that everything but 60 Minutes is probably history. Computers are out of date as soon as they are introduced into the market. Everything is going out of date faster and faster. At the turn of the century information arrived by letter on horseback. The process speeded up when we expected our letters in a few days. Now overnight is not even fast enough. We need it by email or instant messenger. The jobs that you thought were good to have a few years ago are no longer good. On September 11 a group of people armed with box cutters hurt a country with more missiles, bombs and tanks than anyone else in the world. The world keeps changing faster and faster every day. Don’t fight it. Teach yourself how to live with it. Adapt to it and you will survive.

In my business I plan that everything I am making money with this year will not make money for us next year. I have to continually think of new products and new lines of income in order to survive. You either change yourself or someone else is going to change you.

When I had my first child I worried so much that my house and car would not be grand enough for my family or that I wouldn’t have enough money to pay for my kids to go to college. I found myself beginning to make business decisions based solely on how much money the decision might bring me. I started to see myself not having as much fun in what I was doing because I was working more for the money and less for joy of what I was doing and in solving other people’s problems. I was watching my mood change and I was becoming less and less happy.

Then the light bulb turned on over my head. I asked myself, as an adult, did I remember my own father for the house or car he had? The answer was no. I remembered my father for how he acted day by day. So I said to myself that my kids are only going to have a good experience with me as a father if I am happy with what I am doing in my work. That way I could come home every day and share my joy and happiness with the whole family. That was a better gift to give my children than a bigger house or a nicer car.

When I was young and my in-laws wanted to give us money or gifts to help us out I used to not accept them because I wanted to do things myself. I didn’t want to be beholden to anyone. Then I realized that what I thought was a brave and independent act on my part was actually a very selfish act.

The nicest thing in the world is to be able to give to someone. We all know that. The problem is trying to find someone deserving enough that you want to give to. So if someone believes that you are a very deserving person and they want to give you something, but you refuse, then you are actually preventing that person from being able to experience one of the greatest feelings in the world. That’s why I now believe that giving is a very selfish act and not an act of generosity. It’s a very selfish act because it feels so great to give. And we should not deprive others of that wonderful feeling.

When I was trying to start my first business I used to think things like, “If I only had $1 million I could be successful. I used to see studies at the time that said the main reason people went out of business was because of lack of capital. What I believe now is that that kind of thinking is stupid. It’s like saying, “The reason the man died is because he stopped breathing.” That may certainly be the reason the man died, because that’s the reason all people die. But it’s not the cause. The easiest thing for any entrepreneur to say when they go bankrupt is that they didn’t have enough money. You are not going to hear them say things like, “Oh, I wasted a lot of money on stupid things.”

Anyone can start and run a business if they have a lot of money. But if you have a lot of money you are going to be a lot less likely to have a strong business. The easiest thing for any entrepreneur to do is to throw money at a problem. If you need more sales and you have a lot of money, you will start throwing it at advertising. This is what all those dot com businesses did in the 90s when they were rolling in dough.

People were giving these upstarts millions of dollars to run businesses that had no customers. Because they had all this money they would buy the most expensive advertising in the world, like TV commercials during the Super Bowl. It would cost them $30 million for a commercial and it would generate only $1 million in sales. This was a stupid business decision. All the dot com businesses were doing things like this in the 1990s and that is why there are only a handful left.

If someone gave me a bunch of money to start my business, I would probably do the same thing. But because I didn’t have the money, I had to figure out a way to get sales without any money. The first way I did this was by being a professional guest on talk shows. I quickly saw that TV producers would put me on their show because I acted goofy. I would get on their shows, act crazy telling people about my book, and give my 800 number so people could order. And it was all for free.

I remember sitting on Letterman and getting 7 minutes of air time for my segment as a guest and we would stop in the middle for a commercial from some company that had to pay something like $30,000 for only 1 minute of air time. I got 7 minutes for free because I figured out how to act like an idiot on TV.

This gave me a strong business. I found a way not to pay for advertising because I didn’t have any money. There is always more than one way to accomplish an objective. Real entrepreneurs figure out how to do it without a lot of money.

Mathew Lesko's thoughts on Life.

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