Mustard Seeds, Shovels, & Mountains: How to Succeed Using Your Physio-Psychic Power

Description

J.F. (Jim) Straw began his business career when he was nine years old. Since then, his business activities have generated over $500,000,000 in revenues. For the first time, Mr. Straw explains how he used what he calls “Physio-Psychic Power” to achieve such incredible success.

If you learn nothing else from this book, learn that information only becomes knowledge when you use it and the information you have used or failed to use in the past is the reason you are where you are today.

You can be your best friend — or your worst enemy. No one forces you to be what you are or do what you do (or don’t do). What you have today is a direct result of what you did yesterday. What you will have tomorrow will be a direct result of what you do (or don’t do) today.

It’s up to you.

Editorial Reviews

[H]e tells good business stories . . .

The author, J.F. (Jim) Straw, is an usually down-to-earth yet spiritual businessman who wraps his how-to-succeed advice around a Bible verse from Matthew: ‘If ye have faith as a grain of mustard see, ye shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.’

Straw, who lives and writes in Dalton, Georgia, was leafing through a motivational book from his extensive library of 200 or so such books when a phrase on a page, ‘If you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can move mountains’, jumped out at him, and he realized, yes, you can, if you do it “one shovel full at a time.”

That became his “faith-without-a-shovel revelation” and the moment he tired of motivational writings and lost his obsession with them, he says. In Straw’s Mustard Seeds book, faith is defined as “nothing more than an unquestioning lack of doubt.”

Straw’s faith in himself and his knack for finding ways to make money began early, when he was a boy growing up in rural Kansas. He reports selling his first cans of Cloverleaf Salve and copies of a newspaper at the age of nine. By the time he was 16, during the summer, Straw ran hay-hauling crews for farmers around the county, working three crews loading, hauling, and stacking from 1,000 to 1,400 bales per day per crew. Straw was earning $70 to $80 a day.

Straw says he became a millionaire long before the Internet gurus did, by making exceptional profits in his business activities, but he learned the most from his failures.

He lists his career in business as a progression, “through direct selling, service contracting, wholesale merchandising, entertainment (I was a professional trumpet player, vocalist and radio announcer), freight forwarding, import/export, retail merchandising, real estate, electronics manufacturing, finder’s fees, close-out merchandising, gold mining, coal mining, banking, mail order, writing, and publishing.”

He was “just a kid growing up on the farm” when he discovered that he could make “a few extra bucks” by putting buyers and sellers together and charging a commission. “It was easy money because I knew almost everyone in the county, what they had for sale, and what they might buy,” he writes. “Later, when I was in the Army, I learned that used car salesmen would pay me what they called a bird dog fee if GIs I brought to their lots bought a car. Again, I was earning finder’s fees.”

Straw studied music and math at college, but dropped out. He went into the U.S. Army, and served in Vietnam. He was the oldest man in his unit, older even than his captain, he notes. Sometime during that stint, he acquired an old book about unusual businesses, with a lengthy chapter on earning finder’s fees in the fields of industrial and oilfield equipment, close-outs, liquidations, collectibles, and before he got out of the Army, he was earning bigger and bigger finder’s fees “on all kinds of products and services”, sometimes “outrageous fees” for finding “the most diverse products and services you can imagine.”

He knew he wanted to be rich, and he knew why. One day, when he was still a young student, a Catholic priest had spoken at a lyceum held by his school. The population of his small town was 1,000, and it was predominantly Protestant. Straw couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to take a vow of poverty. Being poor was bad enough, he thought, without vowing to be that way. When he asked his father about it that evening, his father answered by saying “they honestly believe they can help poor people by being one of them, but if you really want to help people, get rich. A rich man can help more people in a day than a poor man can help in a lifetime.”

“Believe it or don’t,” writes Straw, “during my fifty-plus years in business, not once have I had a burning, all-consuming, passionate, obsessive desire to make money or get rich. All I have ever had was a ‘reason’ I wanted to make money or get rich.”

Straw gives fatherly advice, his own version, to readers.

“Throughout your life’s journey, have a purpose for every endeavor you undertake, whether it be just to keep body and soul together, support your family, further your career, or keep your fledgling business operating. Without a purpose, you’ll be like a ship without a rudder: you’ll be going somewhere, but you won’t know where until you get there,” he writes.

Always, keep asking yourself the big six questions: who, what, where, when, why, and how. “The answers are always in the questions you ask yourself,” he writes.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

“Decide what you want to do. Then watch, listen, read, and study what others with similar ideas are doing. If some other living, breathing human being can do it, so can you,” Straw writes.

He says success only comes from and through the people he has met, assisted, sought advice from, consulted and collaborated with in his own half-century of doing business in the U.S. He keeps extensive notebooks of contacts, information about people’s interests, needs and businesses. He keeps a separate notebook just for writing down goals, still.

His best advice is to associate with your own kind, “people with whom you share common interests, goals and ambitions, people who are willing to share their life experiences with you”, and to form friendly, harmonious alliances, among two to three people, never more than that, because of the difficulty of achieving harmony in a large group.

“Anytime you have a conversation with, or correspond with, a person with whom you share common interests, goals, and ambitions, in a spirit of perfect harmony, you will create a third mind between you, a Master Mind, a mind upon which you may both call for insights neither of you may have even known existed,” he writes. But be forewarned. “If you are unwilling to share with them openly, honestly, and freely, you can expect nothing in return from them.”

Straw, very much an old-school businessman, says success in business and life “is dependent upon what you know, who you know, who knows you, and perhaps most importantly, your willingness to share with your fellow travelers.”

He says this book, dedicated to his wife Delores, who died in 2009, is his “last hoorah”.

But he is still selling. Be forewarned here. After the epilogue, he promotes his business course, You Can Be a Millionaire in One Year Or Less, for $997, which he promises is “real, not some pie-in-the-sky horse puckey.”

Like him or don’t, he tells good business stories.

— Review by Margaret Mironowicz
Former Canadian newspaper reporter and copy editor, now living in Combermere, Ontario.

It’s the next best thing to sitting down with Jim one-on-one

I’ve had the privilege to know Jim Straw, learn insights from him, and I’ve been able to sit down with him for one-on-one chats at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and break times at conferences and workshops over the years.

I’ve just finished reading Jim’s book Mustard Seeds, Shovels, & Mountains and wanted to say it’s great! It’s the next best thing to sitting down with Jim one-on-one. His writing style is the same as his personal conversations with you… Real world practical advice and wisdom that can be used to get real results.

If I had to tell you my favorite part of the book it would have to be the story of Jim’s friend named George. I won’t say where it is in the book, it’s best that you find it for yourself, but I will tell you in that one short little story, Jim reveals so many success secrets that those three or four pages should be read daily for a year, and then reviewed monthly thereafter — it’s that revealing.

Highly recommended!

— Mark Hendricks
Author, Speaker, Coach, Publisher, Software Developer
TheMarkHendricks.com

Jim is the “Real Deal”

I have read tons of self-help books and articles and been through positive thinking classes and they have all had temporary effects then, ultimately, fallen short. Jim Straw’s books and courses, loaded with common sense and practical advice and clear-cut directions, are the only ones I’ve found which have consistently earned me good profits. Jim is the “Real Deal.”

— Marilyn Combs

Partners in Business
Phoenix, Arizona

In short: read the book, apply it, and better your life.

Do you seek the real secret of success? You will find that and more in this book. J.F. Straw lives what he teaches. Whether for your business or for any other endeavor in life, you can learn something from him. You may never have heard of Jim Straw before, yet the simple method he reveals here has made him one of the most all-around successful men who has ever lived. This book probably should be required reading no later than eighth grade in every school district in America. In short: read the book, apply it, and better your life.

— M.B. Leibowitz, PhD

I’ve added at least one-hundred dollars each business day in take home for every new idea I gain from your practical insights.

Over the years I’ve added at least one-hundred dollars each business day in take home for every new idea I gain from your practical insights.

— Justin Hitt
Publisher, Inside Strategic Relations
Business Development Consultant

 [T]he one to be emulated and hopefully imitated

J.F. (Jim) Straw is a living legend among informed marketers of every kind. Perhaps because he has sold just about everything in his 40+ years of being in business. Which all by itself is a testimony of super success. He is now still doing what he preaches and loves best: writing , publishing, and teaching others (the noblest profession of them all). His secrets, methods, and recipes for success have made his exceptionally rich life the one to be emulated and hopefully imitated.

— Mike DiBiano
www.tollgatepositions.com

[H]e is dedicated to what he does best: helping people

I have known Jim Straw for over 30 years now. What separates Jim Straw from many business leaders in his field is that he is dedicated to what he does best: helping people.

— William Lucas
Ontario, Canada

Jim has hit the nail on the head

Jim has hit the nail on the head. You can do all the psychic (or magick) work you like, but if it’s all in your head, it ain’t taking you nowhere. The art, as Jim so astutely points out, is to back up your psychic/magick work with real world efforts. It is this that brings you the edge—and will bring success. Guaranteed!

— Jimmy Lee Shreeve
http://doktorsnake.com

[A] kindly, wise mentor who keeps his promises and keeps on teaching

I was so fed up with all of the famous, swollen-headed, inaccessible business coaches. Then, thankfully, I learned of Jim Straw. I hate to say this, but Jim Straw is probably the last of his breed: a kindly, wise mentor who keeps his promises and keeps on teaching. Thank you, Jim.

— Jeff Trewhella

 Jim Straw will tell you how he’s actually done it

Jim Straw has lived, done, and experienced what he writes about. If you want “fluff,” “bluff,” and “bullstuff,” then there are plenty of “authors” out there more than willimg to sell you their “bullstuff” and laugh all the way to the bank. Jim Straw will tell you how he’s actually done it. Isn’t that what you really want and need?

— Father M.

The “Real Deal”

You are the “real deal” in a world full of entrepreneurial charlatans.

— Jack Jakoubek

Thanks, Jim, for the truth

I like the way you write and explain things. Thanks, Jim, for the truth I sense in you.

— Thom

 I trust Jim

Bottom line: I trust Jim and I am looking forward to working with him.

— Merial Jones