One finger ... His daughter, the 22-year-old with the revoked driver's license, crashed the family Maybach into a house. The car was filled with her friends in various stages of undress, and surprisingly no one was wearing a seat belt. The Maybach entered the foyer, went right through the living room, made a quick visit to the den before stopping in the kitchen. No one in the car or the house was "too badly" hurt. The car converted the house into something resembling a lean-to while the car looked as if it had won a demolition derby.

 The police appeared and she was arrested for driving under the influence. Everyone in the car was arrested for possession. There were three coffee cups full of Ecstasy, methamphetamine and cocaine. There was also a pistol, but as one of the passengers explained, it wasn't loaded. Incidentally, the passenger was incorrect.

 His daughter called him up hysterically. He listened carefully and then made a phone call. The person he called is always available, sympathetic and resourceful. He hung up totally assured and relaxed knowing the matter would be handled properly.
 The family whose house was turned into a tent didn't press charges. Aside from the fact that the house was replete with numerous building violations, they were happy that they would end up with a newly built one without any building violations. His daughter went into rehab for alcohol abuse. Being the victim in this situation, she avoided criminal charges. It turned out that the Ecstasy, methamphetamine and cocaine were the property of a couple of the passengers, as was the gun. Everything was taken care of with a single phone call to one of his five fingers.

 Another finger ... Every once in a while, a business deal comes along that, while problematic and potentially explosive, is a thing of beauty. He came across such a marvelous but thorny business deal. It would be a sensational coup for him but the deal had a lot of hair on it with a more than good possibility of turning into a large-scale train wreck.

Because of the considerable multiple downsides, the solution he conceived had two critical components. One was a need to raise a great deal of money very, very fast. The other was a need to gather the money without people knowing he was the driving force behind the capital raise.

He made a phone call and the wheels of the fund-raising machine were in motion. Within a couple of weeks, he had more than $140 million sitting in one of his corporate bank accounts ready to be deployed. All the while, the capital raise and the business deal remained off the radar of his competitors and the investment banks thanks to a single phone call to one of his five fingers.
A third finger ... Sourcing new, highly qualified, profitable clients is the most arduous but essential part of nearly every business. Success-especially great success-is for many professionals being able to consistently garner new business.

Once every few weeks he has dinner with a "close friend." After each of these evenings out, he comes back to his office knowing a few more "perfect prospects" will be coming his way. All these prospects are certain to become clients. Everything has been deftly choreographed. All he has to do is smile and say,  "thank you" for their business-all taken care of by one of his five fingers.

A Very Few, Very Extraordinary 'Friends'
It is at one of those perpetual parties, as the sun is just starting to rise, that he holds up his hand and spreads his fingers wide. He asks us in a slightly slurred voice what we see. Insightfully, in unison, we say a hand. He laughs and tells me we're looking at his power, the basis for his success, the reason for his fortune.

He tells me that he has five fingers-five close professionals who were instrumental in making him fabulously wealthy. His five fingers also play a very important role in keeping the bad of the world at bay.

His five fingers don't limit him in any way from doing business with other people. On the contrary, he has a huge database of professionals he deals with. There is, however, a vast difference between those relationships and the rapport he has with his five fingers. Not only is there a real chemistry between them, but also there's economic superglue that cements their relationships. It's the trust among the people involved, reinforced by a high degree of transparency, that underlies these financial agreements and makes them work so well.

The Beauty Of The Nodal Network
Since that day, we've discussed how his five fingers work. He loves the phrase, "never eat alone." Though very impressed at the plethora of networking events people in his business feel obligated to attend and though he's delighted at the attention his competitors are giving to social networking as a way to build their practices, he points out that all these truisms and high-tech strategies are a sure and expensive road to mediocrity.

What he has is a well-developed and extensive nodal network. All he needs to do is connect with his five close relationships. They assist him directly. Or, they tap their close relationships, who may tap their close relationships, and so forth and so on, to provide the assistance he's seeking. It doesn't matter if he needs to deal with his wayward daughter, raise hundreds of millions for a very quiet investment or take in a steady stream of new clients for his business.

From his decisions to create a network that would help him become extremely wealthy to the actions he took to make the network a reality, there isn't that much variation in his process. Nodal networking is a decisive differentiator between only gaining weight and gaining vast riches.

What Wouldn't You Do? By Russ Alan Prince
Do you want to be rich?

While an overwhelming number of studies show that people do, it's quite clear that very, very few people do very much about becoming wealthy. There are lots of reasons for this. The biggest reason is not a lack of knowledge about how to become seriously wealthy, but the wherewithal to take action. The Money Rules Hannah and I have been describing in this column are not new. One of our clients describes them as "immortal social-tech." While our pedagogical approach and systemization of the material aims to be state-of-the-art, the essence of the material is classic.

What we consistently see is that people are looking for easy solutions to situations and matters that are not amenable to easy solutions. This desire is not restricted to the wealthy-it's pervasive throughout society. Just consider the "can't miss" offer when it comes to losing weight or finding true love.

With respect to becoming seriously wealthy, instead of taking the requisite actions to create vast personal wealth, the overwhelming majority of people prefer to rely on magic such as the "law of attraction," otherwise known as wishful thinking.
Not surprisingly, the law of attraction works well for that 1% on the far end of the normal distribution curve, producing a handful of success stories without any valid process. Without question, great wealth is a product of taking appropriate action.
Even action, however, isn't enough. One of the crucial keys to taking action is deciding where the lines are drawn. "What wouldn't you do to become rich?" is a critical question I ask everyone who comes to me for the insights and methodology on how to become extraordinarily affluent. It's one of the most telling ways to determine if a particular person can create or meaningfully enhance a vast personal fortune.

What's important to be aware of is that the Money Rules are not just about becoming a billionaire. As we've been relaying this code of conduct beyond the extraordinarily wealthy, we've found that the way people approach this question is a deciding factor in their likelihood of making tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars. It's a key determinant in the probability of someone reaching middle-class millionaire status as much as it's central to merely doubling his or her middle-class income. Consequently, what a person would not do proves to be a central deciding factor in that individual's ability to meaningfully increase his or her net worth no matter where he or she starts.

Let's be clear. I'm not asking what a person would do. That question is impossible to answer in the abstract. I'm asking what he or she wouldn't do. Save for occasionally crossing paths with some very refined and brilliant sociopaths, the people desiring to build their personal fortunes have real limitations. From my perspective, staying within the boundaries of the law-way within the boundaries-is an absolute requirement. Yes, without parameters it's much easier to make a great deal of money, but it's very possible to become fabulously rich and still strictly abide by societal rules and regulations.

We also have to recognize that intent and actions are far from the same thing. I've dealt with quite a number of people who have provided well-reasoned, if not perfect, answers to this core question. Moreover, I would say that nearly all of these people are responding in good faith. That is, they do indeed intend on following through. But they never do because life gets in the way. Life has a way of doing that-if you let it.

So take a moment and consider, what wouldn't you do to have a net worth of $5 million or $10 million or $100 million or more?