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Marc Allen Interview

April 19th, 2006 by Steve Pavlina Email this article to a friend

Today I have a special treat for you — an exclusive interview with multi-millionaire
Marc Allen. Marc Allen is the president and co-founder of New World Library, which
has published some outstanding books on personal development and spirituality,
including Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now, Shakti Gawain’s Creative Visualization,
and Dan Millman’s The Way of the Peaceful Warrior. These are some of my all-time
favorite books.

At age 30 Marc Allen and Shakti Gawain launched New World

Library with no capital, and today the company is a major
independent publisher with the motto: “Publishing books and
audio and video projects that change lives.” A published author
himself, Marc has written several books, including The
Millionaire Course, Visionary Business, A Visionary Life, and
The Ten Percent Solution. Additionally, Marc is an accomplished musician and
co-founder of Watercourse Media.

Yet despite these significant accomplishments, Marc will be the first to admit that he is
definitely NOT a type-A workaholic. He sleeps until 11am. He doesn’t get into the
office until after 1pm. He doesn’t work on Mondays. Instead of putting in long hours at
the office, he uses the power of intention, visualization, and affirmation to attract what
he wants.

Marc has a new book out called The Type-Z Guide to Success: A Lazy Person’s
Manifesto for Wealth and Fulfillment.

Marc’s book The Millionaire Course is what inspired me to launch the Million Dollar
Experiment, which just recently manifested a collective total of $1,000,000 for its public
participants. So I was delighted to have the opportunity to interview Marc in

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connection with this conscious manifestation experiment.

1. Why did you intend to become a millionaire? What was your motivation?

I always knew that being a millionaire was not all that important — there are far more
things that are far more important, such as family, friends, and doing what you love to
do in life. I knew early on that the most important thing for me was to do what I loved to
do in my life, and make that work somehow. And it always has. That bit of knowledge
has served me very well.

Kent Nerburn said a brilliant thing about money in his book Letters to My Son:

“Money is central to our lives.

Yet money is not of central importance.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with the lasting values
that make life worth living.”

This is good to keep in mind, always. It helps us keep money in the proper perspective.
It is a very, very good servant but a terrible master.

That being said, I realized in my early thirties that being a millionaire is a very good
goal. It’s a solid, concrete number that your subconscious mind can grab hold of. My
motivation for that goal was simple: It dawned on me one day that I wanted to write
books and write and record music, and be successful enough to continue to do it for the
rest of my life — and doing what I love to do is far easier with substantial reserves in
liquid assets than it is with no money. So I decided to become a millionaire. That
became a clear goal in my mind.

When you make a clear goal, and when you remind yourself of it enough so that your
subconscious mind grasps it, an amazing, mysterious thing happens. Some part of you
starts working backwards from that number, and finding how to achieve it. It’s difficult
for me to explain how I feel the process works, but when you decide to become a
millionaire, you automatically start asking yourself how you can reach that goal. And
once you start asking that question, you start getting answers. All kinds of possibilities

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become obvious to you — they were always there, but you never saw them before
because you weren’t looking for them.

2. What does it take to become a millionaire today?

Intention. That’s all it ever takes; that’s all it has ever taken for anyone at any time.
There are just as many opportunities today as there were a generation ago, and a
hundred years ago. As Napoleon Hill said, “Within every adversity is the seed of an
equal or greater benefit.” I put these words, years ago, on my desk in big letters — and
within a year I was a millionaire:

Within every adversity is an equal or greater benefit.

Within every problem is an opportunity.
Even in the knocks of life, we can find great gifts.

When you understand those words, it completely turns your thinking around. You start
to see benefits, opportunities, and gifts everywhere!

3. What prevents people from attracting greater wealth into their lives?

Our own doubts and fears are the only things that prevent us from attracting greater
wealth or achieving any expansive goal. The vast majority of the work it takes to
succeed is internal — dealing with our doubts and fears.

Here’s another thing I realized in my early thirties that turned my life around:

Our doubts and fears are not true in themselves.

Our deepest beliefs about ourselves
and the nature of our world
are not true in themselves,
but our thinking makes them true in our experience.
We can change our thinking and change even our
deepest core beliefs.

The truth is, I’ve come to believe, that everyone is really a creative genius, in some

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unique way. Everyone has gifts they were born with. Everyone has dreams, desires,
goals that are attainable — it’s just a matter of focusing our powerful, creative mind in
the right direction, going for that dream, that goal, and then dealing with the doubts and
fears that naturally arise in everyone as soon as we dare to dream an expansive future
and start taking steps toward it.

4. In your book The Millionaire Course, why do you recommend adding certain
phrases to intentions (i.e. “in an easy and relaxed manner, in a healthy and positive
way, in its own perfect time, for the highest good of all…”)?

I read about the power of affirmations years ago, in a book by Catherine Ponder, a
Unity Church minister. She suggested adding these words to every affirmation: “In an
easy and relaxed manner, in a healthy and positive way, in its own perfect time, for the
highest good of all.”

The day I turned thirty changed my life. I was unemployed, I had no money, and I was
struggling every month to come up with $65 to pay the rent on my one-room apartment
in the slums of Oakland, California. I took out a sheet of paper and wrote down my
“ideal scene” — the best life for myself I could possibly imagine at the time. Then I
took out another sheet of paper and listed all the goals I’d need to reach to achieve that
ideal scene. Then I listed each goal as an affirmation, as if it was coming into being in
the present — “I am now creating a successful company…. I am now writing a
successful book…. I am now creating a beautiful album of music…. I am now getting
into real estate, and finding a starter house to buy….”

I began each affirmation with the words, “In an easy and relaxed manner, in a healthy
and positive way….” And sometimes I’d add the words, “In its own perfect time, for the
highest good of all….”

Over the years I came to realize that those four words — easy, relaxed, healthy, and
positive — in themselves, when repeated often, overcame a lot of my doubts and fears.
“It won’t be easy,” whisper our doubts and fears. “It certainly won’t be relaxed —
achieving success is stressful! You’ve got to work really, really hard to succeed,” etc.

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etc.

Affirming, over and over, “I am now creating

a successful career (or whatever)
in an easy and relaxed manner, in a healthy and positive way”
will over time overcome a huge number
of your doubts and fears.

This is not just theory — this is true in my experience, and in the experience of a great
many others. You don’t have to believe in any of this — just try it for yourself, and
you’ll see the results!

5. What is The Ten Percent Solution, and why do you recommend it?

There’s nothing new in it. It’s an ancient and powerful teaching that has been said a
million times, but most people still don’t do it:

Save at least 10% of your income.

Start now.
If you have a windfall of some kind, save at least 50% of it.

A good way to begin is to set up two checking accounts. Put your regular income into
your main account, and immediately transfer at least 10% of every deposit into your
savings. I’ve been doing this for years. Always round up so it’s over 10%: If you’re
depositing $930, for example, put $100 into your savings [ed. 10% of $930 = $93, so
round up to $100]. Over time, it really adds up.

If you’re in credit card debt, you can use your savings to pay it off. But get into the
habit of saving! At first, you may have to cheat a bit and go into your savings to pay
your monthly expenses. But keep saving, and you’re sending a powerful message to
your subconscious mind: “I am now living on less than 90% of my income, and saving
for my future is a priority.”

Within a few months, you’ll find you can start building your savings. Then you start
investing it for a better return in stocks, bonds, real estate. That’s the one simple key to

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financial success!

And once you start saving, you’re ready for the next step:

Give away at least 10% of your income.

The benefits of this simple act are tremendous,
for yourself and for the world.

Once you’re saving 10%, set up a third checking account for donations, and put another
10% into that. Now you’re instructing your powerful subconscious mind that you’re
living on less than 80% of your income, saving over 10%, and giving 10% away to
people and organizations who are doing something beneficial in the world.

These two simple steps, saving and giving away 10% of your income, are great keys to a
better life and a better world. As Charles Colton said,

“If universal charity prevailed,

Earth would be a heaven, and hell a fable.”

6. What role, if any, has meditation played in your experience of wealth creation?

Meditation has played a major role in my life and in my success. The way I look at it,
there are two types of meditation:

(1) The first is what is normally thought of as meditation, where you simply let all
thought go, let all “doing” go, and just be in the moment. It’s very simple. When you do
it, you find — even if just for a moment at first — that stillness that is beyond thought.
An easy way to get it is to do what Eckhart Tolle keeps recommending in The Power of
Now: simply connect with your “presence” or “being” within. The benefits of this are
endless, for everyone.

Another simple way to get into this meditation is something I learned from a Zen
teacher: Just stare at something, or close your eyes, and let all thought go as you exhale.
For one exhalation, anyone can let their thoughts go, at least for a moment. Do it over
and over, and you can learn at will to go beyond the constant stream of thoughts that

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most of us have throughout the day.

(2) The second type is “creative meditation,” the kind of thing Shakti Gawain wrote so
beautifully about in Creative Visualization. This has been invaluable to me over the
years: I imagined myself, over and over — even way back when I was a total poverty
case — living a life of ease, strolling around my big white house on a hill, with nothing
to do, sitting on several million worth of assets. I visualized this repeatedly, and it came
true in my life.

With every project I set out to do, I visualize its completion. I see it finished, and
successful. Then the steps I need to take to make it happen become obvious. Along the
way, an intention forms that overcomes every apparent obstacle.

7. What does your typical workday look like?

I’ve always been fairly lazy. I’ve never been a morning person. I sleep usually until
about 11:00, and take a few hours to get up and get going. Tuesday through Friday, I
usually go into my office; I get there usually between 1:00 and 2:30. I never work over
thirty focused hours a week.

I never do work of any kind on Sunday — that’s my day for family and for rest. And I
take every Monday off — that’s my day for myself, for my “mini-retreat.” I never have
any plans on a Monday, except I usually have a massage in the late afternoon and I
have dinner with my family and put my son to bed. I stay at home on Mondays, and I
don’t have internet access or email at home, so I have time for rest, rejuvenation,
writing, reflecting, playing music, staring at the clouds, doing nothing.

By Tuesday afternoon, I am ready to rock! I come into the office energized, whip
through a few hundred emails, and take care of what needs to be done to keep my
publishing company, New World Library, growing and blossoming, and to launch my
new enterprise, SuccessWithEase.net.

8. What do you believe is the relationship between wealth and spirituality? Is

there a connection between the two?

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For years I feared that the pursuit of wealth would hamper my spiritual life, distract me
from my spiritual path; that was one of the limiting beliefs I had that prevented me from
succeeding. But I realized somewhere in my early thirties that that belief, like all others,
wasn’t true in itself. There is no conflict between wealth and spirituality, unless you
create it in your mind. I can pursue financial success and still have plenty of time as well
for my spiritual life. And, ultimately, they’re not even two separate things: My spiritual
life encompasses every moment of each day and night.

Teilhard de Chardin said one of my favorite quotes,

“We are not physical beings who may

have a spiritual experience,
we are spiritual beings having a physical experience.”

We are physical beings with physical needs, emotional beings with emotional needs,
mental beings with the power to fulfill our needs, and spiritual beings, every moment.
Acknowledging the spiritual in ourselves and in others gives us purpose in life, and puts
everything into the proper perspective.

We are not here just to become wealthy, isolated individuals. We are part of a great,
mysterious, wondrous whole, and we are here to love and serve ourselves, humanity,
and the whole planet, the whole environment. That’s the right perspective; that’s what is
important in life.

The single most brilliant phrase I ever heard was from Ramana Maharshi, one of the
greatest teachers in India in the last century. He said:

“The end of all wisdom is love,

love, love.”

That’s what is important in life. If your education doesn’t result in love — for all of
humanity, for the whole world — then your education hasn’t been complete.

9. What advice would you give to participants in the Million Dollar Experiment
(i.e. people who are intending to become millionaires for the highest good of all)?

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Go for it! Go for your highest dreams. You’ll never regret it. As Goethe said, “Whatever
you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”

Take risks. Don’t fear failure — every successful person I’ve ever known has had their
share of failures. If you keep intending to be successful, each failure is just another
stepping stone on your way to your inevitable success.

Burt Lahr, the comedian and actor, put it this way:

“Keep on the merry-go-round long enough

and you’re bound to catch the brass ring.”

10. What projects are you working on now that may be of interest to participants
in the Million Dollar Experiment?

The Millionaire Course remains my main work — I put everything I know into that
book. The three books I wrote before it have been very valuable for a lot of people, too:
Visionary Business, A Visionary Life, and The Ten Percent Solution.

My latest book is really original and fun: The Type-Z Guide to Success: A Lazy
Person’s Manifesto for Wealth and Fulfillment. It’s a short, breezy read designed for
lazy people and for Type A’s who want to get to the point quickly.

My music is always a big part of my life, too. My latest album is called Awakening; it’s
beautiful instrumental music (if I do say so myself), and you can sample that and all the
rest of my music for free at Watercourse Media.

Enjoy! And best wishes for the greatest success you can possibly imagine.

SP: Thank you so much, Marc. Your continued success is an inspiration to us all!

Update 4/29/06: You can now read my complete review of the Type-Z Guide to
Success.

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22 Responses to “Marc Allen Interview”

Illiterate Poet Says:
April 20th, 2006 at 1:22 am

Apartment = New Storage Facility

I had my Arabic class today. It has almost been a month since my last class and I am
amazed at how much I have forgotten. “Use it or loose it” comes to mind. I have lots
of people coming…

Everyday - Self Development » Blog Archive » Marc Allen Interview

Says:
April 20th, 2006 at 6:53 am
[...] so you really should read it! [...]

Shaun Orpen » Follow your dreams Says:

April 20th, 2006 at 11:02 am
[...] From an interview with Marc Allen by Steve Pavlina. Go for it! Go for your
highest dreams. You’ll never regret it. As Goethe said, “Whatever you can do, or
dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” [...]

Paul Piotrowski's Blog Says:

April 21st, 2006 at 9:03 am

Marc Allen Interview

Steve Pavlina’s interview with Marc Allen was a real treat.

Meshio.Com » Blog Archive » The Millionaire in You! Says:

April 22nd, 2006 at 8:02 am
[...] Plucked from Steve’s interview with Marc Allen… For years I feared that the
pursuit of wealth would hamper my spiritual life, distract me from my spiritual path;
that was one of the limiting beliefs I had that prevented me from succeeding. But I
realized somewhere in my early thirties that that belief, like all others, wasn’t true in
itself. There is no conflict between wealth and spirituality, unless you create it in

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your mind. I can pursue financial success and still have plenty of time as well for my
spiritual life. And, ultimately, they’re not even two separate things: My spiritual life
encompasses every moment of each day and night. [...]

Radical Mutual-Improvement » Blog Archive » Develop a simple

mantra Says:
April 23rd, 2006 at 2:36 pm
[...] (inspired by combining advice in this interview with Marc Allen with this post
on remembering your dreams) [...]

Quote About Money’s Importance » Investments + Editorials:

Dissecting the good, the bad, and the ugly of investment / financial
media! Says:
April 24th, 2006 at 3:28 pm
[...] Quote About Money’s Importance Steve Pavlina published an interview he
conducted with millionaire, Marc Allen. There were some interesting question and
answers regarding becoming a millionaire and about money in general. A terrific
quote, written by Kent Nerburn was thrown out that I’d like to share: [...]

Achieve-IT! Says:
April 24th, 2006 at 4:48 pm

If More Money is one of Your Goals Read This

whats the plot » Blog Archive » yahoo mail beta, etc Says:
April 25th, 2006 at 5:22 am
[...] this morning, i read an interesting interview with marc allen. i don’t really know
who he is, just that he’s a multi millionaire and he’s talking about how a person
should get there… he makes some interesting points throughout the article… the
three points that struck me the most were: 1. with regards to money, he says, “It is a
very, very good servant but a terrible master.” 2. he says that you should save at
least 10% of your salary monthly, and save more if you can. he says that once
you’re able to live off 90% of your salary, save another 10% and give it in charity,
saying that those two steps are “great keys to a better life and a better world.” 3. he
says that all it takes to becoming a millionaire today is intention. just intention, and
that’s it. [...]

Like Your Work » Blog Archive » links for 2006-04-26 Says:

April 25th, 2006 at 4:28 pm

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Marc Allen Interview http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/04/marc-allen-interview/

[...] Marc Allen Interview (tags: business personal) [...]

chris-elliott.com» Blog Archive » Visualize This Says:

April 25th, 2006 at 6:09 pm
[...] One of the comments I got back was that I didn’t find good applicable examples
in real life. I was having challenges with this thought earlier in the day after reading
a posting on Steve Pavlina’s blog about his interview with Marc Allen. I had my
speech written and ready to go and was unable to fit some of the gems I found in
Steve’s interview in my speech. Needless to say, I did write a lot of the quotes down
on my quote cards and peeked at them throughout the day when I was feeling less
then motivated. [...]

The Type-Z Guide to Success With Ease Says:

April 29th, 2006 at 8:18 am
[...] You may have read my recent interview with multi-millionaire Marc Allen. This
is a review of his latest book, The Type-Z Guide to Success With Ease: A Lazy
Person’s Manifesto for Wealth and Fulfillment. [...]

I like your style » Blog Archive » Sympatrucs 20060501 Says:

May 1st, 2006 at 3:53 am
[...] Marc Allen Interview Interview avec un millionnaire (tags: inspiration
entrepreneurship money) [...]

digeratInc.com » Millionaire interview of the day Says:

May 2nd, 2006 at 2:24 am
[...] Via Lifehacker there is a pretty neat interview with a self-made man aka Marc
Allen over here. While I’m not at all a fan of “how to make money fast” and
“believe and meditate and you will succeed” mantras, there are some interesting and
pretty motivating quotes in there; such as Take risks. Don’t fear failure — every
successful person I’ve ever known has had their share of failures. If you keep
intending to be successful, each failure is just another stepping stone on your way to
your inevitable success. [...]

Ms. News Goat » What I Learned from Running the Marathon Says:
May 4th, 2006 at 9:05 pm
[...] I also learned a lot about taking care of my body. Like I said, I wasn’t sure if
training for a marathon was a healthy thing to do. I knew it would stress my body

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and be hard on me. As it turns out, knowing that made me really focus on healthier
habits. I decided early on that I didn’t want to make this any harder on my body
than it had to be. I think it was similar to the way Marc Allen adds the phrase “in a
healthy and positive way” to every affirmation. I wanted to do this in a way that was
healthy for me. [...]

A Pad 4 Ever » Blog Archive » Good stuff of the day — 10/05/2006

Says:
May 9th, 2006 at 9:08 am
[...] Millionnaire Marc Allen Interview [...]

10 ‫ عيســــــــى « أرشيف المدونة « طريقة ال‬% Says:

June 27th, 2006 at 4:24 am
[...] ‫ وجدت ھذي المقاله وھي عباره عن مقابله مع المليونير‬Marc Allen ‫ مؤلف كتاب‬The Ten
Percent Solution ‫[ أجرى اللقاء ستيف بافالينا‬...]

Towards Better Life » Blog Archive » Affirmation - Easy, Relax,

Healthy, Positive Says:
July 16th, 2006 at 5:25 am
[...] The 4 words Easy, Relax, Healty, Positive is recommended by Mc Allen in his
book The Millionaire Course. He recommends to begin each affirmation with the
words, “In an easy and relaxed manner, in a healthy and positive way….” And
sometimes he would add the words, “In its own perfect time, for the highest good of
all….” In Steve Pavlina’s interview with him Mc Allen mentions the following
experience that he had gone through: Over the years I came to realize that those
four words — easy, relaxed, healthy, and positive — in themselves, when repeated
often, overcame a lot of my doubts and fears. “It won’t be easy,” whisper our
doubts and fears. “It certainly won’t be relaxed — achieving success is stressful!
You’ve got to work really, really hard to succeed,” etc. etc. Affirming, over and
over, “I am now creating a successful career (or whatever) in an easy and relaxed
manner, in a healthy and positive way” will over time overcome a huge number of
your doubts and fears [...]

Change your thoughts » Blog Archive » New world library Says:

October 8th, 2006 at 1:20 pm
[...] Steve Pavlina had an interview with Marc Allen on becoming a millionaire, read
the article here . Marc has had his own success At age 30 Marc Allen and Shakti
Gawain launched New World Library with no capital, and today the company is a

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major independent publisher with the motto: “Publishing books and audio and video
projects that change lives.” A published author himself, Marc has written several
books, including The Millionaire Course: Living the Life of Your Dreams, Visionary
Business: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Success, A Visionary Life: Conversations on
Creating the Life That You Want, and The Ten-percent Solution: For Personal and
Global Financial Problems. [...]

Power of affirmations… « Ramblings of an Eccentric Soul… Says:

November 21st, 2007 at 8:49 am
[...] I read about the power of affirmations years ago, in a book by Catherine
Ponder, a Unity Church minister. She suggested adding these words to every
affirmation: “In an easy and relaxed manner, in a healthy and positive way, in its
own perfect time, for the highest good of all.” – Marc Allen Interview [...]

Farhan’s Life » Blog Archive » The plot thickens… as illness takes

over… Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 4:07 am
[...] That is that it’s possible to accomplish something without effort… Marc Allen’s
interview by Steve Pavlina really brought home to me the effortless part that I was
desperately moving away from… Being a success, without working hard, that was
what I wanted in my world, and was the only way I wanted to manifest it – yet it
seemed as if I was starting to go against my own inner sense of right and wrong,
without realising it. Perhaps – or perhaps I was just resting, and my body was
de-toxing a lot more gunk that it could finally let out, after taking really powerful
nutritional supplements. Having a lymphoedema for a while now, I’ve been
supplementing with USANA supplements, and whilst I know it’s making a huge
improvement to my long term health and well being, I know that my leg hasn’t yet
recovered easily and effortlessly, but as the swelling reduces gradually I go through
a phase of ‘detox’ and my body shuts me down, whilst it takes over, and instigates
corporate rest, ahead of any other activity for a few days. Normally, the onset of
such rest is accompanied by pivotal points of pain, and specific signals that my body
knows it’s about to go down.. and I didn’t get any of those this time round. [...]

Intention and reality « In 2 Deep Says:

April 13th, 2008 at 9:15 am
[...] living your life in partnership and has a profitable business to prove it works.
Here’s an interview of Marc by Steve Pavlina. If you have a wealth intention you
might be surprised at his approach and how effective its [...]

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Copyright © 2010 by Pavlina LLC, www.StevePavlina.com. All rights reserved.

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