Always?

Did I say that?

Always a way to success? No matter how hopeless or risky or impossible your situation seems to be?

Well, yeah, from my experience, and from the experiences of tens of thousands of successful people, that's pretty much the way it works. But only if you know how, as Star Trek's Captain Jean-Luc Picard liked to tell his crew, to "make it so."

Hi! I'm Tony Little, that hyper guy you see every time you turn on your TV set—the one with the blond ponytail and baseball cap.

I'm the fellow in the infomercial manically scissoring back and forth on my Gazelle Glider exercise machine and insisting that "You can do iiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!"

I'm also the guy who's been bellowing at you on the Home Shopping Network for several decades now, selling everything that's not nailed down, including my own company's line of exercise tapes, fitness items, and wellness products.

Selling is my game—and my passion. I'm confident, enthusiastic, energetic, positive, and successful. I'm always brutally honest with myself and others. I never go backwards; I move straight ahead. After living in this world for 52 years, and after battling my way up from poverty and juvenile delinquency to become the most successful TV salesman and personal trainer of all time, experience has shown me one of the few sure things in life: No matter what obstacles you're facing, and no matter what it is you crave the most—financial success, personal success, job success—there is always a way to achieve it. That's right, always a way. As long as you're willing to look for it and work for it. As long as you refuse to lose.

In this book I'm going to prove it to you.

I'm going to give you hassle-free, everyday advice that will make everything you touch turn to gold. I want you to be the best business head you can be. And not just business, either. The best you can be, period!

Because everything that applies to selling applies to life as well. If you're an enthusiastic, successful executive or retailer or manager or worker, you'll be an enthusiastic, successful partner, friend, and family member, too. Apply the tricks and tracks of salesmanship I tell you about in this book, and these lessons will flow over into everything you do.

I'll start by telling you my own saga of adversity to victory.

Then I'll tell you stories of both ordinary and famous people who have overcome the most horrendous obstacles in life and gone on to achieve the seemingly impossible.

This book will motivate you, energize you, and inform you. It's full of commonsense strategies you can use to find your own tailor-made path up the mountain of success to the wealth and well-being you desire and deserve. This book is a no-BS solution to revitalizing your life, and to getting what you want, when you want it. I hope you enjoy it and that you'll pass it along to people you care about when you're finished.

I once knew a guy who'd just lost an executive position at a big New Jersey pharmaceutical company, and was having a tough time finding a new job. He was so dejected he seemed to have sewn himself into a cocoon and wasn't making any efforts to get out.

I remember exactly the way this poor guy described his brain freeze. "I feel like an itty-bitty little boat stalled in the middle of the ocean," he said. "I'm looking around, but there are no Coast Guard rescue ships steaming in my direction to save me. Where are my friends? Where's anybody to help? I'm in it alone, man, and I'm feeling totally screwed."

Friendless. Alone. Screwed. You feel like quitting. Maybe you've even quit a little bit already? Maybe you've ...

Yeahhhhhh! Stop right here!

These tough luck stories and a million like them are hard, sure. You're certain there's nothing you can do to pull yourself out of the hole. Doom and gloom.

But wait a sec, my people. Tah da! Tah da! Coast Guard ship to the rescue.

The fact is, the reality of these tough situations can turn out a whole lot different.

How so?

Because no-win situations and no-exit scenarios, even the worst ones you can imagine—a broken back, a career-ending car accident, a smashed-in face, a drug and alcohol habit (all of which, as you'll see, I've lived through)—can one day turn out to be your million-dollar jackpot in Las Vegas.

I'll tell you why I think this is true.

Because there's always a way.

You may not believe this claim. My advice is to give it a shot. Try living with this thought constantly in your mind: There's always a way. You'll be amazed how a simple phrase can exert so much power for change over so many aspects of your life.

What are these mysterious ways I'm talking about? Here's a taste:

These and many other action formulas are the tools in my own personal success kit. They are the methods that have helped me over the past 23 years to reach 45 million customers in 81 countries, and to sell them more than $3 billion worth of merchandise. They've guided me in my personal life to become a better husband, a more attentive father, a kinder friend. They've brought me health, wealth, recognition, and self-esteem. They're my personal techniques for success, and I'm going to tell you about them in the following pages. They come with my personal guarantee.

Which is this: I promise you right now, with all my heart, that if you use the techniques in this book at the right time, in the right place, in the right way, they will make you a better salesperson and a genuinely more effective human being.

Guaranteed.

Here's a way of looking at life and success that has always motivated me.

Imagine you're standing at the foot of a 20,000-foot-high mountain, looking up. You're determined to climb this mountain and to plant your banner of success at the summit.

But the mountain is very high and very steep. From your vantage point below you see a number of trails winding their way to the top. Some follow a steep ascent straight up. Some zigzag along the sides of the mountain. Some disappear into the woods and reemerge thousands of feet above.

These trails, symbolically speaking, each represent a different pathway—a different way—to achievement, riches, and happiness. Some of the trails are narrow; some are broad. They all eventually lead to the top. Your job standing here at the foot of the peak is to use your intelligence, skills, and goals—along with the strategies I'll tell you about—to find the path that works most effectively for you on your journey to success. Then, follow it.

And when you're on top, believe me, the view is great! The famous theatrical producer Billy Rose once remarked, "I've been poor and I've been rich. Rich is better."

It's the same for the mountain. I've stood at the bottom of the mountain and I've stood on the top.

The top is better.

Nope, I'm not going to let it go yet.

I'm going to tell it to you again and again, until it percolates into the bottom of your brain, and prepares you to get the absolute most out of the techniques featured in this book.

Remember the movie Good Will Hunting?

Robin Williams is a psychiatrist, and Matt Damon plays Will Hunting, a troubled young man who also happens to be a world-class genius.

Remember the scene where Williams keeps assuring Damon that the terrible things that have happened to him in his young life are not his fault?

Williams says these words to his young patient quietly at first: "It's not your fault."

Damon nods and smiles.

Williams repeats them.

Damon looks on patiently, assuring Williams that he understands.

But Williams keeps at it. He continues to repeat the phrase "It's not your fault" over and over again, relentlessly, almost fiendishly.

For several minutes Damon listens to this monotonous mantra with passive agreement. Then he starts to get annoyed. Then he gets angry. Then he gets really angry.

Finally, he breaks down and begins to sob.

By repeating a truth that the young hero does not consciously know or believe, or even want to believe, and saying it over and over again, the message pile drives its way through his turtle shell of defenses. As a result, young Will Hunting has a breakthrough of self-understanding that changes his life.

So, for the record, let me repeat the lesson that can change your life—and that you, I, and all of us should repeat to ourselves a gazillion times a day. If I could shout this advice to you I would. Since I can't, I'll shout it on the page:

Recite this phrase 10 times when you get up in the morning, and recite it 20 times before you go to bed at night.

Work with this phrase. Dance with it. Make love to it. It's got magic in it, and music. Keep it running in the back of your mind like a motor at low idle. Remember it when you're facing a challenge—especially when that negative person at the desk or across the counter or over the phone tells you, "No ... you can't ... that's impossible ... you're screwed!"

Use it and profit. Because, as you'll see, when you change your mindset you change your life.

There's always a way.