Recently I got to interview one of my all-time business mentors, Rich Schefren. I've been working through Rich's coaching program since 2006 and ironically we had this podcast interview fixed up for months. Then I ended up, by sheer fluke, going to Florida to work with him just the weekend before this podcast interview happened. In this one, we throw away the agenda, and I just let Rich tell his story and share his wisdom. I really hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Nicola: Today I'm delighted to welcome a man who has made the biggest difference to not only my business life, but now the rest of my life, too, thanks to his groundbreaking transformation weekend I attended in Delray Beach, Florida. Rich Schefren has completely changed the way I think about everything.

He is an author, entrepreneur, internationally known business consultant, who's helped thousands of people build the online business of their dreams, including many household names online. A lifelong entrepreneur himself, Rich built his first $7 million business by the age of 23, and he first retired by the age of 25.

Bored only six months later, he got interested in hypnosis and decided to turn that interest into a business. Realizing his love was the startup stages of growth, Rich left the Hypnosis Center when it had grown to 13.5 million annually, and pursued his next passion, the Internet. Since then his Internet strategies have been taught to and used by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Agora Publishing, Motley

Fool, thestreet.com, and Boardroom Publishing, not to mention Weiss Research Incorporated.

Wanting to impact the world, he then founded his current business, Strategic Profits. His company's mission? To improve the lives of entrepreneurs worldwide by helping them to earn more while working less in their businesses. Welcome to the call, Rich.

Rich: Thanks, Nicola.

Nicola: You're very welcome. What I'd really like to do, Rich, is go right back to the beginning. Now, obviously I know your story inside out, but my listeners won't, so take us back and tell us how you became the entrepreneur you are today and then we'll go into your best tips for business, mind, money, and marketing.

Rich: How far back do you want me to go?

Nicola: Well, you know, tell me about your family, where you grew up, and was there any entrepreneurial influences in your life in the early days?

Rich: Oh, yeah, sure. I think I was blessed by that. My dad was an entrepreneur, kind of a ruthless entrepreneur, so I got to see the extremes of business, I'd say. I didn't want to grow up that way, but it was definitely a lesson, and he wasn't around very much, but because he wasn't around very much, I was always eager to be around him whenever I had the opportunity, and so a lot of that time that opened up for me, to be able to spend time with him, was on the weekends to kind of tag along with him on a Saturday when he would go to work or go to meetings, and I would join him.

Sometimes he would be meeting other business owners or doing deals, and I would just sit there and listen, and then on the way home he would describe like why he said what he said on the way there. He would kind of give me a perspective, and so it was always an educational experience for me. He treated me like an entrepreneur.

I remember as a kid I used to wash his car for a dollar. I was like eight years old and one day he made the mistake of having me in the car when he took me to the car wash.

When he took me to the car wash, I saw that he paid eight dollars for the car wash, and I was like, you know, a little bit offended that here he was paying the car wash eight dollars. I was only getting paid a dollar, and so I said, you know, "What gives here?" He's like, "Well, you know, that's what we agreed upon." I said, "Well, from now it's going to be eight dollars," and he said, "Well, if it's eight dollars, then I'm just going to take it to the car wash."

He's like,