The 1957 copy of "Popular Science" was 40 years old when it was recently found in the den of the antique dealer. The smell of "old papers," and the worn ink prevailed. When I opened the magazine to the classifieds, the smell of "oldness" reminded me of my grandmother's attic as a child. That same smell - distinguishable everyone knows it but no one has really "labeled it." Probably the best any of us can do is call it "musty.,,

I scanned the 40 year old "business opportunities" and realized that I had entered a virtual time machine. A time machine that really wasn't going anywhere. The headlines of the ads were exactly the same as I have been reading in 1997. "Fast Cash," "Make Money At Home," "$1,000 Weekly!"

The ad on "How To Make Money As A Locksmith" was there too. I had read the exact same ad as a young boy and that was longer ago than I care to think about sometimes. I had always been curious about that ad. Curious but I never responded. Everyone had locks. There had to be money in the business. But I suffered then what many suffer now. It looked like "work" and work was NOT what I was looking for. From scanning the ads there had to be something easier and faster. Some 40 years late,, I never found that "thing" that is easier and faster.

I glanced at several other magazines that were 40 plus years in age and some were near 50. The antique dealer whispered in my ear and asked if-I needed help. I told him "No, I'm trying to find out why people do what they do in business." He wondered why I sought my answers in "Popular Science" and not "Popular Psychology."

The classifieds were the same in the other magazines I pulled from the pile on the floor. "There's that smell again, I thought." Everyone was selling something to make "fast cash" for the buyer. It was all there - overnight success, secrets, and more. One could easily take that classified page and insert it in today's papers and it would read very normally. I could possibly understand why many believed the ads that long ago. Today, the same belief is somewhat mind boggling.

For at least 50 to 100 years, the American entrepreneur has been buying "fast cash" programs and "success secrets" from those who have learned the dynamics of the advertising that sells them. And for at least 50 years, writers and others have been telling the American Entrepreneur that overnight cash doesn't exist '. this world unless you walk into a bank with a revolver in your hand. Entrepreneurial graveyards are filled with millions of letters from mail-order and home business folks complaining that they've purchased worthless programs, money secrets that aren't secret, and wealth plans that just won't make you a dime.

The American entrepreneur's desire for fast cash and money secrets will never go away - even through the process of education. Like deadly cocaine, there is "supply and demand." The American public wants it - someone will supply it. Immediate wealth is somehow a dream that has carried over in time, referred continually to those who seek it. Ah, making money at home without working for it - the ultimate that anyone could ever want to experience.

Generations have turned over since the first ads hit town probably 70 plus years ago. The next generation thought there was easy money out there too. The future generations will believe the same. In the meantime, the supplier of the secret plans will make the money. He/she will sell because he has a product we all want and dream about yet no one has really come up with one.

Regardless, millions of us still believe there are fast, cash making programs out there. Many of our beliefs have dissolved over the years but for some reason, this one perpetuates itself It's a belief that won't go away. Yes, we will believe in them but oddly we have given up the beliefs of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and The Tooth Fairy. Someone -lose to us told us they don't exist. They are figments of our imagination. No one has ever seen them. As children, the advertising of their existence had duped us. That advertising doesn't fool us today. No, we're "smarter" today than we were years back.

Millions of us gave up at a very young age the beliefs that made us happy. WE made the choice of not believing. We were coached along by others and most of us recall close to where we were or what we were doing when someone dropped that bomb on us about Santa. Yet 30, 50, 70 or more years later, the "fast cash beliefs" survived it all. The same people who told us about Santa also educated us in the belief that we don't get anything free in life. They probably told you and I that the fast cash stuff in the papers and magazines were bogus efforts of advertising. We took their advice on believing in Santa - we didn't take their advice on believing in money secrets. That's why this industry will continue to flourish into the next century.

Take a moment to step away from your business ventures and check with your inner self. Ask yourself why you believe - and what you believe - about the fast cash making ideas that permeate the industry. Ask yourself why you believe that you can make thousands overnight without long hard work. Ask yourself why you believe that you can make a lot of money without learning the trade, without any startup cash and ...

Most importantly, ask yourself why you abandoned the happy thoughts of Santa Claus and gold at the end of rainbows, yet you opted to continue to believe in something that has proven itself non existent for nearly 100 years?