NASHUA – Mike Dolpies is not a motivational speaker.

In fact, Dolpies, of Tilton, has based his business philosophy on the idea that motivation is not the key to success.

"People get hyped up for a couple of hours and then they return to reality," Dolpies said in an interview last week.

He prefers to be called a mobilizational speaker, a term he invented to set himself apart from other professional speakers on the market.

"It's not just about getting warm and fuzzy feelings, it's about taking action," he said.

Dolpies calls his philosophy "Motion before Motivation." And, the mantra is also the title of his book, "Motion Before Motivation: The Success Secret That Never Fails," which was released in August.

Instead of waiting to find the motivation to achieve a lofty dream, Dolpies argues, take small steps toward that goal. Even just writing it down is a good start; it makes it concrete, he said.

"Motion Before Motivation" was recently ranked No. 11 on Amazon.com's self-help success bestseller list, and Dolpies said he believes the concept will carry him far.

But, he said, that success is not an accident.

"It has to do with marketing the book," he said. "It was an orchestrated strategy because nothing just happens." That attitude has been cultivated over years on a roller coaster of business successes and failures.

Dolpies, who is now 30, said his crash course in business began when he was just 18 years old living in South Philadelphia.

After graduating from high school with mediocre grades, a college counselor told Dolpies that community college would be his only option. So he went.

"I took all the wrong classes for all the wrong reasons," he said. "I dropped out in two days." But, a co-worker at a South Philadelphia grocery story told Dolpies that his knowledge of martial arts, which he'd been studying since he was 13, was a marketable skill. Three months later, he said, he opened a studio and began teaching.

"I didn't ponder it and I didn't talk to the naysayers," he said. He just took action, and it paid off.

Dolpies began taking college classes again that January, this time with a new business focus. The studio started to pick up, he said, and grossed more than a million dollars by the time he turned 23.

In 2006, he sold the studio and bought into a franchise. He said he's not allowed to discuss the details of the franchise for legal reasons, but that it proved to be a mistake.

"I thought it would be my logical next step," he said. "I think I was drinking my own Kool-Aid." He said he made the choice to invest based on greed, not because he was passionate about it.

The franchising opportunity ended in disaster -- he said he lost more than $100,000 in the deal. Dolpies said he had similar disappointments in attempting to sell stocks.

After getting out of the franchise contract, Dolpies and his family moved to New Jersey, where he opened and later sold another successful martial arts studio.

In 2007, he and his family moved to New Hampshire, where his wife, Jamie, had a job offer. Dolpies began consulting other martial arts studios about marketing and new media techniques (www.askmiked.com).

He has now turned his experiences into two self-help books, many speaking engagements and, most recently, a weekly radio show on WSMN 1590 AM called Mobilization Mondays.

He said the biggest lesson he's learned is to know your goals and to keep working in the same direction.

"If you're going to try something, it has to tie in with where you're already going," he said.

"If you mess up, it's not failing if it's in the same direction. It's not failing because you learn, and that's a success."