Compounding Kindness

Last week I talked about my speech in Las Vegas and emphasized how absolutely critical it is to use leverage if you want to make big money in a relatively short period of time.  But can leverage be used if you want to spread good words and good works so you can make a huge impact for good in the world?  All of us can spread good stuff around and many people do but where do they usually start?  They start right at home with family and friends. But if you want to spread good works and good words greatly beyond that you probably need to use leverage.

Let me try to motivate you with numbers showing how a great idea, a great deed and/or great motivating words can spread and become huge. Let’s call it “good message compounding”.  If any one of us passed on a great message or did a great deed and encouraged the recipients of our kindnesses to “pay it forward” to 10 people asking that they also request their recipients to keep it going by passing it along to ten more and everyone kept that going, what potentially could be the results?  Shockingly, if everyone in the chain were to do this and that passing it on continued 6 times or through 6 levels of people, your message or deed would have affected more than one million people!  If it went to the 9th level, you would have influenced or helped more than one billion people!

Of course, not all those first 10 people would follow through and pass it on and even if the first ten people did we can be pretty certain that not everyone down the line would pass it on.  But the point I want to make is it is possible to end up with huge numbers of people getting your message or being impacted by your good deed. If you keep that “huge potential” in mind it can really be such a super motivator for you and for all of us to push ourselves to do and say more to help others.

So I would encourage you to keep firmly in your mind that 9th level of over a billion people that you could potentially help.  Even though this “good message compounding” most likely won’t multiply into a billion it could certainly multiply into hundreds of good messages and deeds and probably even more than that. And that ain’t too bad coming from one little human on this planet of more than 7 billion people.  In my book that’s pretty exciting, knowing you, as just one person, can have that big of an impact for good in the world. And it all comes back to you in the great feeling it gives you and the happiness you see it bringing to others’ lives.

 

The Six Wealthiest Letters

I just got back from Las Vegas where I gave a speech on financial matters; this was mainly what formulas and so-called secrets I’ve learned over the years on how to make a fortune in today’s world. I gave this presentation to a great new little company that I am pretty sure will not stay small for long–it’s called LyfeStart. I think it will grow at a very rapid pace, for two main reasons: The super sharp and experienced founders and the great product they’ve developed that helps people’s health and longevity as well as putting money in their pockets.

In my speech, I presented the financial lessons I’ve learned from a few millionaires and a couple of billionaires. Specifically, guys like Paul J. Meyer, Larry Rosenberg, Curt Carlson and Aristotle Onassis. There are two formulas that most super financially successful people have discovered and used. They can be summed up with 6 letters: OPM and OPE. OPM is “Other People’s Money” in the form of loans from banks or individuals used to purchase the right assets. OPE is “Other Peoples Efforts” which we talked about in recent posts. How do either or both of these help insure that you will make a fortune? They help you leverage yourself. As all of know with a long enough lever we can lift almost any heavy object that we want to. And believe me the same is true if you use the right lever to lift the financial part of your life. Just about every wealthy person I’ve ever met or read about has used either OPM or OPE or a combination of both.

You see what you are doing is multiplying yourself since there is not enough time in your life to do really big things financially by yourself. Believe me, billionaires know what they’re talking about. They’ve done it. Salary, commission and other income just doesn’t cut it; you don’t make a billion dollars that way and, in most cases, not even a million. There are just not enough hours in your life to make those huge numbers happen. The average person lives only about 700,000 hours. So, if you made $200,000 dollars a year and didn’t spend one penny of that, do you know how long it would take you to be a billionaire? The answer: a whopping 5,000 years!

To make it big financially you just have to use OPM or OPE or both. When it comes to OPE, what I hear the most is that “there’s just not many good people out there anymore” to which I say that’s a bunch of bunk! There are many super people out there that can and will assist you. You just need to go out there and find them. Then give them enough incentive, sell them on your dream and provide them with good direction. I’ve associated and hired so many great people that many times do a much, much better job at certain tasks, than I do. This has greatly enhanced my life and my net worth.

One of the secrets that my wealthy mentors also taught me is to be sure to study what talents and natural abilities people have and then put them in the positions that best use those very talents. That makes them happy and fulfilled while moving you faster and closer to your goals.

 

A List for Great Health

For the last few weeks I’ve been talking all about Money, Money, Money … so now I want to shift gears and talk about the extremely important subject of Health, Health, Health!  As most people know having tons of money without good health can be a real bummer. I can’t help but think of Steve Jobs with all his billions, who left this earth at a very early age because of a huge health issue that his money couldn’t solve.

I have preached for years that it’s better to read and re-read the very best book many times over to remind ourselves of whatever great lessons or super inspiration we got out of reading that great book the first time, since we tend to forget much of what we’ve learned. So with that in mind I was reviewing my notes of some of the best stuff I learned from reading Dr. Robert Lustig M.D. great words on health. So today I am going to give you a list that you can review at a glance to remind yourself of what you can do, and should be doing, to greatly increase your odds of achieving and keeping yourself in Great Health!

From Dr. Lustig’s great book entitled Fat Chance.

1. Sugar is killing us.

2. Your waist size is most important.

3. High fiber appears to limit total food intake.

4. Orange juice is worse than a sugar soda.

5. Alcohol increases fat around the liver and other organs.

6. Exercise works at so many levels, except your weight.

7. Studies show that those who skip breakfast eat more calories during the day.

8. Muscle burns more energy, even when you are at rest.

9. Consistency in exercise is the key.

10. Even 15 minutes a day is great for health.

11. Fiber one cereal has 14.9 grams of fiber.

12. Eat real food.

13. Don’t eat anything 4 hours before bed.

14. Wait 20 minutes before second helpings

15. Kids who get exercise during school do better academically.

16. Vegetables give you fiber and micro nutrients.

17. Resveratrol keeps inflammation down.

18. Diet is about weight loss and exercise is about inches and health.

19. People who eat veggie omelets at breakfast are less hungry at lunch time.

20. Eating protein does not stimulate insulin or hunger.

21. Alcohol is much worse than fructose and glucose because the lipid build up can lead to liver inflammation.

22. Alcohol for the same number of calories is more likely than glucose to cause chronic disease.

 

And here is another list that I wrote to myself so many years ago. I forgot where I got it–but it’s good and works.

Mood boosting super foods.

1. Tomatoes

2. Whole grains

3. Fatty fish

4. Dark chocolate

5. Spinach

6. Red meat -lean

Stick to the recommendations on these two lists and that commitment alone will show you great improvements your health!

 

Big Money in Cosmetic Fixes

As discussed last week, you can turn a 10% gain into a 100% gain using your sweat equity on the right real estate asset. Grabbing up run=down properties worked miracles for me, eventually adding millions of dollars to my net worth. You can do the same thing. But, you ask, exactly how do I direct my efforts? What do I fix up to make the property worth more? The simple short answer is paint, carpet, cleaning and basic accessories such as attractive plants and pictures on the walls and a nice green lawn and shrubbery in the yard. This is because you would be buying property that doesn’t needs more than a face lift but which you can buy cheap simply because it looks bad.

Now if you are like me and not particularly good as a handyman then you’ll probably want to use what I call OPE–other people’s efforts. I hired high school kids for just a few bucks an hour. I found from experience that paying people hourly, if you can keep an eye on them, is far less expensive than getting bids on the work needed. I should also say that most fortunes are made through the use of OPM (other people’s money) as we mentioned in earlier posts. So OPM combined with OPE is your formula for great wealth with this approach.

I should also add that I am not very good with any kind of design or decoration decisions, inside or outside. So what did I do about that? Basically two things–I picked other people’s brains as well as copying success, both without cheating. Picking people’s brains is pretty easy since people like to talk about themselves and what they do for a living. I would simply take designers, architects and other professionals to lunch and pick their brains for the cost of a meal.

Copying success is not that hard either, it’s mainly a matter of paying attention to what works then doing the same thing. I will never forget the beat up little house that I bought that was in desperate need of a major design update on the front of this very sad structure. I was trying hard to figure out exactly what to do with the face of this house when the obvious solution suddenly hit me. The basic house structure and layout was almost identical to the house next door–even though you really had to look hard to notice that with my house being such a disaster. The house next door was absolutely beautiful and a delight to look at. It looked like “the little cottage in the woods” that we read about and picture when we were kids.

So what I did was essentially take the lazy man’s option and I had my people do an exact copy of that nice house in every detail– the exact same color of paint, the exact same window coverings and shutters and all the cutesy stuff around the yard and on the lawn. Bottom line, the house looked fantastic and I sold it in short order. There is one postscript to the story–the neighbor was irrate! So much so that he repainted and redesigned the front of his house as he didn’t want to live next door to an identical twin! I didn’t really blame him but it was a bit of compliment to him too. Not sure he saw that.

One big thing to keep in mind as you are using your own sweat equity or using OPE to do this fix up work, keep yourself totally motivated and firmly place in your head that this “grunt work” can and will turn a potential 10% gain into 100% gain. With those kinds of numbers and with enough time, it will turn thousands of dollars into millions!

Shotgun Investing

Last week I talked about how you can receive a huge rate of return on your invested dollar—100% return– by increasing the value of the ‘right kind of asset ‘by only 10%! But the real trick is that you must know how to increase its value by 10 or more percent to start with.

In my opinion and from my experience the best type of asset that lends itself to  ‘forced improved value ‘ is good ol ‘ real estate and specifically properties that need a  ‘face lift ‘. These are beat up houses, duplexes, apartment buildings etc., or what I have often refer to as ‘dirt bag properties ‘.  The key is doing a ‘face lift ‘not ‘bone surgery ‘ so you would need to find properties that are run down mainly on a cosmetic level.  You really don‘t want a property that needs to be fully rewired, plumbing pulled or the foundation replaced.  I look for properties that haven‘t been painted for 25 years or the front lawn is dead and the fence is falling apart. Maybe it just needs new carpet and window coverings to turn it around. Those kinds of properties can make you a fortune and do so in a few short years.

I do want to add that when I was introduced to leverage I was a stock broker and I began trying to use leverage with stocks and bonds but I found out very quickly that the real problem was I really couldn’t ‘fix up’ a stock and I didn’t have any control over the company whose stock I was buying or the stock market itself.  I did however, have some control over a little beat up house that I would buy, even though that is where the real work began.

Once you have found the dirt bag property, the next big chunk of work is actually doing the fix up to greatly improve its value and give you those big fat returns on your invested dollar.  So how do you find those fixer uppers and exactly what kind of work does it take?

There are several ways this can be done.  You could drive through the right neighborhoods that are a bit run down and in your price range, but that is the hard way to do it and it takes a ton of time.  Since time is one of those things that none of us seems to have enough of I recommend what I call the ‘shotgun’ method.  The concept of a shotgun is that when a hunter shoots at a bird the shotgun blasts hundreds of BBs that spread out as they speed toward the target. Most of those BBs miss the mark but it only takes one or two BBs to bring down the target.  Likewise, my  ‘shotgun method ‘ of finding the right properties is very efficient and a real time saver and it only takes one or two hits to score your target.

All you do is use the internet to observe all the for sale properties that even roughly fit your  ‘specs ‘ and then make low ball offers –around 20% to 25% lower than the asking price.  And you do this without even driving by the property.  The real key here is to be sure you have a “subject to” clause in your offer, which basically says that this offer is good only upon certain conditions.  Those conditions can be subject to acceptable financing or even something simple like “subject to my spouse or partners approval”.  So now when you shoot your shotgun at many dozens of properties each week or each month, you only get in your car and drive by and or do an inspection after you get a  ‘counter offer ‘  or sometimes, an actual acceptance on you super low ball price! It does happen once in a while!

Using the shotgun method works if you make enough offers and then after you have scored a property, then the physical work begins. It‘s not easy but it‘s simple.  More on how to fix up those properties next week!