Compounding My Thanks

Continuing with my thank you notes I started last week, I’d like to thank the man I call “Mr. Motivator”. He showed me the importance of goal setting which helps, and almost automatically pushes and pulls you, to achieve things you didn’t think you could do at first. That person was Mr. Paul J. Meyer of Waco, Texas. He started with nothing and went on to make around $500 million by motivating others and showing them how to do the same thing.

Paul started SMI, the Success Motivation Institute, which has spread worldwide, inspiring and motivating millions of people around the globe, including myself. I’ve told you a bit about him and the story of how I came to meet him, right here on this blog, so you probably know he and I became very good friends. I truly owe a huge thanks to Mr. Paul J. Meyer and, of course, also his lovely and wonderful wife, Jane.

Notes of thanks could not be sent out without acknowledging a particularly brilliant writer and marketer that came into my life. This man showed me how to successfully spread my financial message through advertising. My ‘Mr. Mass Marketer’ is otherwise known to me as Joe Karbo of Huntington Beach, California. Because of the brilliant mass advertising methods of his that I followed, I sold over 2 million copies of my first book which helped me launch a very large seminar company. That helped me spread the financial formulas and motivation techniques that Larry Rosenberg and Paul J. Meyer taught me.

What was Joe’s brilliant marketing method? Well, he ran a brilliant full page ad that I saw entitled “The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches” with the enticing subtitle, “Most people are too busy earning a living to make any money.” I saw the ad in the Times Newspaper back on March 2nd, 1979 (I still have the original copy). It took me a lot of phone calls but I finally got to meet and know Joe and we became friends. He coached me through some amazing mass marketing success.

So thanks Joe Karbo. You helped me and you helped the world more than you are your posterity will ever know. This is true for all the great human beings I’ve mentioned in the last few weeks. Where would I be without them? Where would you be without your super motivating people

The People Who Changed My Life

Last week I said that I was going to give appreciation and thanks to those people that inspired, helped and directed my life and personal development and those that lifted my financial life to great heights.

The first and probably most powerful financial mentor was Larry Rosenberg of Denver, Colorado. Before Larry came into my life I had read a few financial books that somewhat helped me start to improve my financial situation, books that taught me that the first step is to save money out of each paycheck, at least 10% but more if you can swing it.

However, what Larry Rosenberg really did to lift my financial sights to great heights was to show me what he’d done, starting basically from scratch, using financial leverage and compounding. When he sat down with me and showed me on paper what could be done with as little as $1,000 dollars, a few years’ time, and hard work, I was blown away. Thousands turned into millions and it wasn’t just a theory. He had done it! I quickly saw, and he agreed, that I could do the same thing. So I set out on my financial path and yes, it lead me to millions.

So thank you Larry. I appreciate you and I will never forget you. You not only influenced and lifted my financial world but because of you I’ve passed your directions and formulas onto literally thousands of other people. Your great influence is huge and growing and it’s so big it’s probably unmeasurable.

Larry also put me onto Bill Nickerson’s great book, How I turned $1000 into Millions in My Spare Time, in Real Estate, which gave me more details on what I should be doing and how. Later I was privileged to meet and get to know Bill very well. So a big thanks to Mr. Bill Nickerson too!

These two gentleman were a big influence but there are still more to thank. Next week, I’ll send out a few more thank you notes and show you what people have done for me and, in turn, for you!

Our Indebtedness to the Past

I just watch a wonderful documentary narrated by Robert Redford called The Barnstormers which told and showed some great pictures of the history of how the game of tennis was changed from an amateur to a professional sport and how after that changed its popularity grew at an enormous rate.  I was particularly impressed at the end of this wonderful production when the great world champion Roger Federer said how much he and all the other pro tennis players of today owe a huge debt of gratitude to the players and key figures who brought about the big changes in tennis.

It got me to thinking about how all of us today owe a humongous debt of gratitude to so very may people of the past that did so many things to make the world a much better place and made our lives so much easier today.

Think about it … how would our lives be without those many people who over time collaborated with many others to bring us the automobile, the airplane, advanced medicine and medical procedures? We can cut open and fix a human brain and cure terrible diseases. And just look at the advances in technology.  From computers to cell phones, rockets to space probes, and on and on and on.  I couldn’t begin to build even a basic radio or TV, let alone figure out how to do open heart surgery.  And so much of these incredible advances have come in just the last 100 to 150 years!  Going back 150 years we didn’t have even a simple telephone or an internal combustion engine or even a simple light bulb.

We are so very indebted to so many people that have lived before us. We all could do with being a bit more grateful as well as taking a look at our own lives and seeing how and where we can put our efforts and talents to work to help others and make this wonderful world even better than we found it. Let’s not only do it for those around us now but for future generations.

There is also an extra benefit for you. I’ve seen studies that show that the more a person shows and has gratitude for others, the more it lifts that person’s level of satisfaction and happiness.

In my upcoming blog posts, I will attempt to acknowledge and give thanks to the people that have contributed to my life, both in my financial life, my personal life and in my self-development. Who do you have to thank for the wonderful advantages you have?

 

Green Up Yourself and Grow Faster

I don’t know about where you live but here in Utah Spring has finally sprung!!  How wonderful it is to see everything turning green and growing.  For me, I find that Spring stimulates me to grow more green stuff. I am actually talking about growing more money but more than that, I want to grow myself in many parts of my life.

As I see more and more people out and about, running, jogging, working on their lawns and gardens or fixing their houses, it pushes me to set more goals for myself.  So my theme for this week is: Let’s get out there and make our lives blossom not only financially but in how we live our lives.

Let’s use this spring time to increase our activities and grow.  We can start by simply getting out there and making this happen.  Like driving through more neighborhoods looking for properties that need a face lift. Look for beat up properties, especially the ones that might have a for sale sign posted by owner or realtor. It might mean that a house just needs the front painted or a beat up lawn needs to be re-seeded and have a few great looking trees or flowers planted with a nice little white picket fence to surround it.

If the house is beat up and shabby plus it looks vacant, take the time to find out who the owner is because it’s quite likely that the owner is a motivated seller. I’m not saying that you should not use the internet to search for properties, because that is a very fast and efficient way to find properties, but sometimes it can be so super refreshing to get out of the office or house and drive around neighborhoods. You may find things you would not have found online as well.

Also, don’t forget to do a ton of asking around … you know, that thing called networking.  Do it in every circumstance you can think of. At parties or over lunch or at work, be sure to ask people if they know of any properties in their area that are for sale, especially houses or apartment buildings that look like they are in disrepair or have sellers that are anxious to dump the property.  You can leverage yourself, big time, by tapping into other people’s brains and connections.

And while you are at this ‘greening up your springtime’, be sure to set some personal goals for yourself, whether it be for better personal health or to be a better parent, friend or spouse.  Let’s all make this springtime thing a growing and greening of ourselves and those around us!!

14 WAYS FOR HAPPINESS

Happiness is something that everyone wants but I’m sure you know of many people that are not happy. Most of us find ourselves happy for long and short periods at least here and there but we also have many times in our lives that we are not so happy and may even be downright depressed.  For years now I’ve kept a large card in my planner that I look at once in a while. It’s a list of “13 Ways for Happiness”.  I don’t remember where I got it but it’s pretty darn helpful, so I wanted to share it with my readers and I hope you make a copy of it and look at it often and share it with others.

13 WAYS FOR HAPPINESS

1. Buy Experience—it’s so much more satisfying and long lasting if you spend your money more on experience than buying stuff.
2. Get Quality sleep.
3. Take time to write down what you are grateful for and write to others sending your gratitude.
4. Surround yourself with happy people.
5. Tidy up and get organized.
6. Boost your endorphins through exercise and, remember, that if you smile, even if forced, it will boost your good brain chemicals.
7. Give back through volunteer work and random acts of kindness.
8. Learn a new skill.
9. Pay yourself first.
10. Go offline.
11. Be on time.
12. Be true to yourself.
13. Every day take note of 3 positive things in your life.

To this list I would also add a big one that seems to always help me, not only in my financial life but in boosting my happiness factor, and that is to set big goals and little goals and write them down complete with a due date on each. So make that 14 ways to gain more happiness!

Compounding People

“The most powerful principle I ever discovered was compound interest!” –Albert Einstein

I relayed that quote in my blog last week. It’s a pretty amazing that here’s this brilliant scientist and thinker saying compound interest was his most incredible discovery. The thing is, the incredible power of compounding applies to more than just money. Many smart people have figured out how to expand or compound themselves or their business. To do so, they compound people.

Many religions figured this out years ago. Realizing that if they encouraged followers to have a lot of children they could grow their religious cause very, very fast.  Do you realize that if you had 10 kids and each one of your kids had 10 kids and each of them had 10 kids and that continued on for 10 generations or about 250 years, that would produce an amazing, almost unbelievable 10 billion human beings! That’s 3 billion more people than are on the planet earth right now, and all those 10 billion came from just you and your partner. That probably would never happen but it does demonstrate that huge power of compounding.

But now here is real life and modern example of the power of people compounding. In February 2004, Mark Zuckerberg and 3 of his classmates at Harvard came up with the concept of what we all know now as Facebook, which they introduced only to Harvard students in the beginning.  Within 24 hours of launching Facebook they had over 1200 students register.  Two years later in September 2006 they opened it up to everyone 13 years and older who had valid email addresses and would you believe that by August 2008 they had over 100 million signed up?

It certainly didn’t stop there and by April 2009 their numbers totaled 200 million which doubled to 400 million less than a year later and at the end of 2014 that number hit an amazing 1.39 billion.  How did all that happen?

If you use Facebook at all you know that answer.  You contact 10 of your friends who make contact with 10 of their friends and that continues on and on again, just like having those 10 kids.  And Zuckerberg sure did cash in on that power of compounding of people.  He’s now the 4th richest person in the USA with a net worth of 44.6 billion dollars and growing.

In other words, if you can get a few people behind you who are willing to recruit a few more each who are also encouraged to bring in a few more, you could have a team or group or army to help build your dream. I would encourage all who read this, as well as myself, to strongly consider how we can expand our reach and/or our business by using the power of compounding with people.

Truly Smart Money

One of the smartest people in the entire world said this about money: “The most powerful principle I ever discovered was compound interest”.  Who said that? Can you believe it was none other than Albert Einstein?

I had forgotten that wonderful quote until the other day when I came across a booklet titled “Being Smart with your Money” written by my very dear friend and my money mentor of years ago, Paul J. Meyer.  Paul was a man who truly went from rags to riches.  As a young man, he was making a few bucks by picking fruit in California, but by using his brain and wisely using his little bit of money with leverage and compounding, he eventually amassed close to a half a billion-dollar fortune.  He was considered the pioneer of the self-improvement industry and also made tens of millions in real estate. I must give him credit for much of my own fortune.

My other mentor was Larry Rosenberg from Denver, Colorado. Both Paul and Larry basically gave me the same advice when it came to making millions with Einstein’s powerful discovery figuring into the equation as well, big time!  I was taught that, to begin with, a person who wants great wealth needs to pay himself first.  That is, no matter how much or how little money you make, set 5%, 10% or more aside and then (and this is critically important!) never, never, never spend it!  This money is not for buying nice things, it is for investing!

When you’ve built up enough from those savings, go out and invest it wisely.  Most of the time that wise investment is going to be in good ol’ real estate.  The big-time, huge key to this investment, however, is to keep at it, reinvesting the money you make on the first deal in another deal and then another deal after that and so on and so on. That is what compounding is all about.

Paul says this about what a $1,000 investment can grow into: “If that $1,000 were in an investment that brought 10% interest per year, in 73 years, I would have over a million dollars from my original $1,000 investment!  If you put another $1,000 dollars into the pot each year, it would take only 47 years to hit the million-dollar mark.” Keep in mind, that’s compounding at only 10%. As my previous blogs have demonstrated, you can do much better than that. I, and many others, have compounded money at 25%, 50%, and even 100% which turns $1,000 into many multi-millions.

Paul Meyer also gives this excellent advice in his “Being Smart with your Money” booklet: “Only when you develop confidence in a principle will you exert the effort required to change your behavior and put this principle into practice.” That means, you won’t be able to put these ideas to work for you until you take the time to look carefully at them and come to understand just how well you can do with this plan. That understanding should motivate you into acting on these principles. Paul has these great bits of super money advice to get you going as well:  “Set goals, live within your means, get on a budget and stay there, pay yourself first, put your money to work …” and, I would add, use lots of leverage and reinvest for that wonderful compounding effect.

Although Paul’s booklet is no longer in print, I do have a number of copies that I would be so happy to share. Simply write me here with your mailing address and I will send it to you. Paul’s wise words are too good to keep to myself! (Free offer for booklet is limited and will be given to those that respond first while supplies last)

Control Your Wealth

Last week I ended my blog by talking about the huge importance of saving a minimum of 10% of your income as the first step to achieving total financial freedom and making that savings plan an absolute habit so you do it automatically every time.

But now what to do with that money? Where do you invest it for the best possible return with a reasonable low risk?

One rule that I’ve kept for life in investing is to never turn over total control of my money to someone else. As a stockbroker many years ago, I played in the market and usually lost money or just broke even. Part of the reason was that not only did I have no say or control over the company I bought into but I also had absolutely no control over the stock market and the direction it went.

But then I met a guy who became my wonderful and brilliant coach, Larry Rosenberg. He convinced me that improved rental real estate was the safest and most consistent way to build a fortune. Why? Because if you buy right and buy a property that needs improvement, you can reap huge returns and much of what happens with your investment is in your control.

First of all, you have the power of leverage you can apply when you have the right assets. In other words, if you fix up a property and raise its value by, say, 15% then that 15% improvement in value can turn your investment into a fat 60% on your money! That huge return is based on your choices. In this case, you would put a 20% down payment on it and keep fix up costs at about 5%. These are your decisions to make and therefore you have some control over how well you make out on the investment.

Even today, after 40 years of experience, I still say the best investment that allows you the most control, especially in today’s market with these very low interest rates, is real estate. I started with a small house on the wrong side of town and after I fixed if it didn’t sell right away I usually could rent it out so I had a tenant whose rent I was able to set so that it was paying off the mortgage, usually with a little left over for me. Then I moved on to larger and larger properties which I was able to work pretty much the same way and I still use this strategy today.

The other thing I do to keep control besides investing in the right property and making smart decisions to keep money flowing in, is to be careful with how I set up any partnerships. When I do deals and have a partner or two they always have their name on the deed showing the percentage interest they have in the property with everything spelled out clearly. If all investors insisted on doing it this way, it certainly would cut down dramatically on all the scams and Ponzi schemes. But it also means all the partners know what to expect and there are no out of control surprises later on.

So if you are smart and want to make those big bucks you’ll get out there, take and keep control of your investments, and keep focused on the great power of compounding and leveraging. Next week we’ll go into those subjects a bit more to keep you focused on your goal!

 

Make America and You Greater

I think most of us are getting pretty feed up and bored with politics lately.  I mean every time you turn around you see or hear more news about the race for the White House and, of course, the face you see most often is that of Donald Trump.  I don’t know about you but I’ve had enough of that big bully, loud-mouthed Trump to last a life-time.  This know-it-all thinks he’s the smartest man in the world but his campaign slogan is “Make America Great Again”. Every time I see that baseball cap with those words on it, I think, “Wow … when did America stop being great?”

I’ve traveled the world, visiting 84 different countries as well as living two years in the middle east and two years in England and I can say, without hesitation, that we have a great country and it’s constantly getting greater. I fear that might not hold true if Trump became president, however.

Ours truly is a land of great freedom and opportunity where you can start off being dirt poor and still become a millionaire. It happened in the 1930’s and in the 1970’s and it’s still happening today. So how does a person take advantage of our freedom’s and opportunities?

Continuing on last week’s post about the power of the brain and how we can program and teach our brain with enough repetition to act automatically without conscious thought, here’s the beginning key to achieving financial greatness in our great country. Step one is to start training your brain to calculate out at least 10% of every single dollar you earn and then you set it aside and never spend it and I mean NEVER. This is investment money, not spending money. So just keep doing that over and over again until it is such an automatic habit that you don’t even have to consciously think about it.

If you have followed me very long you know what comes next.  You take those savings after months or years and wisely invest them.  And that, my friends, is the beginning of a sure fire way to become wealthy in one of the greatest countries in the world, if not the greatest.

Next week I’ll lay out the best investments to make in today’s economy and the way to make those investments. You get started on the savings part and I’ll get you prepared for investing in the great USA.

 

The Brain and Robot Tennis

 

Sometime ago I read a book about The Secret Lives of the Brain which was actually the subtitle of the great book entitled Incognito by David Eagleman. The part of the book that really grabbed my attention was what he said about the part of the brain that you can teach exactly how to hit a tennis ball almost perfectly every time without even thinking about it.

Being an avid tennis fan and sometimes tournament player myself, and with my own experience pretty much backing up and proving what he was saying, he had my undivided attention. Many times while playing, I’ve surprised myself when I am running full speed to get to a tennis ball coming at me at 65 or 75 miles an hour, then to arrive at the exact right spot and hit the ball back to the place I was aiming. Wow, I’m thinking … how did I ever do that?

Eagleman, a neuroscientist, makes the case that tennis shots are made almost entirely without using the conscious mind. Of course, to get to the point of great non-thinking tennis shots, anyone who wants to be that good needs to use the other part of the brain–the conscious part that is the part that thinks through what goals a person wants to achieve. So with the conscious brain a tennis champion wannabe sets the goals to fulfill their dream tennis performance.

The author of this book is not just talking about these two parts of the brain being used to be a great tennis player either. You can use both parts of the brain to become very good in many areas of our lives, whether it’s to become a great public speaker, great writer of books, making a fortune, or creating super health for yourself and others. It will work for whatever you really want to do and be.

But that’s just the first part, because after you use the conscious part of your mind to set your goals, you then need to practice and drill over and over again. If you do that for many, many hours over a good length of time you will begin to program your unconscious mind so eventually it will perform for you without your thinking about it. It will be automatic. It might take thousands of hours but studies have shown that anyone that spends 10,000 hours doing one thing they most likely will become one of the best in the world at that one thing.

Under the chapter subheading “The Robot that Won Wimbledon”, David Eagleman concludes that, “The competitors at Wimbledon are rapid, efficient machines that play tennis shockingly well. They can track a ball traveling ninety miles per hour, move toward it rapidly, and orient a small surface to intersect its trajectory. And these professional tennis players do almost none of this consciously. In exactly the same way that you read letters on a page or change lanes, they rely entirely on their unconscious machinery. They are, for all practical purposes, robots. Indeed, when Ilie Nastase lost the Wimbledon final in 1976, he sullenly said of his winning opponent, Bjorn Borg, ‘He’s a robot from outer space.’”

Today I would say the same thing about Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. But remember folks these two parts of our brain can be used for many more things than tennis! Let’s all work on that.

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