How to Live to be 142!

You no doubt have heard the rumor that all of us humans will die someday. Of course, I don’t believe every rumor I hear and this one sucks. I just don’t want to believe it! So maybe I’ll call for a huge boycott. You know, get a bunch of us older people together with big signs saying “We are boycotting death!” or “We refuse to die!” or “Death sucks and we won’t participate!” Well, it’s a nice thought but it probably won’t work. Oh yes, if we did it in front of a TV station they might put us on the news so everyone could get a big laugh out of it, but I don’t think that will help us avoid death or even prolong our lives by much.

However, there are things we can do to postpone the inevitable and live longer, stronger and in great health. In fact, there are some researchers that are “inching toward the seemingly impossible: a cure for aging,” according to the February 23, 2015 Time Magazine article. Maybe you saw that issue. On the cover was a picture of a cute baby with the headline “This Baby could Live to be 142 Years Old”. That headline certainly grabbed my attention and yes, I read every word of the several stories covering what the researchers have discovered and what we can do right now to postpone our own demise.

The main story was about “Mouse UT2598″ and the discovery of a compound called Rapamycin which seems to dramatically slow aging, at least in certain cells. If this compound works for humans it could increase lifespan to around 142 years. The research going on at the Jackson Laboratory and the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, is in its early stages and researchers don’t recommend that humans start popping Rapamycin pills just yet says David Harrison because there are some down sides they have discovered at this point in their research. But the good news for me at age 71 is that they have seen that, “Rapamycin is also neat because it works even when you start quite late in life”.

So if this compound isn’t for humans just yet what can we do about it now? The obvious answer, at least to me, is to do everything in my power to stay healthy, in hopes that science figures out how humans can safely take Rapamycin. And the most effective and proven ways to do that is by eating the best foods which, according to the researchers in the Time magazine article include fish, fruits, veggies and extra virgin olive oil as well as calorie restriction, periodic fasting and consistent exercise with maybe a bit of yoga and meditation.

Do all that and you will have a significantly better chance to live longer and maybe hang in there until they perfect Rapamycin for humans. If doing all those things that you can do and should do sounds like a tough challenge, then listen to the words of William James. What he said many years ago has helped me to better my life when I could see that I needed to make changes and knew that it was going to be a big challenge. “If you change your mind, you can change your life”. I have that burned into my brain and hope you do the same.

 

 

 

Sweet Sweat Equity

When I first learned, from my mentor and friend Larry Rosenberg, how I could actually make a 50%, 60%, 70% and even 100% return on my money, I was blown away because I knew exactly what those kind of returns could do to a small amount of money over time. And believe me back then, a small amount of money was all I had.

I remember vividly the first dirt bag property I bought.  It was a little house that was ugly on the outside and a mess on the inside. But this little ugly and messy house didn’t really need anything more than a major clean up, new carpet and a fresh coat of paint inside and out. The problem was I used almost all of my cash for the down payment.  So, I knew I couldn’t afford what contractors wanted to charge for the work and the materials that were needed to turn this dirt bag property into a beautiful cottage.

So what did that leave me? Sure, I probably could have borrowed enough to cover the contractor’s bids from relatives, friends or a bank but that would cut into my overall profits on the deal. So what did I do?  I just rolled up my sleeves and went to work.  Yes, it was some dirty, hard work but wow did it ever pay off!

I’m not a professional painter and I really didn’t have experience laying carpet but I quickly figured it out.  I can’t say that it was fun but when the project was done and I looked at that dolled up house it gave me quite a bit of satisfaction and a huge a sense of accomplishment.  But I also must say that my satisfaction soared to new heights when I sold the doll house for a big fat return on my investment and that, my friends, is what your own sweat efforts, or ‘sweat equity’, is all about. Wow. Can it ever pay some very handsome returns! And don’t ever forget how those returns of 50, 60 and even 100% can turn a small amount of money into millions over time.

I will admit that a bit later in my investing career, as things were speeding up, I finally got to the point when I figured that my time spent doing all that physical work was robbing me of time that could be much better spent with much larger rewards.  What I mean is that I realized at that point I could make more money by spending more time finding good deals and getting others to do the physical work, than doing the work myself. I could put in more time to make more offers, negotiate more deals and do the paper work needed to figure out what deals to buy and how to finance them. I traded sweat effort for brain effort.

This mental part really is also sweat equity. It’s actually the brain sweat that will give you the biggest returns on your money.  Both physical and mental sweat equity are critical and necessary and you can do both. You need to get to the right point in your growth so you can delegate the physical jobs to speed up your efforts and really grow those returns!

 

 

 

 

 

The Discipline Hurdle

If you truly want to be wealthy then it’s virtually a must for us average humans to do it through wise investing. But you might say, “Hey, what about the person who doesn’t have any money to invest, even in the smallest property?”  So the question becomes, how can you begin without a dime to your name?  Well, you build a nest egg. Of course, that begs the question, how do you get that beginning nest egg to start your investment program?

Most of us know that the traditional way to build a nest egg is through savings.  For many people that’s a big fat “ouch!” When you take a close look at the average American family, you see that the rate of savings has been in a steady downtrend the last few years.  When someone is asked why they don’t have any savings they usually respond with something like “I can’t afford to put any money aside. I barely break even. By the end of the month, nothing is left over.”

The people that say this are usually the same ones that, even after they get a raise, nothing changes. They are forever stuck at breaking even at the end of the month or, worse, going into debt.

So what’s the real problem here?  In a word it’s usually discipline, or more accurately, the lack of discipline.  When you are saying to yourself, “I just had to buy that new coat (or dress, suit, latest and greatest cell phone, computer, new car, etc.)”, or “We’ve been scrimping so long we deserve to treat ourselves to a very nice night out on the town or a vacation,” you are also saying that you’ll never be wealthy and are likely to be a ‘wage slave’ your entire life.

In order to be able to start an investment program, you must be tough on yourself and fully realize there is a huge difference in what you ‘need’ verses what you ‘want’. Once you have arrived at the point of understanding that, then you may well be on your way to great riches and maybe even wealth beyond your wildest dreams. That is what happened to me.  Unfortunately I can’t remember who or what book taught me the big difference between need and want, but once I learned that lesson and applied the needed discipline, I was able to save thousands of dollars in one year and that launched my investment program.

Of course, once you’ve built up that “nest egg” you must be wise and put it to work with great care.  When I began my investments, I was in a big hurry so I used a lot of OPM (Other People’s Money) as well as sweat equity which propelled my return on investment by leaps and bounds. I’ll talk more about just what worked for me in next week’s blog but in the meantime, consider the fact that your biggest hurdle to the wealth and financial security you are craving is one less vacation a year, one less shopping spree a month, one less night eating out each week and one less fancy coffee each day. When you think about it, that really isn’t too much to ask of yourself. Not for the chance to make a fortune.

The One ‘Dead’ Thing That Makes You LIVE More LIFE!

Most of us when we hear the word “dead” we automatically think it’s something real bad, and many if not most of the time it is just that. But there is one use of the word “dead” when applied to your life that can and does add much more ‘life to living’; that is when it’s linked with the word ‘line’, as in the word ‘deadline’.

The origin of the word deadline is very interesting. It came about during the civil war when prisoners were surrounded by barriers or sometimes just simple lines drawn in the dirt. If a prisoner crossed over these, the guards we under orders to shoot them dead! These boundaries were called deadlines.

Now deadlines are used to make the world a more organized and efficient place. They force us to push ourselves a little bit harder to do more and be more. Think about this: If none of us ever died then we probably  would not even have a clue why anyone would want to set time limits or deadlines on themselves, since time would not be much of a consideration or may not even seem to exist, at least when wanting to get things done.  Why? Because we’d never run out of it.

But, of course we all have a limited amount of this thing we call time (remember, the average person lives less than 30,000 days or 720,000 hours) so it’s important to use it wisely and efficiently. Deadlines help us do just that.

Think what the world would be without deadlines. What if we didn’t have deadlines for any or all of the following?

1. Time to start or finish work.
2. Time for school to start or end.
3. Response time on business deals or real estate offers to sell, buy or close a deal.
4. Court deadlines for filing document.
5. Departure or arrival times for airlines, trains or buses.
6. Times or dates by which we want to accomplish goals that we’ve set for ourselves.

So my message for this week, and really a message for a productive and more satisfying life, is this—Always set goals for yourself and be sure to set those deadlines as well so as to push yourself to use your time wisely and more efficiently.   But don’t shoot yourself if you step over the ‘deadline’ a bit. Just re-boot and try again.

 

 

 

It’s About Controllable Assets

I have a few more insights to share with you, hatched from Jeff’s “book report” on my book. On Addendum B–“When a Billionaire Speaks, I Listen” he commented on Curt Carlson’s advice. Jeff said, “Interesting that Fortune Magazine would say over 30 years ago that we’ve seen the last of the billionaires. But, that may be the typical thought of someone with limited thinking or a small world view.  While the oft-quoted statement by the commissioner of the US Patent Office in 1899 said ‘everything that can be invented has been invented’ may not be correctly attributed to him, it tells the same story. Carlson’s advice to get good people, then delegate is certainly right. The big wealth comes from spreading yourself around or at least by using ‘Other People’s Money’.  I always remember Aristotle Onassis, the Greek shipping magnate who married Jackie Kennedy, saying ‘borrow as much money as you can and always pay it back on time.’”

Hey Jeff, that’s some good stuff from your book report!  I think I will have to give you an A+.  I would add to Onassis’s comment about borrowing money with a very critical qualifier.  Yes, borrow as much money as you can but borrow it to purchase the “right kind of stuff” and by the right stuff I mean use it to purchase assets that appreciate in value and ideally assets that also provide you with cash flow returns as you watch and wait for their value to increase.

Yes, many stocks fit those parameters but for my money the assets that have worked by far the best for me have been income producing real estate (and that’s coming from a former successful stock broker.)  Why real estate rather than stocks?  The biggest reason is because with stocks you cannot control the company or the ups and downs and whims of the stock market. With the right kind of real estate you can at least have some degree of control over the property plus all that money you borrowed will, in the long run, be paid back by your tenants and if you have done it right, you will be collecting cash flow along the way.

So the take away here is that Onassis was partially right when he said borrow all the bucks that you can and always pay it back. But I say borrow all the money you can to buy appreciating assets that you have at least some control over, collect cash flow along the way and let your tenants pay off the money that you borrowed! I bet you can see just how smart that is!

 

 

The Principles of Stick-To-It

As mentioned in the last two posts, the comments made by Jeff Rahill in this little “book report” he sent me has really had me thinking about what I wrote in How to Ignite Your Passion for Living. Even the author can use a little reminder here and there! Here are two more sections he pulled out and comments he made about them that highlight two areas particularly important to keep you on task:

In regards to the chapter “Clone Yourself with the Amazing “L” Factor”, Jeff noted that he uses lists himself and has for a while. He wrote, “Yes, I’ve been a prodigious list maker for decades. I switched from the little scraps of paper to my Day-Timer in 1972. ‘The strongest memory is weaker than the palest ink.’ (Write it down!) I update my to-do list every morning (if not the night before).”

And that is the way to do it. Keep creating lists and you will stay on task and succeed.

In regards to the chapter “The Greatest Lesson in Life. Get Going”, Jeff said, “The journey begins with the first step. Nothing happens until you take action. You mentioned the story of Alive, the plane crash survivors in the Andes. What an incredible story. I have seen that movie and still think about it. Nando Parrado took action and his incredible journey saved his friends. ‘When the morning light comes streamin’ in, I’ll get up and do it again.’ (Jackson Brown) Amen.”

This “get going” advice is something that we need to remember and do at every age and stage of our lives. No matter what you want to do, whether it’s goals you have set for your business, family, or personal health, the bottom line is, you just have to GET GOING!

If you’ve follow my blogs for very long you know that I am also a big time fan of counter acting aging by “keeping moving”.  I am 71 in less than two weeks and my “keeping moving” philosophy—as in work outs, tennis and walking—make me feel like I’m 50. (My Fit Bit measured me taking 22,707 steps yesterday–btw that’s 10.54 miles). Bottom line here is we all need to “get going” and keep going which will improve every part of our lives without question! That attitude and well-kept lists will help you Stick-To-It until those goals and dreams are yours.

Small Bites of Motivation

I want to continue with some of the comments made by Jeff Rahill of Kauai that I shared in last week’s post. These were from a letter to me that we jokingly called a “book report” dealing with specific parts of my book, How to Ignite Your Passion for Living, that he thought were particularly helpful.

Here’s some of what he wrote from different sections of the book:

On the subject of “The Bite-Size Miracle” Jeff said, “I definitely believe in achieving your goals, be it long range or the immediate task at hand, by taking it one bite at a time. I remember in the last half of the marathon at Ironman, telling myself that I just had to make it to the next aid station, which were one mile apart. Then I saw the handmade signs on the side of the road: ‘They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.’ Like you said, ‘Action is the key … keep moving.’”

That section of the book dealt with how to accomplish a goal by breaking it down into small goals so that, step by step, you would get accomplish that end goal. This can be used in almost any circumstances where the accomplishment seems too huge to tackle. In the book I used an example of a man who survived and literally dragged himself back from certain death by seeing each few feet he needed to cover to get to his base camp as one small goal. If you can just block out that overwhelming, seemingly impossible picture of the big goal by putting all your focus on the small goal, you can, one tiny goal after another, get yourself to that finish line.

I also really enjoyed Jeff’s comments on ‘The Surefire Way to Stick with Every Goal’ The secret is to know your benefits, reasons and motivations, and write them down.  Jeff adds a bit about his experience in how this relates to keeping fit. He wrote “I’m with you on the subject of fasting.  I’ve been fasting one day a week for over 40 years. It’s part of my health plan. Another part is being a vegetarian for that same period.”  By the way, Jeff looked to be in terrific physical shape and certainly seemed well aware of the benefits and reasons for his fasting choice.

Jeff had a few more choice comments I want to share and reflect on with you but we’ll save them for next time. These two lessons are big ideas that can make all the difference in reaching your goals. If you can just take and apply these to the things you are working towards right now, I bet you’ll see a big difference in just the one week between this post and the next one. Let’s see if that’s true!

A Passionate Book Report

Last week I had lunch at Duke’s on Kalapaki beach in Kauai.  If you have been to Kauai you probably know the place. A friend of mine in Salt Lake City, Tom Roughton, told his cousin, Jeff Rahill, that I was on the island and suggested we have lunch since we both had done extremely well by buying beat up properties and fixing them up.  At the end of our delightful lunch I gave Jeff a copy of my latest book How to Ignite Your Passion for Living and jokingly told him there was a  book report, double-spaced and graded on a curve, due in 2 weeks.  We both laughed but then would you believe, two weeks later there it was a 5 page, single-spaced, book report on my computer screen!

I was very surprised how well it was written and how it was spot on in commenting on the most important points of the book.  Reading Jeff’s comments reignited my own passion.  Of course part of it may have been the fact that he loved my book and that stroked my ego but it also motivated me to refocus on the book’s lessons—to do more, be more and stick with my big goals and even add more goals to my list.

So I thought I’d share with you some of Jeff’s comments and wisdom and see if it stirs you up as well:

“I wanted to tell you that I just finished reading your book and will at least give you my comments–even though it’s not exactly a book report.”

“I’ve believed for many years that goal setting is the key to getting what you want, so your book resonated with me in its premise and in many of the details.”

“’Return to Exuberance.’ Yes, I would like to get back the exuberance I felt at a young age, probably sixth grade, or in my twenties, for me. I agree that the dreams or goals have to be big.”

“’Short Life Needs Big Passion.’ The older we get, the more we realize how short life is.  We are here, and gone, in a speck of time.  I didn’t have a goal as a young person to have a million dollars or anything like that. It wasn’t until I was 25 that I even started to keep track of what I had, and at that point it was more ‘keeping track’ than setting a monetary goal. I kept track of my net worth every year, but didn’t hit one million until I was 50.”

“…..we all need a dream list.  I’ve often put pictures up on my bulletin board, in front of me all day, of the things I like. It keeps me dreaming, and that’s the first step toward it becoming reality.”

Next week I want to share some more of Jeff’s thinking and wisdom from his ‘book report’. Think on these initial comments in the meantime and see if it starts a spark of motivation in you. You can order the book as well right here on our website. Just click!

A Kindness in Flight

A few weeks ago I clicked on my dear friend Richard Paul Evan’s blog and read the story of a flight he was on where he observed a random act of kindness. His story brought tears to my eyes and I wanted to share it with my readers as well. So please click here to read the story. You will be so very glad that you did.

 

Thanks a Billion!

I’ve been talking about the great success of the young university student that started with nothing and ended up with billions of dollars worth of income producing properties but this time,  I thought I would try to tease you into reading,  or re-reading, The Next Step to Waking up the Financial Genius Inside You by posting the thank you letter that Dell Loy Hansen sent me years after reading my book and which now prefaces the Pre-forward of the revised edition. This is just one of many thank you letters I have received and shows you how putting my principles to work really can change your life. :

Dear Mr. Haroldsen:

I have wanted to thank you for many years, but like most people I have not until now. When a friend told me you were going to republish your wonderful book, How to Wake Up the Financial Genius Inside You, I saw my chance to return a favor.

You woke up my “genius” over 25 years ago when I had a $200 VW and a ten-speed bike to my name. I wanted to own real estate to gain cash flow and future value as the mortgage loans paid off, but how? Your simple, straightforward plan allowed me, at 23 years of age, with no credit history or capital beyond a 2 week paycheck, to buy my first two homes for $200 down. I owned those homesf for 12 years them sold them for a $72,000 profit plus the years of cash flow I lived on.

When people ask, “can I still do this?” I smile. I truly believe it is actually easier today with better information, computers, more cash in the economy, and obviously, a great deal more real estate to choose from. I sincerely think I could do “better” today with an average intelligence and above average desire than 25 years ago.

For 25 years, I have pursued your principles and continued to grow in economic strength and knowledge. Today, the group of friends and family that I lead as chief operating partner own over one billion in real estate in Utah, Nevada, and California. The cash flows now exceed my dreams and my friends and family are economically secure and grateful. Life is so fulfilling as my options to travel and do charitable work are part of my every day life.

Thank you a million –or more appropriately, “Thanks a Billion!”

Your grateful student,

Dell Loy Hansen

CEO Wasatch Property Management, Inc.

Okay … did I tease you enough for you to read the book?  You could also do someone a huge favor by giving or sharing the book with them–it could change their life and yours too! Get yourself or a friend a copy here.

 

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