Following the Rules of Law and Honesty

As I mentioned last week, if you really want a fast rise to the top of your financial mountain, you may want to consider bringing on partners. Partners can give you so much more leverage. Sounds simple, right? Well, there is a bit more to it because there are laws that govern when you seek or solicit other people’s money, rules that were put in place to keep investors and their large investments safe.  That’s the first big key item to be aware of when bringing on partners. The second is that you will benefit tremendously from being completely honest as well as understating earnings expectations but I’ll talk more about that in a minute.

What the law says about soliciting other people’s money for your investments varies according to the type of investment. For complex and higher-risk investments, US law requires that the people that you approach must be so-called ‘accredited investors’ or ‘qualified investors’.  They need to have a minimum of a million dollars’ net worth (excluding their residence) or have at least $200,000 dollars in annual income (or $300,000 of joint income) each year in the last couple years to qualify. This law helps to insure these investors are in a position to make large investments as well as being people who should have the knowledge to wisely handling their finances.

You are not required to audit your partners to prove their financial standing but if it’s obvious that a potential investor is fudging their numbers, then you need to use common sense and back away from that investor. There are some lower requirements if you raise money by alternative finance means such as crowdfunding (collecting funds in small amounts from a large number of people) but the total amount of money that you can accept is limited.  Bottom line here is when you are looking for partners you should only approach those people that you are pretty certain qualify under the rules for your country and state. So know the laws that would govern your dealings with investors.

Now, onto the second key item for super success. This is a pretty simple concept but it’s one that far too many people miss out on.  A primary reason this next key item is so important is because it can bring in additional investors without hardly any effort on your part.  And all you have to do is be totally upfront and honest with your partners and never over estimate what the financial return to the investor is going to be.  If anything, under estimate and try to over deliver.  No one minds being surprised that they made more money than they were led to expect they would.

Not long ago, I was looking for a partner to invest in a very secure property that I had found. I was pretty sure I could deliver an 8% annual return on it but I told the investor that I thought the return would be around 7%. So, when I later on delivered an 8% return the investor was so pleased that he told other potential investors about his experience. That is how you get a lot of new investors. It is also the best way to advertise or market your products, if you have any.  The thing to remember is that people will more readily trust someone or be ready to buy from them because someone they know and trust referred them.

So if you are in a hurry to make a lot of money, consider the partner option but follow the rules and take good care of you partners.  The extra bonus to you is that as you help your partners improve their financial status and situation you will receive many thanks and appreciative comments. It is such a great feeling to know that you are helping other people as you help yourself too!

How to Double Your Financial Leverage

Leverage is a great tool you can use to grow very, very wealthy and do it fairly quickly, but there is another faster way to make the financial returns even bigger! I like to call this bigger and better way “Super Duper Leverage” because it really can magnify your return on investments and at a more rapid pace. The method involves bringing a partner or partners in on your deals.

In my early years of investing in real estate, I didn’t have any partners. All the money that was needed on a deal was mine and, of course, there would be the loan from the bank or from the seller of the property. But then I came across a super bargain on a 100 unit apartment building that I just had to have because I knew that it was going to be a huge money maker. The only problem was that I didn’t have enough money for the down payment.

However, as luck would have it, the real estate agent told me she had a friend that could put up a huge part of the down payment. To make a long story short, I put up what I had and this guy, who I’d never met before, living up in Idaho, put up the majority of the down payment.

Fast forward a few years … I sold the property giving the investor/partner hundreds of thousands of dollars’ in profit. The great part about this though, is that I also made the same profit but on my much smaller investment. The return was several times the amount I put in so I was thrilled and not only that, my new partner was happy as a clam, seeing he had put his money into a great deal with a partner that didn’t let him down.

Bottom line is that, with this partner putting up most of the money I was able to achieve a huge return on my investment–a much, much bigger return than I could ever have gotten on my own—and my partner had a big win as well! That’s what I call “Super Duper Leverage”.

If I’d been more aggressive after learning and profiting from the lesson I learned from that great deal, I probably could have kept up with my most successful student and follower, Dell Loy Hansen, who bought my book when he was in college. He eventually found a gold mine of very wealthy partners who, over time, joined him in multimillion dollar deals to the point that Dell now has over a billion dollars’ worth of property. Wow. Talk about “Super Duper Leverage”!

I want to elaborate on this subject more next week and give you some methods and ways to find and keep partners so as to be able to leverage your investments to the max. I’ll also talk about the legal aspects and the caution you need to use so as to do it the right way without legal troubles. You can certainly make a great deal of money with a partner but you also need to do it smart so you keep what you make and can go on to make even bigger and better investments with partners who trust you and keep coming back for more.

 

 

Appreciating Human Beings

My weekly blog started out showing people how to make tons of money–I do know how to do it having made millions of dollars myself. I have also shown thousands of others how to do it and many have gone right out and used that knowledge to make their own fortunes. However, life is about so much more than making money. Having lots of money certainly does give a person a lot more choices and can enhance one’s life and those around them greatly. But the older I get the more clearly I can see the huge and lasting value we get from other human beings.

Imagine for a few minutes what it would be like if you found yourself all alone in your city wondering if you were the only human on the planet earth. How would you function? I mean other than gathering food and finding shelter, what would you do day to day? I think, like most people, I would spend all the rest of my time trying to find other human beings.

I don’t know about you but I think I would go absolutely crazy after a while if I didn’t find anyone else! Yet, I think it’s so very easy for most of us to take other human beings for granted and not fully realize how very important other people are to our lives. Other people give our lives so much meaning and happiness and push us to do great things. And let’s not forget about the love that we receive and have the chance to give to so many others. Can you imagine doing something utterly fantastic with an invention or an accomplishment and wanting to tell or show someone what you’ve done but there is nobody around for you to share it with?

I couldn’t help but think of Tom Hanks in the wonderful movie Castaway where he ended up on a deserted island and his only so-called friend is a Wilson ball that floats ashore that he constantly has conversations with just like it was another person. It just shows how desperately we need other people.

I think we all need to take time and observe and appreciate the fact that we need other people. And I’m, not talking about just people we know and love but also total strangers and even people we don’t like. If you thought you were the only person left on the earth and you came across another person, I think you would be absolutely thrilled even if that person wasn’t very likeable. Being all alone really can be miserable. The prison system knows that and uses solitary confinement as a huge punishment.

Ever since I began thinking about being the only person on earth and all the implications of living that way, I’ve really started appreciating other people–even people I really don’t care for. When I’m around those people I sometimes find miserable and ornery I quickly choose to think that if I had their upbringing and past life I’d probably be an ol’ grouch just like they are, but they still are human beings and they are important to all of us and the world.

So yes, I will continue to blog and try to share what I know about making millions but I want you to know that I greatly appreciate other human beings and I am going to work harder to go out of my way to show and demonstrate that appreciation.

 

Small Things and Metrics for Increased Mojo

I’ve got a little bit more to share with you about building your Mojo—that level of happiness and zest for life you have. As I mentioned in the last couple posts, there are a number of things you can do to greatly increase your Mojo as described by Marshal Goldsmith in his book MOJO, How to Get it, How to Keep it and How to Get it Back.

One particularly great Mojo builder for me is to be proactive and make things happen that can lead to greater happiness and more fulfillment in your life. For instance, the other day I asked my old friend Lynn Lehmann to go to lunch. Lynn is a great guy and has done many big things in his life including being a talented radio announcer and both writing and producing for TV. At lunch, our conversation and interaction raised my Mojo by stimulating my mind and enhancing the friendship we have. I think the meeting helped increase his Mojo as well.

In this case, having a great conversation was a relatively small thing I did to increase my Mojo but it only happened because I made it happen. Being proactive by asking people to go to lunch, planning a party, or setting up a golf or tennis outing is pretty simple and the interaction can do wonders for your Mojo.

Another trick that helps all of us improve our Mojo is to use metrics. Metrics are measurements of our progress and, yes, even our failures. Goldsmith says, “We all employ personal metrics to measure our progress during the day. If we’re on a diet, our metric is stepping on the bathroom scale each morning. If we’re trying to quit smoking, we’ll count the number of cigarettes we light up each day. If we’re training for a marathon, we’ll track our weekly mileage. If a number can be attached to it, we’ll measure it. The most pervasive metric, of course, involves money: how much of it we’re earning, how much we’ve saved, how much others are earning, and so on.”

Goldsmith goes to say that, for the most part, we tend to ignore and not measure the negative stuff that is not to our liking and that’s not good for us. He suggests that measuring the “bad numbers” is precisely what we need to do more often. Measuring only positive progress is like surrounding ourselves with sycophants as it is “good for the ego perhaps but not the most accurate picture of how we’re doing.”

So my bottom line advice is for all of us to be more proactive and to start using metrics of both the positive and negative things to see how it ramps up our Mojo. Then next week we’ll talk about Goldsmith’s great advice when it comes to having another person give you feedback and how it greatly increases your chances of success.

 

Talking Yourself into Great Mojo

Last week I introduced you to a terrific book by Marshal Goldsmith entitled MOJO, How to Get it, How to Keep it and How to Get it Back. Mojo is basically your happiness factor, your zest for living and your feeling of fulfillment. There are a few secrets that can help you get your Mojo back if you’ve lost it, or increase your Mojo if you want to have even more of it.
Some of these methods of are from Goldsmith’s book and some are from my own experience. From his book, Marshal says “When we define ourselves by saying we are deficient at some activity, we tend to create the reality that proves our definition.” I’ve said for years that I am no good at doing the details of anything. Saying that so much to myself and to other people cements this belief in my mind. Then I go on to prove that I was right. However, according to the book, Mojo, I can change that.

Goldsmith makes a big point about this. He says that if we want to change ourselves, we need to ask ourselves who we want to become in the future and/or what we want to accomplish then if we want to become that person we can.

So how do we change ourselves and increase our Mojo? There are several ways to do it. One way is by simply changing our self-talk, what I also call that chatter box inside our head. We need to start saying the positive things that we want to do and become.

I’ve started telling myself that I’m becoming better at detail stuff and I’ve notice a change for the good. Another negative thought that I’m working on is to be more decisive, because as they say, ‘making a bad decision sometimes is better than indecision.’ So I am pushing myself to be more decisive. I’m also working on a lifetime habit of telling myself that I’m no good at fixing things. That’s going to change and, believe me, my wife will love that.

Mojo Insights

Last week my wife and I hopped on a non-stop flight to London spending a few great days there in a hotel right by the Thames river and the London Eye.  We were also only 2 blocks away from all that Parliament action and the Brexit vote for Great Britain leaving the EU so it was a fairly historical moment to be there. Then we were off to Paris on the wonderful 200 mile-per-hour Eurostar train under the English Channel. It is such a smooth ride and we had such superb views of the English and French countryside and villages. The whole trip was wonderful but the beautiful ride and great times in London and Paris would not have been nearly as wonderful and fulfilling without the incredible book that my son gave me for Father’s day.

The book he gave me is called Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back If You Lose It by Marshall Goldsmith. It re-opened my eyes to things I already knew but, like so many people, I had not been paying attention to or acting on. The mojo that Marshall is talking about is that positive spirit that speaks to what we are doing now, the spirit that starts from the inside and radiates to the outside. Mojo is at its peak when we are experiencing both happiness and meaning in what we are doing and when we communicate these experiences to the world around us.

Let me give you a few “factors”, as the author calls them, that jumped out at me and motivated me to again look at myself.  He asks 4 questions and, of course, in the book he addresses each one of them with some very good answers. They are listed categorically:

“Our professional and personal Mojo is impacted by …”

1. Identity (Who do you think you are?)
2. Achievement (What have you done lately?)
3. Reputation (Who do other people think you are–and what have you done lately?)
4. Acceptance (What can you change–and when do you need to just “let it go?)

Those questions really got me thinking and I took a much deeper look at myself because I really have lost some of my Mojo. So much of my identity is based on what I was years ago and what I did then.  But the good news is that whoever we are now we can change if we really want to as long as we are willing to look at ourselves deeply and fairly.

Here are 2 other great points he makes that are very powerful and helpful. Marshal says, “…worrying about the past and being anxious about the future can easily destroy our Mojo. This sort of thinking afflicts the high and low, the rich and the poor, the achievers and the struggling.”  The other point has to do with a way to regain your lost Mojo, encompassed by the simple statement “Forgive yourself for being who you are.” In other words, we all need to work on our acceptance of others and of ourselves. He goes on to say, “I am in no way suggesting that you should not try to create change and try to make the world a better place. I am suggesting that you change what you can and let go of what you cannot change.”

Next week, I will to continue to give you some other wonderful insights into our Mojo from Marshall’s book and talk about what we can do to make it that much better. In the meantime, answer the questions you see here and see what insights come to you from this simple exercise.

 

 

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?

 

Risk is Not for Herds

Last week I talked about risk taking and how the willingness to take risk when it comes to investing is critical.  Those people who really want to attain Financial Freedom or FF need to look at themselves to determine their tolerance for risk.

As a real estate investor working towards achieving FF, it’s important to understand your own temperament, and your ability to assume that element of risk.  It’s important to know your limitations and not torment yourself with sleepless nights by taking unnecessary risks in trying to keep up with others whose capacity to assume risk might be much greater than yours.  This decision may slow you down on the road to FF, but what is FF without some enjoyment, comfort and happiness along the way?

Everyone has a level and a threshold for tolerance and excessive and unnecessary risk will only create anxiety and tension and may well shorten your life.  So take a hard look at yourself and measure how much risk are you willing to take that doesn’t make you worry you to the point of causing pain, anxiety and suffering in your life.

But keeping in mind our objective, achieving FF, it is important to remember that the greater the potential risk the greater the inherent reward will be. It is also almost impossible to avoid every risk at any one time in selecting an investment. In order to achieve and maintain high rates of return, which are critical for achieving total FF, one must be prepared both mentally and emotionally to incur a higher than average risk. So look hard at yourself and measure how much risk you can handle.

Remember that “eagles don’t fly together in flocks.”  So if you are going to make it big you can’t just go along with the flock or the herd.  If you earnestly desire to achieve FF today, you must learn to assemble all the facts, calculate the risks, be decisive, and then act accordingly.  Statistics and history prove that the majority of people fail to ever become FF because they do not have a specific plan. They are content and willing to wait patiently throughout their lifetime for Social Security or they are looking for that one super great investment or the lucky lottery number to suddenly become super rich.  Don’t follow those kinds of people. Work on your plan that will take you to total FF over a reasonable period of time and you will reach the level of Financial Freedom that you set as your goal.

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