Article - Retire Rich: Learn from someone who did

Retire Rich: Learn from someone who did (click here for original article)
By Walter Updegrave, Money Magazine senior editor

January 2 2008: 10:02 AM EST

NEW YORK (Money Magazine) -- When Henry "Bud" Hebeler was winding down his career at Boeing nearly 20 years ago, he was appalled at the advice he got from retirement planning software.

"The assumptions about returns, inflation, longevity and expenses were highly simplistic," says the 74-year-old Hebeler. With his engineering degrees from MIT and his experience - first as Boeing's chief forecaster and planner and later as president of Boeing Aerospace - Hebeler figured he could do better.

He has. His Web site, AnalyzeNow.com, is a compendium of advice and tools (mostly free) that can help you tackle topics ranging from how to create a retirement budget to whether to buy an annuity.

What distinguishes Hebeler from the typical retirement "expert" is that he combines a strong quantitative background with real-life retirement experience - his own and that of fellow retirees.

Hebeler took time out from his hectic schedule of skiing, golf, travel and running a site to share his thoughts.

Q. What's the most popular misconception about retirement planning?

A. That your spending will drop as you age and you become less active. My father played golf until he was 95. My wife and I are in our seventies and we ski the expert slopes at Park City, Utah.

My friends who have reduced their spending didn't do so because of lack of energy or physical ability. It doesn't take much effort to get into a taxi and go to the theater. They're cutting back because they know they're going to live longer than they thought they would. They spent too much too early and now they're worried about running out.

Q. So what can you do to assure that your money will last?

A. If you have enough savings to live on, consider delaying taking Social Security until full retirement age or even later. Holding off can be especially worthwhile if you have a spouse who didn't work or had a low income, since the higher payment you get by waiting can be passed on to your spouse when you die.

I also think retirees should consider putting some, but not all, of their money in an immediate annuity. Look at inflation-adjusted immediate annuities, since they provide a lifetime income that, like Social Security, goes up with inflation.

Q. How did your work at Boeing influence the advice you give?

A. It made me more conservative. In business you see how often things don't work out as you planned. Projects cost more to complete than you estimated.

The same is true of retirement, but retirement plans seldom call for setting aside reserves for unforeseen events. There are a lot of surprises, usually more bad ones than good.

Q. What kinds of surprises?

A. For one thing, your expenses are likely to be very different in retirement than during your career. Things that were probably covered by your company insurance - dental work, vision care, a variety of medical tests - typically aren't paid for by Medicare. My hearing aids alone cost $6,000, which wasn't covered at all.

People also don't anticipate the impact of inflation. In the first 10 years of my retirement, the purchasing power of my company pension declined by 30%. And then there are obligations people rarely plan for, such as having to help parents or adult children who are struggling financially.

Q. If you could advise people to do just one thing to improve their retirement prospects, what would it be?

A. People who aren't retired need to know how much to save. My father used to tell me that you should always save at least 10% of your income.

That's more like 15% to 20% today because you're less likely to have a pension.

The Best of Bud

1. Don't assume all will go as expected. Build a safety margin into your planning.
2. Enjoy yourself but don't overspend early in retirement. You may especially want to scale back spending during market downturns so your nest egg has a chance to rebound.
3. Consider delaying Social Security until you reach at least full retirement age. The higher payment will be a good inflation hedge later in retirement.
4. Think about putting some money into an annuity, particularly if you think you'll live longer than the average person.

Who in the world is entrepreneurial?

Good article from CNN. Basically there are many barriers for entrepreneurs in the world market from taxes, bureaucracy, perception on failing (which is part of success), to peer or family stigmas attached to starting and operating a business. Many entrepreneurs are coming from China especially with focus on materialism.

Read:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/fsb_archive/2007/06/01/100049637/index.htm?postversion=2007060109

6 Secrets of Successful Immigrants

by Marilyn Lewis (reposted from http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Extra/6SecretsOfSuccessfulImmigrants.aspx)

Ever wonder how some immigrants who arrive in this country with nothing can work their way into the middle class in one generation?

Immigrant entrepreneurs are the fastest-growing segment of small-business owners today, says a report on the future of small business by Intuit and the Palo Alto, Calif., Institute for the Future. That's partly because immigrants have few options: U.S. jobs usually go to those fluent in the English language and American culture.

Yet immigrants also have gifts that prime them for success:

• They see this country with fresh eyes, spotting chances others miss. Many find that though the U.S. playing field is not entirely level, it still is possible to start from scratch and wind up owning a home and sending children to college.
• Many possess excellent free university educations from countries where they could not put their training to use because of high unemployment, corruption or class or ethnic barriers.
• They rely on family and on huge amounts of hard work, are averse to debt and use informal networks of relatives and acquaintances over banks and lawyers to help them exploit opportunities.
• Some credit poverty with training them in frugality and freeing them from aspirations for an expensive home, car and lifestyle.

Every month in 2005, about 350 of every 100,000 immigrants started businesses -- compared with 280 native-born Americans, according to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Index of Entrepreneurial Activity. Many fail, but others hang on or try again, eventually launching a better life.

Here are six lessons gleaned from the lives of three immigrant entrepreneurs:

Lesson 1: Reinvent yourself

Kamal Dergham, 47, arrived in the U.S. in 1979 to study mechanical engineering and eventually trained to trouble-shoot commercial air-conditioning systems. Through seven years of study he worked long hours for low wages at a Lebanese fast-food restaurant. He held every job, from cook to dishwasher to cashier, learning the business inside and out.

In 1989, after many difficulties, his big break came, not in his field but when a relative abandoned a failing restaurant, turning over the keys to Dergham at no cost.

Kamal Dergham arrived in the U.S. in 1979 and trained as a mechanical engineer until he saw an opportunity in a relative's failed restaurant.

For six months, Dergham made no money, only friends. Standing outside the restaurant, he chatted with merchants, strangers and passing children, a few of whom eventually ventured inside to try "American food with a Lebanese humbleness."

Today his Pita Delite restaurant chain, based in Greensboro, N.C., has six locations, three of them franchises.

Dergham's refusal to be defined by training or tradition is typical of successful immigrant entrepreneurs, says Carolyn Ockels, a partner in Bay Area market research company Emergent Research. "Don't define yourself narrowly," advises Ockels, pointing to her manicurist, a lawyer in Vietnam who launched a successful chain of nail salons when thwarted by a lack of credentials and language skills.

Lesson 2: Take a chance

Immigrants are risk-takers by definition. Like Dergham, "people who immigrate generally are more achievement-oriented," says Abdul Rasheed, professor of strategic management and international business at the University of Texas at Arlington. "That's why they are here in the first place."

Without money for restaurant food supplies, Dergham, his wife, mother, father and younger brother cooked each day's menu from supplies on hand, using the day's meager receipts to buy for the next day. They shared a two-bedroom apartment, crowded by American standards but roomy to Dergham, in whose childhood home in Lebanon six children had slept "head to tail" in three beds.

He worked 13-hour days and six-day weeks: "Pita Delite was my boss. I did not feel like I owned the business. I feel like I'm working for it," he says.

Summoning strength for sacrifices typifies self-made millionaires, says Alan Lavine. He and Gail Liberman wrote "Rags to Riches: Motivating Stories of How Ordinary People Achieved Extraordinary Wealth!" He tells of Lisa Renshaw, who founded her multimillion-dollar Penn Parking at age 21 by buying a parking garage and living in it for three years while growing the business.

"In developing economies, you try things because you don't have a choice," says Ockels. "The failure rate might be higher in those economies, but there is more small-business generation."

Lesson 3: Work, work, work

Sheela Murthy heads a 60-person law firm near Baltimore and grosses millions of dollars a year, enabling her to indulge her greatest pleasure, charitable giving. She arrived from India in 1985, dead broke and 24. She had, however, a secret weapon: her willingness to work long hours.

"I can work 18 hours a day and really turn it out," she says. "I am very ambitious."

In the U.S., hard work produces "immediate results," unlike back home in her day where, she says, no one -- least of all a woman -- could get established without connections. (Intuit's study finds immigrant women start businesses at a rate almost twice that of native-born American women.)

Murthy came from a middle-class family, but there was no money for indulgences. She worked full time while attending a free government university and law school. Stellar performance in an international competition propelled her into a Harvard Law School graduate program. She worked full time as a campus security guard while studying and saving.

Lesson 4: Fill a void

Murthy's rise exemplifies the tendency of immigrants to spot and fill unmet needs, particularly in their own communities. Murthy's Harvard degree immediately gained her a $70,000 job as a corporate lawyer, but she hated the atmosphere. She needed to know she was helping people. Searching for a specialty, she recalled the poor job her own immigration lawyer had done. Other newcomers, she realized, needed trustworthy help with complex American immigration laws.

Nine years after arriving, she went solo. The pool of clients in Baltimore was limited, but her volunteer column on immigration law for a nonprofit newsletter generated a huge response, telling her that the Internet might reach new clients everywhere.

Today Murthy, 45, serves corporations, nonprofits, small businesses and individuals all over the world and continues volunteering advice through her popular Web site, newsletter and online chats. She says her foundation gave $600,000 last year and $800,000 this year to charity.

Lesson 5: Network with others like yourself

Anatoly was 21 in 1995 when he left Russia for business school in America. It was a big leap: He had no money, and his student visa's terms forbade him from taking a job. But, in the post-perestroika turmoil, Russians were desperate for Western cars and tools. Before he left he distributed his e-mail address and cell-phone number far and wide, telling people, "Make sure you guys call me first if you need anything, if you need nice SUVs -- anything."

He financed two MBAs -- in international business and information technology -- by filling orders from friends, acquaintances and strangers, marking up cars $1,500 or $2,000. (Lest his exports get him into immigration trouble, he agreed to be interviewed using only his first name.) Like Murthy and Dergham, he spotted a void and filled it.

Immigrants without access to local language, capital or cultural acumen turn to networks of their countrymen for training, financing, advice and customers. Surprising trust develops. Anatoly once received a phone call from a Russian businessman living in Turkey whose friend in Russia had purchased a car from Anatoly. The stranger ordered a white Chrysler Town & Country minivan and immediately wired $32,000 in cash to Anatoly's bank account.

Lesson 6: Despise debt, scrimp and save

People who have witnessed economic catastrophe firsthand tend to squirrel away money. "When the rainy day comes, which happens more often overseas than here, you have only yourself to rely on," says Anatoly. Like Dergham and Murthy, he is a fanatical saver.

Now 32, Anatoly has finished school, gotten a green card and married a Russian engineer. Recently, they became parents. He works at a nonprofit, designing complex accounting and administration systems. He makes $51,000 a year, yet he estimates he saves at least 40% before taxes. His wife can't yet work -- she's waiting impatiently for a green card. Still, they bought a house last year, just five years after he began his job, using a down payment earned partly from reselling garage-sale finds on eBay.

"I am fortunate to have a wife who is very disciplined," he says. "She . . . is even more than me into being debt-free." Their new goal: a duplex rental property.

Dergham says he has capable American friends whose success is undermined by spending habits: "They make half of what I make but live 10 times better than I do."

Starting from scratch is tough anywhere, yet it can be done. "You must be your own boss to make money," Dergham says, "and this country gives a great opportunity. There is no country in the world like that."

Published Sept. 11, 2007

There are 3 Types of People in the World - Which one are YOU?

This is sent to me by a friend who is readying, firing, and aiming :) This was made for someone who is into bodybuilding.

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1) The ones who say they're going to accomplish something yet they never even attempt it.

They talk the talk and never walk the walk. They spend their lives making excuses for their problems and never actually getting off of their asses to do something about it.

They will waste their years wishing but never having. They will resent and criticize those who succeed because they know that they will never succeed themselves.

They lack willpower and discipline. They are doomed to a life of mediocrity but will never accept responsibility for this.

2) The ones who say they're going to accomplish something, attempt it, and quit soon thereafter.

They talk the talk, begin to walk the walk, but fall down in exhaustion, never reaching their goals or enjoying the fruits of their labour on any kind of long term basis.

They lack patience. They lack perseverance. They too will never stand among the elite and will struggle time and time again but continually fall short.

They deserve some credit for their attempts at success, but simply do not possess the tools needed to follow through.

3) The ones who say they're going to accomplish something, form a blueprint for how they will get there, and then, quite simply, they get there.

They make firm decisions that contain no hints of "maybe" or "try". They understand that there are 2 possible outcomes in any decision: success or failure. They crave success, and they will do anything they have to do to achieve it.

When they make a decision to accomplish something, they already know that they will succeed. They don't question their ability to achieve a goal, they only question the time that it will take to get there.

They understand that within their minds lies all of the tools necessary to accomplish anything in the external world. They have faith in their talents and beliefs and truly feel that they can accomplish anything they want.

They make no excuses. They understand that they are in complete and total control of their destiny, and that every man and woman is responsible for their own lives.

They are ready and willing to battle through setbacks, physical and mental pain, discomfort and exhaustion. They know that anything worth having does not come easy, and that no man or woman ever achieved anything great without a struggle.

They are willing to struggle to be great.

They never fail in the long run. They only experience momentary setbacks and bumps in the road. When a setback or bump in the road presents itself, they form a plan for how they will get past it.

They don't stop, stare and question whether to quit or keep going. Quitting is not an option in their minds, and they thrive on the battle and understand that setbacks and mistakes serve no other purpose than to make their inevitable victory that much sweeter.

They see the big picture.

And when the smoke clears and dust settles, they stand among the elite. They soak up the satisfaction of their victories and look back on their accomplishments with a feeling of pride and fulfillment. They gain the respect and envy of others and know that they deserve it.

Which category do you fall under?

True success is only reserved for category 3.

It is an ongoing battle that does not lend itself to those who seek instant gratification. It will not be had by those who are unwilling to dedicate themselves to a goal and work hard to achieve it.

If you have any doubts about your ability to succeed, eliminate them.

Dissolve your questioning, your fears and your wondering.

Make firm decisions for what you want to achieve, create a map for how to get there, and then... quite simply, get there.

Only when your decisions contain questions of "when can I reach this goal" rather than "will I reach this goal" will you ever truly succeed both in bodybuilding and in life.

I can't make the decision for you, I can only teach you how to get there. Your choice comes from within, and not a single person in this world can make those choices but you.

Written by Sean Nalewanyj

Facing Foreclosure: Casey Serin's Story on Making Mistakes in the REI Game

Here is a story I caught on wikipedia.org:

http://iamfacingforeclosure.com

Casey Serin: I'm a 24 yr old "would-be real estate mogul" from Sacramento CA. After going to a few seminars I bought 8 houses in 8 months in 4 states with no money down looking to fix 'n flip. I made some mistakes and am now millions in debt, trying to avoid foreclosure, sell quickly, repay everyone, and share my lessons to help others in trouble.

World's Greatest Real Estate Investor - Tom Barrack !

Why the World's Best Real Estate Investor is Cashing Out?

Good article
http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/21/news/newsmakers/barrack/index.htm

Success Key # 1: Persistence

In your business, there are going to be times that you simply don't feel like getting up and doing
real estate... PERIOD.

Then, there are going to be other times that you have a heart to heart conversation with the person
staring back at you in the mirror. It might go something like this:

"What are you doing? Did you REALLY think you could do this? Maybe you should cut your losses
and try something else..."

This conversation could go on for minutes, hours or even days at a time. And trust me, these
conversations WILL HAPPEN from time to time if you're in the business long enough (in any
business for that matter).

I remember back about 4 years ago... I was sitting on my couch perched under my front window. I had
just discovered that I'd had 5 break ins in 3 days on 2 out my 3 properties. Yep... that's right.

I felt like laughing and crying all at the same time. I looked out the window, up and down the
street and thought to myself, "What the heck have you gotten yourself into?" I just wanted a way out.
I wanted to quit and go get a job waiting tables.

But, what made the difference? How did I get past that point and ultimately skyrocket from it?

It was 3 fold: Decision, Persistence, and Planning.

I'll talk to you a little more about decision and planning in the next couple days (it'll all make
sense in a couple of days, trust me :-))

But for now... let's talk about how we can persist when things get tough. Here are 5 Tips to get you
started:

TIP #1
First, you need to close all doors behind you. There is no longer any back door; any "way out".
Commit to this business and commit to giving it everything that you have. You see, if you give it
every effort - every REAL effort.

So many times, we stick our big toe in the water and decide it's not for us or it doesn't work.
Jump in as if you're out in the middle of the ocean and you need to get yourself back to the
shore... no life rope... no floatation device...

Your only option is to learn to swim - and do it fast. Now, I'm not suggestion quit your job if you
are using it to pay your bills, but I a suggesting that you STOP looking for the new magic pill.

That is committment and it's going all in. It is no longer a matter of "if I can do real estate".
It becomes a matter of "when" and "how". (The good news is this... with a short time of hard work,
you'll be free to go and explore new opportunities with the confidence that you CAN do it)

A good friend of mine, Armand Morin, says that "success leaves traces". I believe failure does too!
So why not become successful rather than fail!

TIP#2
Next, you need to plaster your "WHY" all over the place. I know you've heard it 1000 times before,
but have you done it? Can you see, touch, taste, hear and smell the reasons that you are doing
this? If not, when the going gets tough, you'll quit going!

Start living the life you want to have on a small scale. If your dream is more time with your kids,
build in an extra hour each week NOW and start experiencing it. It will keep you going. If your
why is to travel, start taking one day trips once a month. They don't have to cost a lot, but
they let you experience what it's like to start living the way you want to.

TIP #3
Stop what you are doing and WRITE OUT YOUR GOALS. Do this before January 1st. Do it now! You need
to know where you're going if you're going to get there. Now, don't sit here at your computer and
jot them down in notepad.

Get a real notebook out. Grab your favorite pen and go to a quiet area and WRITE. Something happens
when you take the time to write out your goals. Then, make a dozen copies of your goals and keep
them with you. Maybe even make your goals your screensaver on your computer. Never let them leave
your side and read them every day.

TIP #4
Set your "real estate" hours. It doesn't matter what you have on your plate (job, family, other
businesses,etc.). You need to block time out for your real estate business. It may be 10-12 every
day or it may be 6pm-8pm every night. But it is important you do it consistently.

Use this time to write your marketing letters, to call potential sellers, to follow up on deals, to
do what it takes to get the leads coming in. This eliminates excuses. You have it set on your
schedule. You don't think about it. Nothing gets in the way to allow you to make your excuses. And
let's face it, 99% of the reason you're not where you want to be is an excuse. Sure, it may be
disguised as a valid reason, but rest assured there are only a few things that are REAL reasons you're
not as successful as you could be.

Think about it...

Money?
You haven't taken the time to learn how to do the business WITHOUT your own money. I didn't have two
nickels to rub together when I got started

Time?
Make it. If you can tell me that you don't have 2 hours/day (12 hours/week that you can dig up), you
don't want to. If you're letting your kids be your excuse for not having time, you're looking at it
the wrong way! Teach your kids the entreprenuerial mindset. Involve them and build it together.

See... it's all how you look at it and if you really want it bad enough.

The list can go on and on, but 99% of the time, there is a solution. For that 1% of the time that
there is not, I understand. And you need to take the time to deal with those life challenges. And
in my opinion, even those life challenges can be excuses sometimes.

TIP#5
Build your support team. I am NOT suggesting to call all your friends and family here. These may NOT be
the right people. In fact, when I was starting, I  had a partner and we had our best friend over the
house. She literally looked us square in the eye and asked, "Do you REALLY think anyone's going to take
YOU TWO seriously?"

The sad thing is that she thought she was HELPING us and keeping us from getting crushed.

So, sometimes, you need to step outside of your sphere and find new people that share the same ideas,
values and enthusiasm that you have.

I look back to my everyday circle of influence when I started and compare it to my circle of influence
now and it's not made up of one single person that was there back then. This is possibly the hardest
part of the business! Letting go of the old to make room for the new.

The good news is that the people I made room for are like an extended family that spans all over the
United States and beyond. I couldn't hand pick better people. These are people that I met by
going to seminars, workshops, and events and networking with people all over. From these groups,
we've build mastermind teams that get together once a week.

This keeps you going... it keeps you upbeat and motivated to press on. It keeps you focused. Here's
what you do:

- What have you done in the last 7 days for your business?
- What is holding you back or what do you need help on to take the next steps?
- What are you going to do between now and the next time you get together?

This works the very best if you have a coach facilitating the process with your mastermind team,
but can be done with just a group of people as well.

It holds you accountable to someone other than yourself and forces you to stick with it.

So, take today and focus yourself. Write down your goals, make a committment to your business in the
new year, and start looking for a coach and a mastermind team to get you to the next level.

I've had many mentors in my businesses and have paid 10s of 1000s of dollars (no exaggeration) to
build relationships. In fact, several years ago, I spent $16,000 without even knowing what all was
involved, but I knew I wanted the relationship and the team that was being developed. I committed to
that aspect of my business and have seen my return 10 fold and it's still growing.

In fact, some of the people I met as a result of that investment are now partners of mine in
6-figure companies with huge potential.

Tomorrow, I want to discuss "planning" with you.We're at the end of a year, just days away from the
new year and if you've not gotten your plan set up, what are you waiting for?

So again, take today and get the big rocks planned so that tomorrow we can start planning!

Yours in Success,
Heather Seitz
www.InterviewsWithTheExperts.com
www.FixingAndFlipping.com
www.MotivatedSellerMarketing.com
www.RehabProfitSystem.com
www.Yamon.net
www.NextLevelPromoters.com
www.BigSeminar.net

Heather Seitz is a licensed Realtor® in the state of Florida. Heather
specializes in working with investors, golf communities and old Spanish
homes.

Reproduced with permission.

Credit Repair ?

Here is information on credit repair:

FTC (US Government)
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/repair.htm

What it Takes to be GREAT !

Interesting read for you:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/10/30/8391794/index.htm

Here are some quotes to note:

"So greatness isn't handed to anyone; it requires a lot of hard work."

"Instead, it's all about how you do what you're already doing - you create the practice in your work, which requires a few critical changes. The first is going at any task with a new goal: Instead of merely trying to get it done, you aim to get better at it."

"Again, research shows that this difference in mental approach is vital. For example, when amateur singers take a singing lesson, they experience it as fun, a release of tension. But for professional singers, it's the opposite: They increase their concentration and focus on improving their performance during the lesson. Same activity, different mindset."

"Through the whole process, one of your goals is to build what the researchers call "mental models of your business" - pictures of how the elements fit together and influence one another. The more you work on it, the larger your mental models will become and the better your performance will grow."

"Do it regularly, not sporadically."

"... the striking, liberating news is that greatness isn't reserved for a preordained few. It is available to you and to everyone."

My Top 10 Things that a Newbie Should Do to get Started in the Real Estate Business

Buyer Beware: There are more than 10 top things.

However, here is MY Top 10 list of things a newbie should do to get started in this business:

1) Read EVERYTHING available to you that is free at the library about Creative Real Estate investing, even if the book is old.

2) Read AS MUCH AS YOU CAN while drinking coffee at Barnes & Noble. Buy what interests you and you can afford.

3) Find and join a local (or as local as you can get) Real Estate Investment Club. Look at http://www.nationalreia.com/ to help find one.

4) Call every one of the "We Buy Houses" ads in you local newspapers and talk to the investor. Offer to buy him/her lunch for 30-60 minutes of their time while you pick their brain and explain your current situation.

5) Do an in depth analysis of your current and short term (1 year) financial situation. You need to know a) how much cash you have available immediately to help you find and close deals. This is money that you DO NOT NEED to help pay your bills or feed your face. What is your borrowing capacity, ie Credit score, non-liquid assets that have equity to use as collateral, etc.

6) Using what you have learned above, cultivate relationships with one or two mortgage brokers, bankers, real estate agents.

7) Start a basic business plan targeting only one or two areas of investing, it rehabs, wholesales, flips, subject to's, whatever floats your boat. You'll know what these mean after you do steps 1-4.

My advice to newbies that don't have great credit and large cash reserves: start by flipping (wholesaling). This is where you get a property under contract and "flip" or assign it to another investor.
Advantages: Fast payday, little risk, gets you in the game while you learn more.

Get Bill Bronchick's course "Flipping". It has everything you need to get started. How to do the business, some marketing ideas, all the contracts and forms you'll need. Other than Flipping, make sure you spend significant time on your exit strategies - this is where you realize the profit. Have this in place. Are you going to be a long term hold landlord, or a 3 months rehab and sell flipper, or a wholesaler that never takes title, or.... You get the picture. While you make your profit when you buy, you don't realize it until you sell.

8) Develope a marketing plan. Of all 10 items I list, this is one of the most important. You can spend all kinds of time learning about creative real estate and
how to structure deals, but if you can't find a deal, you are just swimming in acedemia. It must be a 2-sided plan. First part on how to FIND deals, Part Two on Exit Strategy Marketing.

I suggest Ben Innes-Ker's course, "Motivated Seller Magnet". It is inexpensive, and contains truly valuable materials so you don't have to start from scratch, especially if you don't have a marketing degree.

9) Start calling and visiting prospective sellers. Don't worry about making mistakes. Learn from them. If you think you've got a hot one, call on one or more
of your new friends from Step 6.

10) Do your first Deal! Now your hooked like a meth addict. Welcome to the Club.

Dutch
Oklahoma

Helping Homeowners in Central Oklahoma
STOP FORECLOSURE / SAVE YOUR HOME / SAVE YOUR CREDIT
http://www.OKHomesavers.com
We Pay CASH for Referrals!!

I got this from my daily readings on business and I thought it was very true. Working as an entrepreneur or any type of worthy productive activity - Leadership is required. I feel that many times my perception of leadership to get everyone involved is more important than leading people in a good direction. I find when I am not clear about my vision / intentions then the result becomes muddled and inconsistent. Leadership requires having a clear vision and it makes things better. At this time I have been working with a staff in the Cashflow group in NYC. It has been at times pulling teeth as many don't seem to want to be a leader. They want to follow. This also happens in my business. If I do move and grow then the business doesn't move and grow.
It is so true to get people motivated and willing to work. It comes from within first.

____________________________________________________________

"Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it."

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Two Myths About Leadership

By Michael Masterson

Did you know that the average age of the people who write for Forbes, Fortune, Business Week, and The Wall Street Journal is something like 29 years old?

Don't get me wrong. I read these publications. And I understand the necessity of hiring young, inexperienced writers. But because I have been on the inside of the business-publishing world, I'm skeptical about what I read in the business press ... and especially so about advice that is given.

Such is the case with the advice I read about leadership. For the most part, the ideas seem wrong to me. They don't correspond to anything I've experienced myself, and they don't equate with practices I've seen as a consultant to business owners.

It's not a conspiracy. It's the process that's the problem. I know how secondhand information works. It gets misunderstood, oversimplified, and distorted. And if that's not bad enough, it also gets cleaned up, edited, prettified. Not, in the latter case, by the writers, but by the experts who are being interviewed. (When asked about the secret to his success, what business leader wouldn't want to give motivating credit to his troops?)

Good business writers know how to recognize an interesting idea and present it in a clear, convincing manner. That is good - so long as the idea itself is good. But if the idea is wrong ... then the good writing only serves to waste your time (or do you harm).

There are a lot of myths about leadership floating around out there. And if you take those myths as truth, you can seriously damage your business. Let's take a closer look at two of them, find out why they're wrong ... and what techniques the REAL leaders use.

MYTH #1: "Soft" Leadership Skills Work

I once read an article in which a spokesman for Office Team, a business consulting firm, said "If companies want to be successful in the future, they'll have to adopt soft leadership skills." By this, he meant that you should be listening to your employees, sharing feelings with them, and keeping an open mind "to all kinds of ideas - even bad ones."

If you don't learn these soft skills, the consultancy says, you will be in trouble. Because these softer skills will soon "completely replace the older, harder skills of planning, persuasion, and discipline." Office Team says: "The future office environment won't allow for command-and-control focused management style. Employees want to contribute to decisions and offer creative solutions."

This sort of thinking completely contradicts my own experience. From what I've seen, most employees want leadership. And leadership to them means that someone else solves the problems and tells them what to do about them.

As a leader in your business, you are earning big bucks to do the hard thinking, to make the tough decisions, and to get the job done - even if that means pushing the weight uphill. Yes, you should be open to new ideas. Yes, you should talk to the rank-and-file workers. Yes, you should pay attention to your employees. But the big decisions about where to go and what to make and how to solve the company's problems are ultimately yours.

This requires vision, knowledge, skill, and (most certainly) good ideas. But even more important is an understanding of how to get people to embrace your ideas and work to achieve them ... even in the face of criticism and adversity.

So how do you do it? By making the work worthwhile.
For a perfect example, look to some of the great religious leaders of history. From Jesus Christ to Gandhi, these leaders were able to persuade large groups of people to do all kinds of great and difficult work, merely by creating the idea that the work itself was good. (Yes, there may have been some bribing going on there - the promise of heaven, and all that. But I can't imagine that so many people would have made so many sacrifices without believing that the work itself was worthwhile.)

MYTH #2 "Allowing participation is more important than sharing your vision."

This myth is another gem gleaned from an article in a prestigious business publication. The premise seems to be that, when it comes to setting goals, leaders should focus on fostering and improving employee participation rather than on creating a plan for better business.

That is just silly. Utterly silly. But it was a serious recommendation offered up in sober language by some earnest young writer quoting from some ex-tough-guy businessperson who wanted to sugarcoat his career.

Back here in the real world ... a leader can delegate a great deal of responsibility if he surrounds himself with good people. But the one thing he can never delegate is the job of establishing goals and creating a vision. Unless, that is, he wants to cease being a leader.

Dreaming about what your business can accomplish, thinking about how far it can go and how great it can be, is the most important job you can do. If you are a leader, now or in the future, you must spend much of your spare time doing that.

Yes, you can ask questions. Yes, you can seek advice. But when it comes down to deciding where you want your business to go and what you want it to achieve, you've got to do it yourself. Then ... you've got to share your vision.

It is not easy to inspire work. Those who can have one thing in common: They have a keen ability to create and communicate a compelling vision. This is essential for effective leadership. Most real authorities on leadership recognize this. You can be fairly limited in other intellectual qualities but strong in audacity and the ability to communicate a picture - and still be a successful leader. (Ronald Reagan proved that, didn't he?)

The same can be said for leaders of social causes. When ordinary citizens work tirelessly to respond to a crisis or natural disaster, they do so not for any of the normal reasons that employees work. They do it because they feel that they are compelled by a vision. They feel engaged in a worthwhile process.

Think about religion today. All those apostles you see at airports. Why do they work like that? Why do they submit themselves to that kind of indignity? It's not for the money; they get none. And it's not for public approval; they get the opposite. They shave their heads, put on robes, and spend countless hours begging ... because they believe that what they are doing is good. It's as simple - and as powerful - as that.

To be a great leader, you have to:
• Spend time thinking about how you can make things better.
• Make people believe in the goodness of your ideas.

If you can do both of these things, your employees will gladly work for you. They will beg for you. They will fight for you. And in extreme cases (not that this is something you'd hope for), they may even die for you.

To become a leader is to become powerful and important. To become a leader is to put yourself in a position of authority and influence. To become a leader is a responsibility and a privilege. It can change your life faster and further than just about anything else you can learn to do. And the way to do that is to create a compelling, worthwhile vision and inspire your employees to follow through with the work itself.

Who is Time's 2005 Persons of the Year?

Time has named Bono, Bill and Melinda gates to be 2005 Persons of the Year. The whole article is located here:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1142278,00.html

Persons of the Year

By NANCY GIBBS

Posted Monday, Dec. 19, 2005
These are not the people you expect to come to the rescue. Rock stars are designed to be shiny, shallow creatures, furloughed from reality for all time. Billionaires are even more removed, nestled atop fantastic wealth where they never again have to place their own calls or defrost dinner or fly commercial. So Bono spends several thousand dollars at a restaurant for a nice Pinot Noir, and Bill Gates, the great predator of the Internet age, has a trampoline room in his $100 million house. It makes you think that if these guys can decide to make it their mission to save the world, partner with people they would never otherwise meet, care about causes that are not sexy or dignified in the ways that celebrities normally require, then no one really has a good excuse anymore for just staying on the sidelines and watching.

Such is the nature of Bono's fame that just about everyone in the world wants to meet him--except for the richest man in the world, who thought it would be a waste of time. "World health is immensely complicated," says Gates, recalling that first encounter in 2002. "It doesn't really boil down to a 'Let's be nice' analysis. So I thought a meeting wouldn't be all that valuable."

It took about three minutes with Bono for Gates to change his mind. Bill and his wife Melinda, another computer nerd turned poverty warrior, love facts and data with a tenderness most people reserve for their children, and Bono was hurling metrics across the table as fast as they could keep up. "He was every bit the geek that we are," says Gates Foundation chief Patty Stonesifer, who helped broker that first summit. "He just happens to be a geek who is a fantastic musician."

And so another alliance was born: unlikely, unsentimental, hard nosed, clear eyed and dead set on driving poverty into history. The rocker's job is to be raucous, grab our attention. The engineers' job is to make things work. 2005 is the year they turned the corner, when Bono charmed and bullied and morally blackmailed the leaders of the world's richest countries into forgiving $40 billion in debt owed by the poorest; now those countries can spend the money on health and schools rather than interest payments--and have no more excuses for not doing so. The Gateses, having built the world's biggest charity, with a $29 billion endowment, spent the year giving more money away faster than anyone ever has, including nearly half a billion dollars for the Grand Challenges, in which they asked the very best brains in the world how they would solve a huge problem, like inventing a vaccine that needs no needles and no refrigeration, if they had the money to do it.

It would be easy to watch the alliance in action and imagine the division of labor: head and heart, business and culture; one side brings the money, the other side the buzz. But like many great teams, this one is more than the sum of its symbols. Apart from his music stardom, Bono is a busy capitalist (he's a named partner in a $2 billion private equity firm), moves in political circles like a very charming shark, aptly named his organization DATA (debt, AIDS, trade, Africa) to capture both the breadth of his ambitions and the depth of his research. Meanwhile, you could watch Bill and Melinda coolly calculate how many lives will be saved by each billion they spend and miss how impassioned they are about the suffering they have seen. "He's changing the world twice," says Bono of Bill. "And the second act for Bill Gates may be the one that history regards more."

For being shrewd about doing good, for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice, for making mercy smarter and hope strategic and then daring the rest of us to follow, Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono are TIME's Persons of the Year.

As it happens, they have arrived at the right time, as America stirs itself awake from the dreamy indifference with which the world's poor have forever been treated. In ordinary times, we give when it's easy: a gesture, a reflex, a salve to conscience. The entreaties come on late-night TV from well-meaning but long-discarded celebrities who cuddle with big-eyed children and appeal to pity and guilt. Maybe we send off a check, hope it will help someone somewhere stay alive for another day. That is not the model for the current crusaders or the message for these extraordinary times.

This was already a year that redefined generosity. Americans gave more money to tsunami relief, more than $1.6 billion, than to any overseas mission ever before. The Hurricane Season from Hell brought another outpouring of money and time and water bottles and socks and coats and offers of refuge, some $2.7 billion so far. The public failure of government to manage disaster became the political story of the year. But the private response of individuals, from every last lemonade stand to every mitten drive, is the human story of 2005.

"Katrina created one tragedy and revealed another," Melinda Gates said in a speech after the hurricane. "We have to address the inequities that were not created by the hurricanes but exposed by them. We have to ensure that people have the opportunity to make the most of their lives." That just about captures the larger mission she and her husband have embraced. In the poorest countries, every day is as deadly as a hurricane. Malaria kills two African children a minute, round the clock. In that minute a woman dies from complications during pregnancy, nine people get infected with HIV, three people die of TB. A vast host of aid workers and agencies and national governments and international organizations have struggled for years to get ahead of the problem but often fell behind. The task was too big, too complicated. There was no one in charge, no consensus about what to do first and never enough money to do it. In Muslim parts of Ethiopia, aid workers can't talk to teenage girls about condoms to prevent AIDS; but in Tanzania they're encouraged to. How you cut an umbilical cord can determine whether a baby risks a fatal infection, but every culture has its own traditions. They cut with a coin for luck in Nepal and a stone in Bolivia, where they think if you use a razor blade the child will grow up to be a thief. There is no one solution to fit all countries, and so the model the Gates Foundation and Bono have embraced pulls in everyone, at every level. Think globally. Act carefully. Prove what works. Then use whatever levers you have to get it done.

The challenge of "stupid poverty"--the people who die for want of a $2 pill because they live on $1 a day--was enough to draw Gates away from Microsoft years before he intended to shift his focus from making money to giving it away. He and Melinda looked around and recognized a systems failure. "Those lives were being treated as if they weren't valuable," Gates told FORTUNE in 2002. "Well, when you have the resources that could make a very big impact, you can't just say to yourself, 'O.K., when I'm 60, I'll get around to that. Stand by.'"

There have always been rich and famous people who feel the call to "give back," which is where big marble buildings and opera houses come from. But Bill and Melinda didn't set out to win any prizes--or friends. "They've gone into international health," says Paul Farmer, a public-health pioneer, "and said, 'What, are you guys kidding? Is this the best you can do?'" Gates' standards are shaping the charitable marketplace as he has the software universe. "He wants to know where every penny goes," says Bono, whose DATA got off the ground with a Gates Foundation grant. "Not because those pennies mean so much to him, but because he's demanding efficiency." His rigor has been a blessing to everyone--not least of all Bono, who was at particular risk of not being taken seriously, just another guilty white guy pestering people for more money without focusing on where it goes. "When an Irish rock star starts talking about it, people go, yeah, you're paid to be indulged and have these ideas," Bono says. "But when Bill Gates says you can fix malaria in 10 years, they know he's done a few spreadsheets."

The Gates commitment acts as a catalyst. They needed the drug companies to come on board, and the major health agencies, the churches, the universities and a whole generation of politicians who were raised to believe that foreign aid was about as politically sexy as postal reform. And that is where Bono's campaign comes in. He goes to churches and talks of Christ and the lepers, citing exactly how many passages of Scripture ("2,103") deal with taking care of the poor; he sits in a corporate boardroom and talks about the role of aid in reviving the U.S. brand. He gets Pat Robertson and Susan Sarandon to do a commercial together for his ONE campaign to "Make Poverty History." Then he heads to Washington, where he stops by a meeting of House Democrats to nuzzle them about debt relief before a private lunch with President George W. Bush, whom he praises for tripling aid to Africa over the past four years. Everyone from Republican Senator Rick Santorum to Hillary Clinton used Bono's October concert as a fund raiser. "He knows how to get people to follow him," Stonesifer says. "We are probably a good complement. We're more likely to give you four facts about the disease than four ways that you can go do something about it."

Bono grasps that politicians don't much like being yelled at by activists who tell them no matter what they do, it's not enough. Bono knows it's never enough, but he also knows how to say so in a way that doesn't leave his audience feeling helpless. He invites everyone into the game, in a way that makes them think they are missing something if they hold back. "After so many years in Washington," says retired Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, whom Bono recruited to his cause, "I had met enough well-known people to quickly figure out who was genuine and who was there for show. I knew as soon as I met Bono that he was genuine. He has absolutely nothing to gain personally as a result of his work. In fact, he has opened himself to criticism because he has been willing to work with anyone to find help for these children who have taken his heart."

This is not about pity. It's more about passion. Pity sees suffering and wants to ease the pain; passion sees injustice and wants to settle the score. Pity implores the powerful to pay attention; passion warns them about what will happen if they don't. The risk of pity is that it kills with kindness; the promise of passion is that it builds on the hope that the poor are fully capable of helping themselves if given the chance. In 2005 the world's poor needed no more condolences; they needed people to get interested, get mad and then get to work.