This video has been around for a while, but I just came across it again.

It’s a little overly dramatic for my tastes, but give it a chance. It started really hitting home for me around minute 2.

Sidenote: The mention of “Santa Clause” is unnecessary. I have no problem with the big guy.

Many who have the entrepreneurial flame inside them do everything they can to escape the prison of 9-to-5 only to find themselves an even tougher prison of 9-to-9 (or longer).

It can quickly seem like we’re treading water deeper & deeper below the surface where freedom of time & money await.

The popular cliche is that “time is money.”

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Posted on Thursday, 6th November 2008 in Business, Faith, Life | Comments (1)

What do you think? .. Do you think I can OUTSOURCE the gathering of intel on McCain & Obama and still remain a responsible American?

Here’s what I mean …

First of all, understand that outsourcing has changed my life. As soon as I started capturing & delegating the aspects of my business that I didn’t want to do (about a year ago), my ROI skyrocketed.

Seriously.

So I began to think how I could apply that to my personal life as well ..

• I paid a friend to assemble & paint a new table in my house
• I paid a relative to transfer & sort 1,200 audio tracks on my iPod
• I started outsourcing my lunches to Subway and this incredible steak & rice joint down the street

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Posted on Monday, 3rd November 2008 in Business, Life | Comments (16)

My wife & I just spent our Saturday night working on her new business plan (Tagline: “Hawaii’s Natural Fitness Experience” .. it’s going to rock the tourist industry in Spring ‘09!) and talking through Proverbs 4.

If you’ve read some of my past blog posts, you know how strongly I feel about the importance of the book of Proverbs when it comes to life and business as an entrepreneur.

If you’re looking for the single most important skill or quality to master — one that’s going to ENSURE your success as an entrepreneur — it’s wisdom alone.

Not ideation… not management… not communication… not marketing.

It’s wisdom that informs your thought and execution in all of these other areas, and it’s wisdom that should be painstakingly, passionately sought above all else.

The book of Proverbs is a collection of writings from the second wisest man who ever lived, Solomon, so it’s a good place to start your pursuit.

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Posted on Saturday, 25th October 2008 in Business, Faith, Life | Comments (2)

This will be my last Big Seminar-related post. Sorry.

Or you’re welcome. Whichever applies.

For the benefit of myself and anyone else who’s trying to grow a business, real estate or otherwise, here are my top takeaways from each of the marketing masters I learned from last weekend.

Joe Polish - “Stop spending time on things that don’t increase either (a) your capabilities or (b) your opportunities in life.”

You can NOT make $1 million/year with $50,000/year habits, knowledge, and relationships. If you don’t develop the habits, relationships, skills, capabilities, and the mindset… you might as well forget it & keep buying lottery tickets, checking email, watching cable, and surfing the internet.

Stephen Pierce - “The biggest success secret ever: Give More LIFE To More PEOPLE”

Have a SYSTEM that finds, gets, keeps, and grows customers (buyers, sellers, lenders, renters, etc). The key to finding, getting, keeping, and growing is *adding value to their lives*.

Eben Pagan - “The #1 priority in business today is to reduce and eliminate distraction and interruption.”

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Posted on Saturday, 11th October 2008 in Business, Life, Marketing | Comments (1)

I just finished Mark Joyner’s simpleology on the 8-hour flight home today. I find it amusing that the process it took for me to read the book goes against the very nature of the book’s concluding principles.

From start to finish it took me about 30 days to read this thing.

I read for about an hour on a flight last month, another hour from my parents’ house 2 weeks later, and two more hours today to wrap it up.

Of course, along the way were countless distractions that took 100% of my attention away from the book’s message.

Each time I went back to pick up where I left off, I wasted time as I reread previous points I highlighted and attempted to refocus my attention.

The inevitable result is a dulled message and potentially life changing principles lost through infinite channels of distraction over the last 30 days.

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Posted on Tuesday, 7th October 2008 in Books, Business, Life | Comments (1)

Posted on Monday, 6th October 2008 in Business, Life, Marketing | Comments (0)

My amigo Preston Ely, one of the premier real estate wholesalers in the country, just sent me the following story.

If you know Preston and you were under the impression that he’s always flipping wholesale deals, partying at red carpet events, shopping for designer jeans, and looking for a bigger mansion you’d be wrong …

… sometimes he just sits in front of his fireplace in a robe and fuzzy pink slippers and writes short stories.

A little odd, but the good thing for us is that his stories help keep our minds straight when the media is telling us that we should all be depressed right now.

Read below and forward it to everyone you know. It will make the world a better place.

The Story Of The Two Flippers
By Pre$ton Ely

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Posted on Sunday, 5th October 2008 in Life, Real Estate | Comments (0)

Startled?

Don’t worry… this isn’t going to be any sort of scandalous, adults-only blog post! I just wanted to share a few recent lessons learned from the billionaire mastermind of the Virgin Group and the world’s greatest entrepreneur: Sir Richard Branson.

I just finished his autobiography, which shares the title of this post. It was a gift from a great friend & CEO of RealEstateInvestor.com, Colin Egbert.

While Branson’s early sexual promiscuity (he actually “wife-swapped” with his friend for a weekend) and his failure to recognize God as God certainly temper my respect, you can’t help but admire the way he did business.

Here are 8 notes I scribbled as I read the story of his success from 1950-2001…

1. A huge key to Branson’s success was his ability to leverage debt and protect his downside. For many years, the Virgin Group consistently overdrafted millions of dollars to finance their ventures. Why were banks willing to do this? Because of Branson’s uncanny sense of choosing the RIGHT ventures and his track record of success. Each of these ventures involved tremendous risk, but Branson was never without an awareness of where the risks were and rarely without a contingency plan.

2. He never shied away from competition. In fact, he seemed to thrive off of it. He entered the airline industry with a single plane when British Airways was dominating UK market share and eliminating smaller competitors left & right. He launched Virgin Cola, knowing that Coke and Pepsi held 70%+ of worldwide market share but seeing small weaknesses that he could exploit.

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Posted on Sunday, 27th July 2008 in Books, Business, Life, Marketing, Real Estate | Comments (0)

If I asked you to picture the “archetypal man,” who comes to mind?

By archetypal man, I mean a man who epitomizes everything a man was meant to be.

Who comes to mind? Stop and think about this.

How about Clint Eastwood? George Clooney? Russell Crowe? Denzel Washington?

It’s probably difficult to think of 3 men you actually have personal contact with because “real men” are - indeed - hard to find. Can I get an amen, ladies??

The problem is that, for most of us, Jesus probably didn’t immediately pop into your head.

Why is that?

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Posted on Sunday, 13th July 2008 in Books, Faith, Life | Comments (0)

I’ve always felt that the best comedians are the ones who put into words things that you’ve already observed about the world, but that - to that point - you’ve never actually put into words yourself.

They’re funny simply because they make you realize “that is so incredibly true.”

Chris Rock. Sinbad. Jerry Seinfeld.

I think this particular appreciation for one’s ability to “label reality” carries over into the authors I end up recommending as well. I just finished Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point” and it certainly appeals to a similar part of me.

It’s the type of book that makes you think “Wow, if this guy hadn’t had the unique insight & passion to write this, I don’t know who else ever would have. And the world is a better place because he did it.”

It talks about the commonalities between the epidemics of this world; an epidemic being any sudden & rapid movement, upward or downward, of a trend.

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Posted on Tuesday, 10th June 2008 in Books, Faith, Life, Marketing | Comments (1)