Wizards of Wealth

How many people have you helped recently?

At Wizardz of wealth, we are always fascinated by the many paradoxes we encounter as we stumble through life. If you have followed us for awhile, you will remember that embracing “paradox” is one of the major themes discussed by Michael Gelb in his classic work on daVinci .

Let me ask you a question:

What’s more important, helping your self or helping someone else?

It seems to me that many wealthy people have discovered how to resolve this conundrum. The rest of us still get in our own way.

The other evening I watched a TV show that was star-studded and loaded with winners. Collabaratively, they were all helping thousands of others.  Bud Selig was speechless, and Steven Kimmel was not.

Again I ask the question, what comes first, the chicken or the egg?

The theme of “When we help someone else, we are helping ourselves” makes perfect sense, and is preached by many.

Staying in the game long enough is the key, and Robert Shemin talks about the need to help ourselves FIRST. The paradox of course, is that we are all taught that it is selfish to think of ourselves first.

We have tried to ilustrate this concept simply through our principle, the flat tire syndrome. The more we become, the more we have, and the better able we are to help others.

Making that choice is up to us.

Here  are a few bright men who have figured out a whole lot of people, and they are extremely wealthy.

I got a new computer the other day, and a few parts were in disarray. I used their invention to resolve my issues within minutes. I bet they have helped you in some way also recently.

How many people are you intending to help?

For those of you who love real estate let me give you a hint.

There are a lot of people hurting right now.

The next crop of millionaires are being grown, and they are figuring out how to help a lot of people like this.

Will you be one of them?

Juan is a good friend of mine in the Naples Florida area. He is a real estate broker as well as a mortgage broker,and he has some insights into the plight of the current dismal real estate market.

With prices plummeting @ 25% already in the past three years, and no end in sight,he knew he had to change his business model,or else he would become a victim of the severe downturn himself.

I asked him how business was doing, and he said great.

When business dried up, he decided to take control and do what he could to improve things. He investigated loan loss mitigation and credit repair services, and now his activity level is thriving, adding prepaid new clients every day.

In the old days, if Juan was a maker of buggy whips, he would have been the first to embrace selling parts for the horseless carriage.

It seems easier to operate in a normal market, but there are some entrepreneurs like Juan and Daniel who take adversity, look it in the eye, and reinvent themselves.

How about you; have you let go of your ideas for the improved buggy whips yet?

Website development is both a tedious and an exciting process.

For the youthful, infinitely easier; for archaic folks a lot more challenging.

The technology continues to evolve, and as we redesign our site to make it more interactive and user friendly, we are trying to incorporate enough new ideas so that we are not obsolete by the time the site is reworked.

Keeping abreast of some of the leaders in the field is not easy, as it is continually moving.

Latest widgets are considered, as are ideas from sophisticated website designers and talented professionals.

Converting ideas into reality is a process, and made more difficult by the constantly changing economic climate.

We believe this is a challenging time for people, and a review of the basics of financial literacy are still relevant. That’s why we want to provide the timeless content that will help people rise above their present limitations.

Review the basics, and refocus on your game plan.

An article I read in GQ was referencing a investment banker who lived high, earning 100k+ a month, who has just given up all but one of his expensive cars, his multiple homes, and his $5,000 meals at fancy restaurants twice a week because he can no longer afford it.

He has squandered a substantial income, because he thought rainy days would never come. Now out of work, he has embraced the more traditional values like family and relationships.

Too bad no one ever told him he could have it all.

Michael Gelb, author of How to think Like Leonardo daVinci suggests seven principles, that when applied to our daily living, allow us to act like a Genius.

Think of it as becoming the modern Renaissance Man or Woman.

One of the more intriguing principles we have to resolve is the concept of Sfumato (literally “Going up in smoke”).  It is a wilingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty.

For those of us who would be wealthy, there’s the rub. How do we move out of our comfort zone and take the necessary risks to get what we want out of life?

Several other authors come to mind when we explore this thinking, and are worth reading in my opinion: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, Sway, and Take the risk. While many books on trading and Investing deal with technical or fundamental analysis, not many explore the psychological aspects.

Two other outstanding authors come to mind if you are interested in the neuro psychology of trading: Dr Janice Dorn and Brett Steenbarger .

These books make a great addition to Trading in the Zone, which you probably already have if you are following the first of the seven daVincian Principles: Curiosita.

Whatever the scale, large or small, many businesses are run by people, and that introduces the human element. 

If Societe General had applied more diligence in overseeing their traders,  Jerome Kerviel would not have been allowed to accrue a $7 Billion loss. But why did he do it?

Whether in our own small business, or in our personal trading and investment business, we need to establish systems that prevent us from sabotaging our own best interests.

Logic is usally over-ruled by our primitive brain stem and our emotional responses. If you can find a copy of Sway, you will undoubtedly see yourself as I have seen myself.

In the words of Pogo: I have seen the enemy and he is us.

It’s time to change all that.

Timothy Ferris has put in front of us a concept that needs further exploring by any would-be wealth seeker.

The basic premise is that with the global market place, we can hire out to people willing to do quality work at a much cheaper price then we can get it done locally.

Read the book and draw your own conclusions. I do not dispute the logic of Mr. Ferriss work, in fact this thinking is at the heart of one of our Laws of Wealth. I think the biggest flaw in the program can be summed up by the following true example that I recently experienced.

As one of my businesses, I am a real estate broker. One of my clients has been a victim of the bust in real estate values. An offer came in lower than the debt, so I brought the offer to the bank for a “short sale” consideration. After being transferred through the automated machine for 15 minutes, I was finally talking with one of the bank’s representatives named “Bob”.

His accent led me to believe that was not his real name.

Thirty minutes later, he still was reciting to me through his scripted presentation, not grasping the situation, nor offering any hope of reasonable alternatives. (Fill out another 20 pages of paperwork was his solution.) He was not equipped to deal with this problem. I asked him what time was a good time for me to call him back, and got the answer I was expecting. He was actually in India, so the time zone was significantly different from mine. 

Those of you who have recently fled Dell and other computer vendors because of poor support know exactly what I am referring to.

Lose-Lose-Lose-Lose is where we are headed in this dilemma, as I had predicted to my seller. (I had just finished reading an advance copy of Sway.)The bank could mitigate 95% of it’s loss on this property by dealing with this issue swiftly and intelligently. Instead, after a prolonged delay, the bank, the seller, the would-be buyer, and the realtors will all lose. The property will be vandalized, become an eye-sore, and will ultimately be sold to an investor at 50 cents on the dollar.

It seems to me that the real trick is to outsource to the competency of these workers. If language and comprehension of our financial troubles are difficult barriers, why allow a $5 an hour worker to negotiate over a $300,000. property? Why not use them for research, manufacturing, document preparation, etc?

The outsourcing concept is viable in my opinion; as with most things in life the Devil is in the details of execution. 

As an entrepreneur, we are always seeking opportunities. Why not free up some of our time through Mr Ferriss’s suggestions, and use some of it to look for and purchase some of these distressed properties as another source of income?

Many small business owners and sales agents state this, hoping to claim it as their reality.

Muhammed Ali was perhaps one of the first and most well known celebrities to assert this mantra, and he had the skill and heart to back it up. He was a true champion (still is) and I loved watching him fight. He was my hero. I can still remember his entertaining antics with Howard Cosell as if it was yesterday.

Whether you loved him or disliked him didn’t matter; you had to to pay to see him victorious or lying on the canvas. He was a true showman and a marketer’s dream.

According to Roy Williams, however, today’s customers see right through this self-proclaimed “We are #1″ style of marketing. If you are hoping to sell anything, you had better to listen to Roy.

Nobody does it better in my humble opinion. Nobody.

But I digress.

Not as well known, are the following words that were also uttered by none other than the former Cassius Clay: “The service that you give to others is the rent that you pay for your space here on earth.”

Through our free website, we hope that we are doing just that.

Whatever our dreams, we can learn from these two Great men.

Let’s Go for it, and cheerfully pay an enormous rent!

Supercrunching: Not another new cereal, but it is the kind of book you can really sink your teeth into. Granted, it’s not summer reading at the beach material, but well worth a perusal by your eyeballs if you are interested in marketing.

The author’s premise is that drawing objective conclusions from examing huge sets of data will allow us to make superior decisions in how we market and offer products and services in more efficient ways that can benefit all. The key is randomization and regression theory at work.

Small business owners will definitely find the concepts useful to stretch their advertising budget. The reader will also gain some amazing insights into how big business and government are already using these techniques to manipulate our behavior.

Here is a related site that you may find interesting: Offermatica.com

If you are old enough to have read George Orwell’s 1984 , this will eerily remind you of Big Brother.