I’ve heard of a situation today that has made me both sad and angry at the same time.
A couple related to a good friend of mine sold a business recently as they approached retirement. I wasn’t told the figure but it was atleast seven figures.

They didn’t know what to do with the money in the short term so their financial advisor, (AKA total idiot), told them to put the money in Bridgecorp short term. They are completely wiped out, destitute at 65 thanks to this advice. The wife was throwing up for a week as she came to terms with the situation.

We all face dificulties in life and stuff that goes wrong. We need to keep things in perspective however and thank God for the good things in our lives. Enough trouble will come our way without us worrying about or dwelling on it.

So remember today the next time you are feeling sorry for yourself to thank God for your current situation, and remember there are good hardworking people in your neighbourhood who have lost their entire life savings overnight.

One of the fundamentals of good investing is to have a good team around you. I love Michael Yardney’s quote: “If you’re the smartest person in your team you’re probably in trouble”.

I was reminded of this recently after looking at a property deal with one of my students. We knew that the property was under contract at a great price for the area and upon viewing it there were some renovations needed but nothing too scary to my eye.

So I rung my building partner Stuart who kindly visited the property to give me an educated answer to the reno cost question.
His comments via text were along the lines of
“Looks like a dog, barks like a dog, smells like a dog and is covered in fleas……
this is a dog”

My 20K estimate of repairs is actually 50K, yay.

So this is a good example of the power of cultivating a great team. Because I could get an expert on to a property with 24 hours notice I was able to avoid buying what looked like a great deal, but was in fact a Great Dane.

And if the appearance of the property had been slightly better I might not have bothered with the professional opinion.

So this was a property under contract for nearly 20% below apparent market value but in reality was still 50K too dear (on a 320K contract).

So the point for you guys is always do your due dilgence and build a great team around you.
Saddest part for me is the vendor is in a very difficult position and I can’t help her now as her property is seriously upside down and there is no easy solution. I hate not being able to help people but sometimes their situation is irretrievable.

I’ve had similar situations with subdivisions where my surveyor has saved me a fortune by getting critical information for me about a deal.

If you don’t have a great team yet remember for $500 a year you can use mine through the Massive Action forum. Best brains in the business for the price of 2 coffees a week

Stay safe!!

Maybe it isn’t so important but I am always surprised and disappointed at how illiterate we are becoming as a nation. We can no longer spell, count or use gramma if you are under about 35 years old.

Maybe I am old fashioned but I thought the ability to spell most common words, construct something resembling a sentence, and add 2 numbers together was not an exceptionally high standard of education.

In real estate it is hilarious some of the adverts I read. I can’t even figure some of them out and English is my thing.

What is a sort after area for example?? Is it an area that has been neatly set out in rows?? Or an area where the houses have been built in order from smallest to largest??

As I say maybe I’m just being pedantic but it is scary when a shop assistant has to use a calculator to subtract $4 from $20 and then gives you $12 change.

This dumbing down of our nation in my life time is continual and increasing. If it continues unabated we will be incapable of written communication or unassisted trade within another generation.

My wife has to recheck every settlement statement we get now because they are usually wrong. A lawyer or legal secretary can no longer add. Can our school teachers still chew gum and walk at the same time??

We are all aghast at the recent tragic death of a 17 year old in Herne Bay or the senseless deaths of the three 15 year olds, but in some ways should we be surprised?? We can’t even teach the three r’s, what hope do we have of instilling truth, justice and respect in to a generation when 1 plus 1 equals whatever makes you feel good.
Beam me up Scotty, I’ve examined earth and there is no intelligent life left!!

I received this comment about yesterday’s blog so thought I would use a slightly shortened version of it as the basis for today’s.

“Hi Dean.
Something I have really been struggling with is feeling guilty about making money. No matter how much I try to talk myself through this I still feel guilty about making money through property investing and the ambivalence is killing me.
I really believe what you say in your blog “our pursuit of money is meant to be for ministry and furthering the kingdom”, however, my husband and I also have a real dream of living on a lifestyle block and building an eco-friendly house we have designed ourselves and living off the land. Part of me tells me this is okay but part of me tells me this is not “furthering the kingdom” etc and it is selfish of me to want this for me and my family.”

Firstly let me say I struggled with exactly this issue for years until 1 day God asked me if I was evre going ot stop feeling guilty so He could start blessing me financially!!

Let me answer this in 2 ways, generally and then specifically as a Christian.

We are all designed to succeed. That may not necessarily be great wealth, but it may well be. I believe that we should pursue our dreams and passions, as that is the only path to real fulfillment in our lives.

We were never designed to “exist” we were designed to live life and live it to the full. So should you feel guilty about pursuing a “selfish” dream, absolutely not.
People go to the grave everyday feeling hollow and empty because they never pursued anything except TV and lotto.

As a Christian it is even more important to understand that God wants your heart, not your money. He wants you to enjoy your life, all he asks is that you submit your life and desires to Him.
If He has placed a desire in your heart to live rurally sa you say then you would be dishonouring Him to not pursue that dream.
We are taught in church one of 2 things, poverty is caused by sin or curses, or wealth makes you ungodly.
Both are lies. Proverbs 22:4 says By humility and the fear of the LORD
are riches and honor and life.
In other words pursue God in humility and riches, honour and life will follow.
Unless God has called you to poverty then don’t debase your value to God by deciding you can’t have anything nice. You’re a child of the greatest king in the universe, enjoy that!!

I was listening to one of my favourite teachers tonight, an American guy called Chuck Swindoll. He was talking about prayer and commenting on the fact that so many Christians read about prayer, listen to sermons about prayer and talk about prayer. In fact most Christians do everything associated with prayer except pray!

The end result is that they live defeated lives because they fail to do the one essential thing necessary to have a good relationship with God.

So for those of you who haven’t stopped reading because I’m going on about God, I mention this because it is exactly what I see with people wanting to be investors. They attend the seminars, read all the books, come to all the meetings, live, breathe and sleep property. In fact they do everything except buy any. Therefore like prayerlessness they cut themselves off from the one essential thing for success in investing, actually investing.

I guess the reality is that most people never take action in their lives in areas that they need or want to. What is that about? Why do so many of us live and walk in deliberate defeat? And why is it so hard to keep going when you start? Why do so few of us ever achieve the results we really want??

I could give you lots of answers, many of which involve our separation from God, but I think we suffer from a universal problem of aspirinitis.

You see there are only 2 things that change our behaviour, pleasure or pain. We keep doing things that cause us pleasure and we move away from things that cause us pain. If it’s below zero outside and a fire burning inside it’s not hard to decide what to do. Especially when the consequences of staying outside could be fatal.

But what we all do is try and live in numbness in the middle. We take emotional pain killers like television, movies, sex, alcohol, even work, to stave off the pain and provide just enough pleasure so that the pain is not too uncomfortable.
End result is
0

0% change

0% happiness

0% success

0% freedom

How many 0%ers in your life today??
You were made for much more than nothing. Life your life, climb the mountain, put a sword through that mediocre heart and live!!

I always try and be fair and generous with people where ever I can. I believe in the principle of sowing and reaping. What you give out comes back to either bless you or haunt you.

I have passed-on some deals to a mate of mine and been quite vague on the detail. Basically take the deal and if it works out that there might be a fee in it for me good but otherwise enjoy.

So in my inbox the other day is an email saying that 2 of the deals I sent his way are finally settling and he is paying me a fee. Now undertsand that this was not in my thoghts at all. I wasn’t expecting anything. However even more cool my friend had arranged a helicopter trip for me and a couple of friends just to bless me.

So My point here friends is that if you are generous with others, if you put the relationship ahead of the dollar, it will come back to bless you.

The more I focus on friendships and generosity the better the deals get.
I had a trade deal that was going west this week so I said to my buyer just to walk and I would sort out the drama with my vendor. Because I was not making him fulfil his contractual oblgations, he moved heaven and earth to not let me down.
On the same day I got offered a 200K profit trade from another source. I wonder if the offer would have come if I had chosen to enforce my legal rights with my other buyer??

Now that is something to think about isn’t it??

I was listening to one of the most inspiring men on the planet tonight. His name is Bishop TD Jakes from the USA.

Although his was a “Christian” message, it is so relevant for all of us I wanted to mention it here.

TD was talking about Samson being captured and tied up and that as a result he couldn’t function to do the things he was called to do.

My mind immediately started thinking of the armies of people I have met in the last 2 years who are trying to succeed in property so they can do something else. People want to help their families, work with the poor, transform their communities, provide free health or education, the list goes on and on.

And yet they are unable, they would say, because of a lack of finances.

In a spiritual sense I would say the enemy is attacking them in an area he has access to, to prevent them from functioning in an area he doesn’t have access to.

For the non spiritual amongst us we might say that we get so preoccupied trying to solve a problem we can’t seem to solve that we never get to start on the things we carry as dreams and feel strongly about.

I had never really thought about this much in a “secular” sense. I understand it as a Christian and as a Christian I have the tools to defeat it. But this makes it an even bigger problem for those of you who don’t believe in God and therefore cannot call upon His help.

Because we are all, every single one of us, involved in a spiritual battle. It is difficult to fight that battle when you refuse to carry any ammunition, but God makes a way for us all, not just those who have already met Him.

So how do we solve this problem? How do we win this battle?

Well I’m glad you asked me that.

Firstly we need to understand that we are fighting a “force”, call it what you like, that is specifically designed to stop us from achieving our hearts desires.
Recognise that itis a battle, it will take effort to overcome.

Think about some fo the peole you may know or have heard about who have overcome significant issues in their lives. If we stop and think about their stories they all have a common thread. They overcome by lots and lots of ?? HARD WORK, that’s how. They battled these things until they started to win.

This is what you will have to do.

Your problem is not a lack of finances. Your problem is an unseen enemy trying ot get you to focus on your finances so you don’t get to the things that really matter.

Your problem is not a lack of finances. Your problem is that you are so exhausted from trying to solve the financial battle that you have left yourself no creative energy to move forward with the dream.

You see your dream will have plenty of finances come with it. People buy into dreams. God loves dreamers. You get your dream off the ground and the money will come.

I’m yet to meet a man or woman who has “made it” in property, who goes on about the money. They all talk about the things they can achieve, the people they can help, the places they visit, the people they meet. We all love our lives, because our lives have dreams attached. Mine is Fiji, what’s yours??

Do you think I started Massive Action to make money?? Running a business is a pain in the neck frankly. Besides I make much more money out of property deals than I ever could out of educating others. But I love educating people, so I find myself fulfilling my dream of helping others, not just in Fiji, but here also. It’s almost like my heart to help others is overflowing into areas I never imagined. I can now serve the nation of Fiji on a bigger scale than I ever imagined and get to travel the country talking to investors and buying property. The money just follows the dream.

So your financial issues may be serious and they are real. But if you exhaust yourself immersed under them and keep that dream on the shelf……..
You will NEVER be free.

I’ll say it again in closing. An unseen enemy is committed to keeping you focused on your lack of finances so that you never focus on fulfilling your dream.
Brush the dream off today. Decide that you will spend 20% less time worrying about money and allocate that time to planning your dream.
THIS is the path to financial freedom God planned for us!!

Finally let me say a word specifically to Christians. You need to understand that God PROMISES, He COVENANTS to take care of your needs, just like the sparrows and the lilies. Unless you accept that and walk in it you will never find financial freedom. We sin when we worry and when we don’t trust God for our needs. Our pursuit of wealth is meant to be for ministry and furthering the kingdom. Money is meant to be our slave. God is our source, not money.
We never NEED money, because God has unconditionally covenanted to take care of our needs. We only need more of God and to choose to trust Him to supply those needs. If we try to supply our needs our way without allowing God to fulfill His promises we are sabotaging our ability to receive.

Think about it this way. When you were a child did you ever come into the house and say to your mum:
“Mum please, please, please can I possibly have dinner tonight? If I clean up my room and promise to never be bad again could I possibly please have dinner tonight??”
Then in the morning did you beg for breakfast and look for ways to be good enough to be able to be fed breakfast??

Well think about how you pray. No I said STOP AND THINK ABOUT HOW YOU PRAY.

I bet you pray like this, at least sometimes. Your time is spent begging God to do something he promises unconditionally to do, and that is provide for your needs. You never get to listening or seeking God for what He wants to say to you because you are exhausted from worrying about getting your needs met.
Till tomorrow!!