Archive for wealth creation
We are addicts
Posted by: | CommentsI had a most enjoyable evening in New Plymouth last night at the PIA and was pleasantly surprised to meet so many “new, never bought anything yet” investors present.
It just goes to show that kiwi’s national sport of property investing will be hard to stamp out in spite of the government and RE industry attacks.
The problem is, how else do you get ahead financially in a country like New Zealand. I have talked about this endlessly before so won’t bore you again but the fact is there are few better options that make sense. Businesses are risky, shares and forex are a crap shoot, money in the bank gets destroyed by inflation, so……….
So get into your PIA’s, learn form those who are doing it and keep focusing on building your own wealth. Don’t let any person or political party steal your right to a sound financial future!!
Get Going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus
Wealth Principles
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Nearly all of us have heard of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, but do you know Carlos Slim?
He is by far the richest man on the planet yet is relatively unknown compared with his poorer cousins.
Carlos took his fathers advice and early business skills and is now worth around 74 Billion, (20 Billion up on 12 months ago).
His Business principles are worth sharing with you, they obviously work!!
“Carlos Slim Helú summarizes what he considers to be the Group’s business principles in 10 points, which have been communicated to his relatives, colleagues, employees and work force.
1. Create an organizational structure with simple, minimal hierarchies; provide personal development and in-house training for executives; maintain flexibility and a rapid decision-making capability; leverage the advantages of a small company and use these to grow and excel.
2. Maintaining austerity in good times strengthens, profits and accelerates the development of the company, and averts the bitterly drastic adjustments in times of crisis.
3. Stay focused on modernization, growth, training, quality, simplification and the continuous improvement of production processes. Increase productivity and competitiveness, reduce costs and expenses by using global benchmarks.
4. Companies should never be limited by the size of the owner or manager. Do not be a big fish in a small pond. Minimize investment in non-productive assets.
5. There is no challenge that we cannot overcome by working together with clear objectives and knowing the tools we have at our disposal.
6. Money that leaves the company evaporates; this is why we reinvest profits.
7. Corporate creativity is not only applicable to business, but also to solving many of society’s problems. This is what we do through the Group’s Foundations.
8. Firm and patient optimism always yields its rewards.
9. All times are good time for those who know how to work and have the tools to do so.
10. Our premise is and has always been that we leave with nothing; that we can only do things while we are alive and that businessmen are creators of the wealth they temporarily manage.”
Get Going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus
Fear and Greed
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The property market world wide is driven by these 2 emotions. As a professional investor one of the first things you have to start conquering is making emotional decisions. Neither fear nor greed help you gain wisdom, ( except through mistakes), so I believe it can be a lifelong battle to disengage how we “feel” about things when it comes to property investing. I notice at the moment that even with a lot of seasoned investors there is a new emotion becoming prevalent and that is desperation. I have noticed a significant shift in forums and other media I frequent where people are latching onto any good news and touting it for all to see. I think that many investors only learned how to thrive in an appreciating market and so now that we don’t have one they simply don’t know what to do next. There are opportunities in any market we are told but for most people if the values aren’t increasing they don’t really have any strategies or skills to cope with that.
So as time has gone on more and more people are talking up the good news and ignoring the bad news. Now in some ways I guess that’s not a bad thing but the huge risk is that they start acting on their wish for a better market.
I am finding increasingly lucrative deals appearing in the market as the reality of our current situation remains. These are the deals and strategies that need to be exercised right now, NOT acting as if things were already getting better when they aren’t.
So understand this: We don’t have a “bad” market for investing now and we shouldn’t be waiting for a “good” market to return. We simply have a market, a market where there is enormous opportunity and some challenges. Talk to any of the old school 30, 40 year history investors. They will all tell you now is the time when you can make more money than any other market. So if we had to label today it would be a GREAT market for investors, providing you are executing the right strategies. The graph above shows you why!!
If you’re in Wanganui I am speaking there tonite at the PIA 7.30pm start at the Infusion Event Centre, Purnell Street, Wanganui.
Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus @ www.MassiveAction.tv
To get the latest investing information on time and for free make sure you get my regular newsletter here
O sacred cow now wounded
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I’m listening to a fabulous series on Kingdom Finance at the moment and I find whenever I immerse myself in a subject that revelation comes, even though the specific revelation may not be actually stated in the content.
So today was one of those moments where I realised that we are virtually never taught wealth retention, just wealth creation. In fact even worse we are almost taught that one of the goals of success is to be able to spend excessively on whatever we want. So many people aspire to the Ferrari, Dom Perignon, exotic travel lifestyle but are never inspired to pursue the skills to sustain and retain that wealth long term. Whether it’s understanding the fact that a car depreciates by 30% as soon as you drive it off the lot or just negotiating your insurance premiums the fact is that most of us could increase our wealth significantly without increasing our income at all. If we would learn to work things out in interest rate and percentage terms we would all change our money habits to our benefit.
For example most consumer goods, especially electronic goods come with an offer of “extended warranty” protection. A typical example might be to extend the standard manufacturers warranty from 2 years to 5 years. If the product purchase price is $500 the extended warranty and insurance etc. might be $75.
So lets put aside the fact that less than 10% of extended warranty’s ever get claimed but just look at the costs. $75 on a $500 purchase is an additional 15% on top of the purchase price. Do you want to pay 15% more for that item??
Or look at ATM machines. Most banks charge you if you use someone elses machine yet most people use the first night and day machine they come to. So you withdraw $20 anmd pay a $2 fee. That is 10% interest in one day!!
I could give you examples all day but you get my point. We ned to view financial transactions as financial transactions and count teh cost. For almost all of us we could put enormous $$ back into our own hands just by thinking about how we spend.
Thought for the day:
Your best financial friend or enemy is compound interest!!
Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus @ www.MassiveAction.tv
To get the latest investing information on time and for free make sure you get my regular newsletter here
Eat the Rich??
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There is a very sad and bizarre debate/attack going on in New Zealand at the moment surrounding executive salaries. Sometimes an emotive subject brings out the dysfunction in a culture and in New Zealand wages and housing both do it.
People earning millions of dollars a year are being attacked for being overpaid and the companies that employ them, many are quango’s or large monopoly style organisations, are being hammered for irresponsibility.
So to me this is just patent nonsense. I have never read such drivel as I have in the last couple of weeks about it. If someone can find a way to get paid a fortune every year without being dishonest shouldn’t we celebrate their success?
If someone has skills that are so honed or valuable that a company recognises it by paying them 5 million a year we should be emulating that persons methods shouldn’t we? But oh no not in New Zealand, instead we get stuff like this:
“Eyebrows and ire were both raised by recent reports of big bonuses – contributing to even bigger remuneration packages – paid out to the executives of some of our leading companies. Even when those companies had seen profit margins fall substantially.
Nothing more strongly suggests the lessons that seemed such a clear legacy of the global financial meltdown a few brief months ago have been quickly and conveniently forgotten.
Even the justification offered by the spokesman for the Institute of Directors was redolent of a distinctly pre-recession complacency.
“If we are to attract the talent we need,” he solemnly intoned, “we have to pay salaries to match those paid in the rest of the world.”
Sadly because this writer is a senior person at a university he is listened to. What people don’t understand is that university lecturer’s are basically “poor people”. They are happy to earn an academic salary instead of ever generating real wealth for themselves. Put another way, they have no idea what they are talking about.
This culture of success bashing is highly toxic and contributes to our poverty as a nation. This is really a serious problem that we need to fight against. Every one of us should be thinking: “How can I increase my net worth and income by a MINIMUM of 20% every year”.
If we thought about it we would start to achieve it and as we achieved it we would become a wealthier nation. This attitude of increasing wealth is evident in Australia for example where they have compulsory Super, (generating huge wealth individually and for the nation), and the general sentiment I hear everywhere there is one of “How do I get ahead?” instead of NZ’s “Why won’t the government take from the rich and give to me”.
These laughable commentators should be required to have achieved great financial success and achieved great poverty before they are allowed to comment on either, then they would at least talk some sense.
So I implore you today to set some fresh income goals for yourself. Why not aim to double your income in the next 12 months and see how close you get to it. Understand that it is both achievable and desirable for you to get paid sa much as you can for your time and even more for your abilities. If enough of us do this we could shift this stinking Helenesque culture back to the cesspit it came from.
Here’s to wealth and prosperity with honesty hard work and integrity. All you people clamouring for more poverty please emigrate 
Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus @ www.MassiveAction.tv
To get the latest investing information on time and for free make sure you get my regular newsletter here
Crystal ball crushing, the new emerging industry
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I met with yet another senior banking official today and he again confirmed my pessimistic outlook in the medium term. He said “We all crushed our crystal balls some months ago” and all we know for certain is that the carnage has a long way to go.
He enlightened me as to another reason why the banks are being so “patient” by letting tens of thousands of mortgagee properties and insolvent developers stay afloat, and that is that if the banks take action they not only stuff the property market for some time but if they crystallize their losses it will significantly affect their bottom lines and THAT will affect their share prices. So there is a significant degree of self interest going on that I hadn’t thought of before.
In fact it was fascinating to listen to his years of wisdom in dealing with the fallout of investment failure from a bankers perspective. They often get a bad rap as boring or conservative but it was hard to fault his accountant like common sense.
It has often been said that common sense is very uncommon and that is often true isn’t it!
Anyway back to the topic, we can be thankful that the banks have as much of an interest in keeping things going as we all do individually because this is preventing the carnage we saw in the late 80′s when the banks showed no mercy.
So if you are in a good position today thank God and if you are still trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel be thankful that the banks are on your side, even if for their own ends.
Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus @ www.MassiveAction.tv
To get the latest investing information on time and for free make sure you get my regular newsletter here
You gotta give to get
Posted by: | CommentsI had a wonderful day in New Zealands sunshine capital, Nelson yesterday, culminating in a presentation to a packed audience at the Nelson Property Investors Association.
It was my first event outside of a church this year so I had to watch I didn’t slip into “preaching mode” .
Anyway it was fabulous to have such an appreciative group of people asking the hard questions around investing in this environment.
But the main thing for me was that I get so encouraged and “filled up” when I give to others in this way. It reminds me of how much I have learned and I get to meet people who are better off through applying what I have taught them before.
You see when you share with others the things that yo uknow and the passions you have not only do they get educated and inspired, it also reinforces the good in yo uif that makes sense. It will give you energy to keep going yourself.
No matter how old/rich/smart you are there will be things you know that other people would love to hear about. Try it this week, share a gem you have with someone else. I will be amazed if it doesn’t put a smile on your face and make you want to do it again.
Brief blog today as my flight is calling!!
PS: Thanks to Glenn and family and the Nelson PIA crowd, I had a blast and your hospitality was greatly appreciated
Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus @ www.MassiveAction.tv
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