B.C. and Me, Part 2: Humbling Myself

In my last post, I wrote about how Brian Carruthers' book, "Building an Empire:The Most Complete Blueprint to Building a Massive Network Marketing Business," led me to look deeply at my reluctance to have a burning desire for success, which he says is the first ingredient needed to succeed in network marketing.

(I was reading the book because I am an independent associate for LegalShield, a company that offers affordable access to a national network of law firms on a membership basis. It also offers an identity theft program.)

The second ingredient that Carruthers says is necessary for success is "being coachable."

"You must be willing to truly listen to the masters and follow their guidance with focus," he writes.

I did not immediately recoil from this rule the way that I did from the first. On the contrary, I liked it. It made sense to me.

"I'm definitely coachable," I said, "Or at the very least, I want to be."

So I embraced that rule. And it embraced me back.

Then it tightened its grip.

"Are you really coachable? Do you really want to be?"

I remembered how Dan Jendrey, the friend who introduced me to Pre-Paid Legal before it became LegalShield, gave me a CD in which a high-achieving Pre-Paid Legal rep spoke about "10 core commitments." Basically, he said if a person committed to doing those 10 things, their success was virtually guaranteed. And I remembered telling Dan that making 10 commitments was too much for me, that at most I could make three.

Points for honesty - but was I being coachable?

And in fact, I never even stuck with three commitments. Was I coachable?

I remembered how for years, I refused to do certain things that successful Pre-Paid Legal representatives did - like attend the weekly business briefings - because I didn't like how they were done. Was I being coachable?

And then I saw a pattern. Not just with Pre-Paid Legal or LegalShield, but with a range of things, one after another, for decades. Learning opportunities that I rejected out of hand, or that I started to engage with but with which I didn't follow through. Paths that I set upon, then walked away from when they became difficult, rather than pressing on to gain the wisdom that lay beyond the difficulty.

I saw that somewhere along the way, I became highly skilled, not at pressing on, but at quitting, and restarting, and quitting again. And thereby failing to gain, not just material benefits, but wisdom.

In short, I got really good at refusing to learn.

Here's the real kicker: it all happened while I told myself that I love to learn, while devouring books and magazine articles and even imagining writing my own success tome, "You Don't Have To Know What You're Doing - If You're Willing To Learn As You Go!" Reading, thinking, imagining, but not staying the course to take the knowledge from my brain into my bones.

And now, I don't even know why. It wasn't for lack for resources - besides the aforementioned books and articles, I have had stacks of tapes, CDs and DVDs. And I have had real live people, human beings with brains, offer me help that I never fully received because...because of something in me that doesn't receive well. Or at least, that hasn't.

Realizing all of this has been pretty painful; now the challenge - the invitation - is to move forward with change. To live out the truth that a hunger for knowledge is not enough; there must be a COMMITMENT to learn. Not just a desire to gain information, but a determination to gain wisdom.

I consider all of this to be answers to two prayers that I have prayed over the past year or so:

• Lord, please show me where I have been a fool, and help me to stop; and
• Lord, let me experience the death of anything in me that hinders Your purpose.

Now I work to consciously position myself as a total learner, in order to walk humbly with my God (Micah 6:8) - and with fellow humans who know more than I do. And God knows there are a lot of those.

What that means most immediately is truly listening to Brian Carruthers, whose approach has made him $15 million, rather than to Elwin Green, whose approach has left him mostly broke. It means doing what Carruthers says to do in his book, rather than coming up with arguments or excuses not to.

I'll let you know how it goes; it should be major fun. 

B.C. and Me, Part 1: Rediscovering Fire

If you've been with me for a while, you know that I have several business ventures underway, and that one of them is being an independent representative for LegalShield. About a month ago, my mentor in the business, Phil Berger, loaned me a copy of "Building an Empire:The Most Complete Blueprint to Building a Massive Network Marketing Business," by Brian Carruthers. Mr. Carruthers is one of the highest earners in the history of LegalShield; the book's cover says he has more than 350,000 people in his downline team.


             

Phil told me that the book would be a quick read.

Maybe it is for most folks. In my case, I started off fairly quickly, but soon had to slow down - not because I found it hard to follow, but because I found it hard to swallow.

My first speed bump was on page 16, where Carruthers says that there are three things required to succeed in network marketing, and the very first thing he names is "having a burning desire."

I had heard that before and had always recoiled from it, telling myself that a burning desire was not necessary, that the only thing necessary was a specific set of behaviors.

I told myself that for years. This time, when I saw "having a burning desire" listed as the first requirement for success in network marketing, something different happened: I questioned my own response. WHY was I so turned off by the idea?

After all, even if it's true that the only thing really necessary to success is a specific set of behaviors, does not a burning desire make those behaviors more likely? So what was my problem?

Once I asked the question, the answer was all to familiar: Fear. This time, the fear of disappointment, rooted in the experience of having been disappointed so many times.

Then, it occurred to me that many of those disappointments resulted from failing to do what I might have done had I maintained a burning desire. So I have gotten caught in a pattern in which fear dampens desire, which in turn inhibits behavior, thereby producing results that confirm the fear....ARRGGHHHH...

Here's the real kicker: I ENJOY HAVING A BURNING DESIRE. It feels GOOD! Heck, it feels GREAT!! Especially when the burning desire is not merely for something as paltry as a certain sum of money, but is on the order of changing the world.

So given the benefits of having a burning desire, and the extent to which the fear of disappointment suppresses burning desire, the next question was, "What can obliterate the fear of disappointment?" Not, enable me to work around it or trudge through it. Obliterate it.

The answer came instantly: confidence obliterates fear. Mega-confidence. Hyper-confidence. Faith.

And what bases do I have for such confidence? The list came quickly:

1. Other people's experiences: there are a whole bunch of people who have done well with LegalShield, and some who have done ridiculously well. Brian Carruthers is one of the latter.
2. My own experience: Last year, I finally engaged in some very basic behavior as a LegalShield rep that could get me paid, and it did.
3. The law of numbers: The more people I talk to about LegalShield, the more will say yes. Simple.
4. The power of practice: The more I pay attention as I talk to more people, the better I will get at it, and the more people will say yes.
5. The help and encouragement of peers and mentors: I am part of a group of LegalShield reps who meet monthly to help each other along, and I recently learned of a weekly meeting nearby.
6. The company: Formerly Pre-Paid Legal, LegalShield has been around for 40+ years. If I do my part, they'll send the checks.
7. Ephesians: Seriously - how can I believe that and not have mega-hyper-confidence?

Discovering that list within myself sparked an emotion that I had experienced too little in recent years, and that I want to prime myself to experience much more of in my remaining years: eagerness - the energizing blend of confidence plus urgency, often topped with curiosity: "I can't wait to see what happens!" 

With all that in mind and in heart, the flame of desire begins to stir. There are some things that I really want, dang it:

I really want to establish a passive income of $50,000 a year. Because I want to devote myself to changing the world, not to paying bills. And because I want to play with money, not toil for money.

I really want to enroll 500 people as LegalShield members so that they can to live more wisely, more powerfully, more confidently and more prosperously by having access to a national network of law firms.

I really want to help 50 people to earn $100,000 - or to otherwise achieve their dreams - as LegalShield representatives.

There's more, but I want to define it more clearly before declaring it. And those three are enough to expand me; they're enough to make my flame grow.

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NEXT: B.C. And Me, Part 2: Humbling Myself

Of An Omelet, And An Opportunity

When I first wrote about my new job at a local Amercian Eagle Outfitters warehouse, I said,

"The job is slated to run through mid-December, with a good chance of an extension after that. The warehouse is closing in June, and my interviewer expressed doubt that the work of winding it down would be finished by December. So I may be there as long as until June, but no longer.
In that regard, I think this fits very nicely with growing my Legal Shield business. But more about that later."

OK, it's later. Here's what I meant:

As a LegalShield associate, I can make money in one of two ways: either by selling the company's services myself, or by recruiting other people as associates and getting a slice of their commissions when they sell the services.

I have preferred to focus on the former, but my new job offers an unusual opportunity to do well with the latter. Here's why:

I am working alongside a lot of other people whose jobs will end no later than June, and who will need income in July. I believe that somewhere among them are at least a couple of people who would make good LegalShield associates - people who could make a living at it, and whose success would enhance own my life emotionally, psychologically and financially.

The question is how to locate them.

The answer that comes to mind is, "By expanding myself."

What does that mean?

A story:

A couple of Sundays ago, the cafeteria, which serves breakfast and lunch, had pot roast on the lunch menu. When I went in for breakfast, I stumped myself with the question, "What do I want for breakfast that will leave me room for pot roast?"

The chef suggested an omelet. I took his suggestion. And it was a really good omelet. It was so good that at lunch time I asked his name - Brian - and shook his hand and thanked him while praising the omelet.

A week later, I asked for a "slam," a breakfast that includes scrambled eggs, bacon or sausage, and potatoes. Brian, scrambling my eggs, asked if I wanted anything extra, and I asked for pepperjack cheese, then said something goofy like, "He hooking me up with the pepperjack cheese!" And Brian said,

"It's not hard to do that for you. You know why?"

I didn't know why. I had no idea what he meant.

"I've been working here over a year and you're that first person that's come back to shake my hand and thank me..."

I was stunned. And deeply impressed with the fact that I had deeply impressed Brian without trying to. Just by being myself.

It may be that the way to locate my LegalShield recruits among my warehouse co-workers is just by being myself on a larger scale...by expanding myself. By letting myself care more about more of my co-workers.

This fits with my recently-formed conviction that the more I care about people, the more I will succeed as a LegalShield associate.

In a late-night convo with my friend Greg Olszewski, it came out this way:

"If I walk into a room and there are 20 people there whom I have not met before...I don't have to know everyone's story in order to care about them. I just need to recognize that everyone has a story. Every single person there has hopes, fears, dreams, problems - and every single person there would probably benefit within the next few months - if not right now - from being able to consult with an attorney without paying through the nose.

Because life happens to everybody.

So...offering LegalShield is a way of doing practical good for people I don't even know...

Because even strangers are human, and deserve it."

So, my mission, which I gladly accept, is to care more about more of my co-workers, and to let that caring lead to what it will in regards to LegalShield - offering the service, offering the associate opportunity, whichever way it goes.

BTW, if you don't yet know why I say that offering LegalShield is a way of doing practical good, and you want to, please check my LegalShield website, and/or drop me a line. I'd be glad to meet and talk about it with you. 

Tote Dat Barge, Lift Dat Bale...

I begin working a new job in less than eight hours.

The job title is "merchandise processor" - a multi-syllabic way of saying "grunt." I will be working in the Warrendale warehouse of American Eagle Outfitters, packing, unpacking, sorting, counting and tagging merchandise.

While working AT American Eagle, I am employed by a company called System One, a staffing agency.

I wasn't particularly looking for a job when the hiring announcement showed up in my email inbox - thinking about looking, but not really looking. But three things appealed to me:

• the pay: $11/hr for weekdays, $11.25/hr for weekends;
• the shifts offered: Mon-Thur, 4 pm - 2 am; and Fri-Sun, 6 am - 6:30 pm. The latter option especially caught my eye because it offered a full-time paycheck for a three-day workweek, leaving Mon-Thur free to continue working to change the world.
• the nature of the work: "Tote dat barge, lift dat bale" would actually provide psychic relief from working to change the world.

So I applied, and was interviewed, and the interviewer said, "I'd like to offer you the job," and I said, "I'd like to take it."

Just like that.

Not having been an employee for more than three years now, and having often experienced extended stretches of unemployment, and having heard so much about how hard it is to find work, especially if you're older, or especially (in Pittsburgh, paticularly) if you're Black, and having struggled with a fear of unemployability, I was greatly surprised by the ease with which I got this job.

Just as it did when I interviewed with David Shribman, executive editor at the Post-Gazette, the man who hired me there.

What if it has been true for a long time that I could get a job any time I wanted?

Writing that made me laugh. You know, ironically.

But seriously - how much time have I spent locked in prisons whose bars were made of thin air? I need to make stepping out of prison a default behavior. Oh, look - there's a fear in front of me. Step. Oh, look - now it's behind me.

At bottom, at the level of decision and action, it is truly that simple. Even when it feels extremely difficult, it remains extremely simple. Do, and observe how you survive.

Anyway, over the next three days, the challenge is to survive 12 1/2 hour days of what could be exhausting physical work. In coming months, I expect to gain muscle, lose fat and sleep excellently.

The job is slated to run through mid-December, with a good chance of an extension after that. The warehouse is closing in June, and my interviewer expressed doubt that the work of winding it down would be finished by December. So I may be there as long as until June, but no longer.

In that regard, I think this fits very nicely with growing my Legal Shield business. But more about that later. For now, time to head bedward - 5 a.m. will come way too soon.

A New Word, A New Question

This popped up in my G+ feed Wednesday, courtesy of +Stacey Gorzin  and +Mani Scienide, and nearly knocked me out of my chair:

What a lovely and delightful word, and how perfect for the life I seek to live.

And I want to add, "while I can."

So, there's this - last Thursday evening, while still processing the intimations of mortality I had experienced the night before, I experienced chest pains. Bad enough to make me Google "heart attack symptoms." Then what I read was scary enough to make me check my wallet for my medical insurance card.

Which wasn't there. Then I started trying to figure out where it could be. Then I started trying to figure out how I might access my medical insurance info without it. And learned that www.healthcare.gov had changed everyone's password in response to the Heartbleed threat. Then couldn't remember my security question answers. Then....

The pain eventually passed.

Tonight I finally told Janet. My fear of upsetting her gave way to the fear of being the husband whose widow says, "Why didn't you tell me, you #$*%!"

She and I have often had conversations acknowledging the reality that we will die someday. Since Thursday night, I have been dogged by the question, "What if I die soon?"

I have long since agreed with Paul that, on the whole, it is better to be There than to be Here. But if I left right now, I would leave a great big mess of unfinished business.

Gotta fix that.

Meanwhile, tomorrow morning I'll visit the community health clinic that I keep forgetting about, and tell them about Thursday's chest pain. And the lump that appeared on the back of my left hand Friday night. And the numbness - or is it an ache? - that has rested in my left arm for the past four hours or so.

And tomorrow afternoon, either use the will kit that came with my Legal Shield membership to work on my will, or if I can't find it, request a new one.

Power Trippin' - or, "Less FB, More G+"

Writers are power freaks. Don't ever let any anyone tell you differently. Paid or unpaid, the real deep-down reason for taking pen in hand or setting hand to keyboard - not the reason for the person who just tosses off Facebook statuses willy-nilly, but the reason for the person who says, "I love to write," the person who cannot imagine *not* writing, whether paid or not - the real reason, I tell you, is because they want to control you. From the moment you set eyes upon their first word, they want to make you feel certain ways, or to make you think along certain paths. Or both.

Sometimes we pretend to lesser ambitions. When we do, we lie.

***************

I had a hard time focusing yesterday; don't know why. I did manage to order some supplies from LegalShield, and made one other call following up on an email to an HR officer. But I spent a good part of the day fighting sleep, and a lesser part losing the fight. I spent too much time on Facebook, although I'd like to think that I delivered value for at least some of my Facebook friends by sharing a couple of articles: one by +Mathew Ingram  at GigaOm about a Florida appeals court ruling that affirms bloggers as journalists, the other a strong opinion piece on BuzzFeed by +Daniel José Older, challenging everyone involved in the book publishing industry to pursue, not just diversity, but something beyond:

Maybe the word hasn’t been invented yet – that thing beyond diversity. We often define movements by what they’re against, but the final goal is greater than the powers it dismantles, deeper than any statistic. It’s something like equity – a commitment to harvesting a narrative language so broad it has no face, no name.

The word that came to my mind was "wholeness," but I wouldn't argue against "equity."

**************

When sharing those articles, I wrote longer introductions to the links than I usually do on Facebook, to give folks more of an idea what was in them. That behavior is influenced by +C. Matthew Hawkins, who sometimes writes such lengthy commentary for articles that he posts links for that I find it unnerving. Not because I have issues with his writing, but because I consider his writing too good for Facebook. Whenever one of my Facebook friends posts something of substantial length and thoughtfulness there, it makes me feel like I'm watching someone who could marry any woman he wanted bed down with a $5 whore.

**************

I've never cared much for Facebook. I signed up for it after +Colin Dean and +Justin Kownacki (among others? I forget) led a session at the Post-Gazette about social media - actually, I may have signed up for it during the session, as a guinea pig. Anyway, I joined Facebook and Twitter at about the same time, and immediately liked Twitter much better than Facebook. I still do, and seeing Twitter become more like Facebook annoys and saddens me.

Much of my early enjoyment of Twitter arose from my use of a third-party application, TweetDeck, which allowed one to log into Twitter, AND Facebook, AND Foursquare, AND LinkedIn, through a single interface. But Twitter bought it, gradually disabled the Android app (I loved using it on my phone), and killed the functionality with other social networks.

HootSuite is my desktop TweetDeck replacement; I use it to monitor and post to Twitter AND Facebook AND LinkedIn. And to a lesser extent, G+

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Ah - G+ (I prefer thinking and saying "G plus," rather than "Google Plus". Weird, huh?)

G+ has become my favorite online cafe, salon, or word-you-use-for-a-place-where-you-meet-for-engaging-conversation-with-people-who-enjoy-thinking.

That's largely because of the people I have connected with there, which is in turn because Google has made Communities such a large part of the G+ experience. Communities allow and encourage connecting with people around shared interests, as opposed to to simply connecting with people whom you already know. The former approach has always been the big attraction of online interaction for me, since the days of America Online chat rooms, and I am glad to see Google revive it. The Conversation community alone, created by +John Kellden, is enough to light up my brain for hours.

But Google hasn't just revived that dynamic, it has put it on steroids, with Hangouts on Air, which give everyone the ability to record and archive a video library of conversations of whatever topics they like. Get the right people to talking, and you can have some fascinating stuff.

If you haven't yet tried G+, I strongly encourage you to do so. And just skip past the part at the beginning where they try to get you to connect to your friends (yawn), and go straight to Communities to find one about a subject that interests you. Hang out there, and get to know people who share your interests, and even your passions.

*****************

I used a word just now that I consider key to the whole thing, a word that I believe elevates G+ far, far above Facebook AND Twitter AND LinkedIn.

Archive.

You see, the reason that long thoughtful posts on Facebook make me wince on behalf of the posters, is because I believe they deserve better than their Facebook fate - to appear at the top of someone's news feed for a brief moment, then to be cast into the yawning chasm of an undifferentiated timeline, an entropic verbal-cognitive soup, at best half-remembered, at worst wholly forgotten and undiscoverable.

They deserve to be archived. To be curated. Or at the very least, to be SEARCHABLE.

G+ is searchable (DUH), and I find that hugely important. Because I'm a power freak. I want the power that I wield over others with my words to last for more than the few minutes during which my status may appear at the top of someone's Facebook or Twitter feed. I want to wield power over others forever.

**************

There - I've said it, and I'm glad. When anyone, ever, searches for anything about which I have written, I want my words, my phrases, my sentences to bubble up to the top, or near it. This, this writing thing, this stringing together of words, is the one thing (I tell myself) at which I have the best opportunity to excel in my remaining days and years on this rock. I want to make work that lasts and lasts.

For that, I place more trust in the Googleverse than in Facebook (although, in the tradition of tying up one's camel, I may start backing up all of my writing locally). So Facebook will see less of me, and G+ more, in months to come.

Three Priorities For 2014: Closing Thoughts

It has been a couple of weeks now since I wrote the last entry in this series. I was avoiding this, and am not sure why. I think I was afraid that reviewing the whole thing would leave me feeling overwhelmed. But I just did that, and it didn't. There's good stuff here; stuff that deserves hard, smart work.

"For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to devote ourselves to the good deeds for which God has designed us."

That's Ephesians.

Closing thoughts? Only that I want to live in a way that invites others to come along, and then makes them glad they did.

As God grants me focus, it will be one heck of a ride.

***************
Three Priorities: The Complete Series
Three Priorities For 2014 - And Beyond
Three Priorities For 2014: 1 - Encouraging The Body Of Christ
Three Priorities For 2014: 2- Growing Businesses.
Three Priorities For 2014: 2.5 - Why Build Businesses?
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Legal Shield
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Homewood Capital Partners
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Luminaria Productions
Three Priorities For 2014: 3 - Redeveloping Race Street
Three Priorities For 2014: Closing Thoughts

Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Legal Shield

I'm talking about growing businesses - I have three that I am working on now. Well, four, but one barely counts.

That's Capital Synergies. I say that it barely counts, because its was created purely to be a holding company for other entities. A couple of years ago, I decided to make it the home for my practice as a representative for Legal Shield.

So what is Legal Shield, and why am I a Legal Shield representative?

You may already know about Legal Shield without realizing it. For decades, the company was known as PrePaid Legal. After its sale to private equity firm MidOcean Partners, the new owners renamed it Legal Shield.

What does Legal Shield do? It provides affordable access to the legal system by providing basic legal services for a small monthly fee. It also offers the opportunity to earn an income by selling memberships to others, and/or by enrolling them as associates who in turn sell memberships.

I think I first became a member and an associate in 2007, when my friend Dan Jendrey, himself a new associate, signed me up. Back then, I did it primarily to help him get started. The idea of being able to call a law firm for an unlimited number of matters for a small monthly payment made sense to me, but I had no interest - NONE - in selling anything.

That reluctance was due to three things: 1) my job at the Post-Gazette paid well; 2) I had other business ventures in mind; and 3) I was totally turned off by the whole multi-level/network marketing thing.

By "thing," I mean both the structure that network marketing employs, which often leads to companies placing more emphasis on recruiting one's "downline" than on actually selling a product/service; and the culture that seems common to network marketing companies, which revolves around what I call "rah-rah."

"Rah-rah" is a way of presenting the business opportunity as a way to get rich - as signified by portrayals of a glamorous lifestyle - with little effort. The lifestyle generally portrayed never appealed to me - I'd rather die working. I'd rather work for free than for money, but I'd rather die working than have a luxurious retirement.

It is only within the past year that I have made any sincere effort - ANY - to sell the service.

What brought me around?

My belief in the value of the service. My desire to have time freedom. My desire to establish a residual income.

A residual income - that is, money that comes in month after month without working for it - is as close as you can get to having a money tree. If I had $50,000 a year in residual income, my wife and I could live quite comfortably, and I could devote myself more freely and flexibly to working on things I care deeply about (including for-profit and not-for-profit ventures).

The final thing that persuaded me to begin working as a Legal Shield associate (as opposed to lying completely fallow) was the availability of a program which can shorten the path to $50,000 in residual income, and which does not rely on "Rah-Rah."

That program is group sales, which is the company's name for employers offering membership in Legal Shield as an employee benefit. Unlike other employee benefits, it costs the company nothing; the benefits to the employee are a discount on the monthly fee, and having it paid automatically from their paycheck. When I learned about group sales, I immediately liked the idea of presenting to groups much more than that of doing one-on-one appointments - first, because I enjoy public speaking; second, because I would rather make sales 10 or 20 or 50 at a time as opposed to one at a time. The fact that group enrollments focus entirely on selling the service, without reference to recruiting people as associates, made group sales even more attractive to me.

So I became a certified group specialist. I haven't made any group sales yet; I'll share more about my journey toward that milestone as I go. For now, suffice it to say that if you own a business with at least five employees, and you would like to reduce absenteeism, increase productivity, and reduce expenses - and come off as a hero/shero to your workforce in the process - then you need to check out Legal Shield's employee benefits program. Then, let's talk (even if you're not in Pittsburgh: I love to drive, and I bought a Toyota Prius in October, and need to practice my pulse and glide).

***************
Three Priorities: The Complete Series
Three Priorities For 2014 - And Beyond
Three Priorities For 2014: 1 - Encouraging The Body Of Christ
Three Priorities For 2014: 2- Growing Businesses.
Three Priorities For 2014: 2.5 - Why Build Businesses?
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Legal Shield
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Homewood Capital Partners
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Luminaria Productions
Three Priorities For 2014: 3 - Redeveloping Race Street
Three Priorities For 2014: Closing Thoughts

Three Priorities For 2014: 2.5 - Why Build Businesses?

I promised to share some big-picture thinking about business. First, a little story:

One day back in the early 1980s, I visited a car dealership in Louisville to apply for a job there.

I don't remember the name of the dealership, or of the man who owned it. I do remember him standing before a group of prospective hires and talking about how much it meant to him to know that his business was helping his employees to put food on the table for their families.

When I left that meeting, I didn't have the job I had sought; but I did have something else:  the desire to own a business.

I think that's where it began for me, this quest to build an enterprise. So the first thing that I want to say about building businesses is that for me, building a business is not primarily about making money, for at least three reasons.

1) My wife and I don't need much income to live well. Our house, car and college educations are paid for, and we don't have kids. Beyond that, we don't have extravagant tastes. She is more frugal than I am, but even my wishlist doesn't go beyond a bodacious home theatre and a Tesla Model S.

I do NOT want a yacht. I DO want one of these. Truly.

2) Having piles of money sitting around has never appealed to me. I would rather have assets that generate income, than simply have a pile of money. And if I can create those assets without money, or acquire them at a discount for cash, or use my money to leverage other financing to acquire them - in other words if I can accumulate assets that have more value than the money I spend for them - so much the better.

3) Making money is at most one-third of the benefit of building a business. I consider the possibilities that a well-run business has for blessing the world to be downright magical. The magic of business is the potential for creating value for more and more people in more and more ways. Money (and other value) for the owner(s), money (and other value) for employees, money (and other value) for vendors whose goods and services the business uses...and on top of all that (or before all that), value for customers.

When I left the showroom of that car dealership, I was inspired by the possibility of helping people to put food on the tables for their families. I still find it inspiring to think of becoming a job creator (however much the term has fallen into disfavor), and of creating value for dozens, hundreds, or thousands of people beyond that.

Heck, make that, millions of people. Because a successful TV show, movie, or video game - or even a YouTube video - will in fact entertain and/or enlighten millions of people. Thus, Luminaria Productions.

And on a smaller scale, the rehabilitation and resale of 20 or 30 or 50 homes in Homewood will create value for dozens or hundreds of people. Thus, Homewood Capital Partners.

And helping people to gain affordable attorney access so that they receive full benefit from our legal system - well, that can be valuable to anybody I know or can talk to, who doesn't already have it. Thus, Legal Shield.

In sum, I see building a business as a way of giving more to more people than I could ever do otherwise, and thus a way of fulfilling Jesus' instruction and promise, "Give, and it shall be given unto you" - not to mention the cultural mandate of Gen. 1.28.

More briefly still: Why build businesses? Because business is holy.

That's my view. What's yours?

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Three Priorities: The Complete Series
Three Priorities For 2014 - And Beyond
Three Priorities For 2014: 1 - Encouraging The Body Of Christ
Three Priorities For 2014: 2- Growing Businesses.
Three Priorities For 2014: 2.5 - Why Build Businesses?
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Legal Shield
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Homewood Capital Partners
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Luminaria Productions
Three Priorities For 2014: 3 - Redeveloping Race Street
Three Priorities For 2014: Closing Thoughts

Three Priorities For 2014: 2- Growing Businesses.

I am writing this at nearly 2 a.m., but it will not appear until 7 a.m., if I use Blogger's scheduling feature correctly. So I begin with...

This blog post was supposed to appear yesterday. Sorry about that.

This is where I start talking about growing businesses. Right now that means learning to allocate resources (time and attention, mostly) between four:

I created Capital Synergies, Inc. to own and manage partnerships that would in turn invest in real estate (one partnership per property). I haven't done that yet, but in the meantime, I created Luminaria Productions, a media company that now owns both this blog and Homewood Nation, a community news service that incorporates an eponymous website, Facebook page, Twitter feed and YouTube channel. Capital Synergies owns Luminaria Productions.

Along the way I also signed up as a member of, and independent representative for, Legal Shield, under the Capital Synergies name.

Homewood Capital Partners is an LLC that I formed for the purpose of partnering with others to invest in real estate in Homewood.

I'll say more about all of them later, one at a time. For now, general observations:

1. Any one of Homewood Capital Partners, Legal Shield, or Luminaria Productions could in and itself provide a very comfortable living. Managing all of them well will make me rich (especially since my definition of rich sets a relatively low bar: $50,000 a year in passive income.). Managing them poorly will - make me poor? Destroy my marriage? Seriously, I can't even imagine how bad it could get if I don't manage any of them well. Or to put it more precisely, how much worse it would get if I don't learn to manage any of them well.

2. Managing four businesses well (or even one) begins with managing myself well.

3. It's nearly 2 a.m.

4. Going to bed, right now, would be a good step toward wealth and power and stuff.

Before talking about managing individual businesses, I think I should share some of my big-picture thinking about business, so that will come next.

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Three Priorities: The Complete Series
Three Priorities For 2014 - And Beyond
Three Priorities For 2014: 1 - Encouraging The Body Of Christ
Three Priorities For 2014: 2- Growing Businesses.
Three Priorities For 2014: 2.5 - Why Build Businesses?
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Legal Shield
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Homewood Capital Partners
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Luminaria Productions
Three Priorities For 2014: 3 - Redeveloping Race Street
Three Priorities For 2014: Closing Thoughts

Building a billion-dollar enterprise, 19: Brick by brick

Today (i.e., Tuesday, 6/4) I worked mostly online.

I enrolled in the eService program for Legal Shield associates, snagging my associate website. I then went back to yesterday's post and inserted a link to the website there. I also rewrote my Google Plus profile, which appears here to the right, to link to it, as well as to Luminaria Productions' YouTube channel. You may have noticed that I also added a Chatroll chat window - I'm not sure why, except as a whim. I am more likely to use a chat window on Homewood Nation than here.

On Homewood Nation, I added an ad for Legal Shield that links to my Legal Shield website. And I created a sidebar module that links to both this blog and to Quick Flicks, my site for selling my short scripts to aspiring filmmakers.

Homewood Nation, which has so far generated only $50 in a one-time donation, now contains these channels for potential revenue:

• the Homewood Nation Cafe Press shop
• a sidebar link to my Amazon shop
• a sidebar link to Quick Flicks
• a sidebar ad for Legal Shield
• a donation button

It just occurred to me that, besides the having the sidebar link that invites people to search for books on Amazon, and besides inserting a link to my Amazon shop when I mention books in my Homewood Nation posts (something I should do more often), I may be able to create a "Recommended reading" sidebar module that highlights a particular book, such as my most recent favorite, Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change, (the link is for the 2d edition; I read the original.)

While reviewing my stats for this blog, I noticed that my May 17th post, "Internet journalism and the Black Church's $420 billion," was receiving comments from people saying not only that they appreciated it, but that they were sharing it with others. Bad effect: I became overly preoccupied with checking to see how many times that post had been viewed. Good effect: I redistributed the link to it via G+, Twitter and Facebook.

Result - the numbers went up yet further. Yay!

Also today, I reviewed +Rob Jones'  piece for Homewood Nation, about coaching a community. That will go in tomorrow.

I am writing this because I want to post something here every evening for the remainder of this month. I don't think I've done that here for such an extended stretch, and I believe that doing so could produce dramatic results - with my definition of dramatic being something like, "having 50 readers daily" or "starting to make ANY money with this."

Wow; I've forgotten what may be the most important thing I did today. I posted a LinkedIn status linking to last night's post. I think it was the first time I've promoted a blog post on LinkedIn, despite having more 1st-degree contacts there (619) than I have Facebook friends (450).

But not only did I post the link on LinkedIn. I posted it ONLY on LinkedIn and on G+. Not on Facebook, not on Twitter. As an experiment.

I think I'll keep the experiment going, with these parameters: 1) write a BBDE post every evening for the remainder of the month, reviewing that day's activity; 2) promote it only on LinkedIn and G+.

I can write non-BBDE posts at will, and promote them everywhere EXCEPT LinkedIn.

On a separate note: I've tried to use AdSense here, but have never gotten it to work. Gotta get that going.

Building a billion-dollar enterprise, 18 - A worthwhile lunch, an excuse destroyed.

Hm. It looks like I have never written here about Legal Shield - or about its predecessor, Pre-Paid Legal.

That ends today, if only because I need to say that I did some activity today as a Legal Shield associate (for those who don't know, LegalShield provides access to quality legal services for as little as $17 a month. For more info on how it works, take a look here.)

I had lunch with Phil Berger and a fellow I'll call Chuck. Chuck is VP, Human Resource and Labor Relations at a company with 10 subsidiary companies in six states.

Phil Berger is a long-time Legal Shield associate who leads the "Group Troop," a group of associates who do group sales of Legal Shield.

Group sales refers to having employers agree to let us offer Legal Shield membership to their employees as an employee benefit, with discounted rates for group participation and payment being automatically deducted from their paycheck (at no cost to the employer).

The lunch with Chuck was to open the door toward doing an enrollment at his company. Phil did the presentation. I mostly watched and learned. Mostly I learned how easy it can be to do such a presentation, once you've done the work to make it so.

I believe it went well. Chuck seemed genuinely interested, and he left Phil with a couple of questions to get back to him on.

If the company agrees to let us come in, we'll be doing an enrollment for about 750 people. Since Phil likes to do enrollments in groups of 15 - 20 people, that would mean 30 or more sessions, stretched out over a week or more.

As someone who enjoys public speaking to begin with, I find that possibility exciting, because it would allow me to gain a lot of skill in doing enrollments, really quickly. In normal circumstances, it could take a couple of years to get the amount of experience as a presenter that this scenario might give me in two weeks.

And depending on how Phil and I split things up, an enrollment for 750 people could wind up providing Capital Synergies with enough to cover not only CSI's bills, but those of Luminaria Productions as well - and to fund a 401k.

Wow, I'm really tired. Just sitting here staring at the screen; nodding off; waking enough to stare some more. But just want to say that I am glad that this day I did something with the distinct purpose of making money; something less speculative than a Cafe Press shop on Homewood Nation.

Even if we do get the enrollment at Chuck's company, though, it could take months to reach that point. So I need to push myself on offering memberships to individuals. I have always preferred the idea of doing groups to that of doing individual sales. But Phil described a way of doing individual sales that made me say, when I heard it, "Even I can do that."

Phil started out operating under a restriction by his wife that he could devote only five hours a week to Pre-Paid Legal. Being a methodical guy, he worked out a system under which he made phone calls on Thursday evening until he had secured two appointments for the following Saturday morning. By doing those two things - making phone calls Thursday evening and going to appointments Saturday morning, for a total of no more than five hours a week - he made his first sales within his first month, and had sales every month thereafter.

On top of that, at the appointments, pretty much all he did was play a Pre-Paid Legal tape (remember VHS?). That was enough for about one out of three people to sign up. And after they did, he asked them, "Would you be interested in knowing how much money I just made?" And that led to one of three new members also becoming associates. 

I can do that. All of it.

But after saying, "Even I can do that," I found ways to avoid doing it. Most recently, I told myself that in fact I couldn't do it, because I don't have a car. And as long as I told myself that I couldn't do it, I prevented myself from seeing how I could. Excuses are self-blinding - they prevent us from seeing what is possible.

Over the weekend, it struck me that I know a bunch of people in Homewood, all of whom would be within walking distance. I checked my Gmail contacts to see how many of them live in Homewood, and surprised myself with the number: 65.

That's 65 people within walking distance, and with whom I already have some degree of relationship.

I told Phil today to expect a call from me within the next couple of days about how I'm doing with calling my 65 people.

I need to go ahead and make my first personal sale. And my second, and my third. I need to just get past that bump. Having 65 people within walking distance means that

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UPDATE: When I first wrote this entry, I wavered about whether or not to designate it as a BBDE post, and decided against it, titling it merely, "A worthwhile lunch, an excuse destroyed." But with further thought, I 've realized that one of the things that this this day's activity was about is learning to do new things. Or better, learning a new way of doing things: Prepare with the goal of making something simple enough to do that it can easily become a habit.

On a more mundane level, today was about doing what it takes to keep an enterprise going until it becomes self-sustaining. Success with Legal Shield will help to keep Luminaria Productions going. That's about as basic as BBDE gets.