Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? - Pt. 3

In earlier posts, I wrote about how LegalShield wants to create 1,000 millionaires by 2020, and how I expect to be one of them.

The company's goal of creating 1,000 millionaire fascinates me, for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that I know what a millionaire is.

Many people think that a millionaire is someone who has $1,000,000. That's a total misconception, for at least two reasons.

1) A millionaire is someone who has a net worth of $1,000,000. That means that if you add up the value of what they own, then subtract the value of what they owe, the result is at least $1,000,000.

If you have $1,000,000 cash, and owe $2,000,000, you are not a millionaire; you are a person with a serious debt problem.

2) You can be a millionaire without having any cash at all. If the only thing you own is a building worth $1,200,000 and the only thing you owe is a $200,000 mortgage on that building, you are, for that moment, a cashless millionaire.

That leads to a corollary:

2a) Not only do you not have to have $1,000,000 to be a millionaire; you don't have to have $1,000,000 to become one.

For instance, with that building worth $1,200,000, the fact that it is worth that much does not mean you would need $1,200,000 in cash to buy it. You might be able to buy it for $1,000,000. You might be able to buy it for $800,000. Life is unpredictable, and you never know what someone might be willing to sell something for. Heck, if you could buy that building for $150,000, and you got a mortgage for $115.000, you would only need $35,000 in cash to become a millionaire.

Here's another extreme example: You buy $100,000 worth of shares in the XYZ Corporation, and the company then takes off so dramatically that your shares become worth $1,000,000. Assuming you are net positive otherwise, you are now a millionaire.

Then there's the matter of creating assets. Writing a book, for instance, may take a lot of time, but it requires almost no money. If that book becomes a bestseller, it could make you a millionaire. And if you're J.K. Rowling, it could become a series of books that make you a billionaire.

So, while one can become a millionaire by direct earnings, the process can be accelerated by acquiring or creating assets that increase one's net worth.

Back to LegalShield: the second reason that LegalShield's goal to create 1,000 millionaires fascinates me is that, as far as I know, LegalShield gives associates one thing in compensation for our work: cash. Not real estate, not equities. Just cash. So when CEO Jeff Bell talks about creating 1,000 millionaires, he's talking about paying 1,000 individuals $1,000,000 in cash. Each.

I consider that remarkable.

I expect Legalshield to pay me $1,000,000 over time. But on the way towards that mark, I intend to use my growing excess cash both to acquire assets at a discount (there's always a deal somewhere for cash), and to create and market new assets, so that I become a millionaire before I've earned $1,000,000.

That will be fun. But this would be even more fun: helping someone else, or several someone elses, to get there.

I need to get serious about recruiting. For the fun of it.

********************
RELATED:
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? - Pt. 1
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? - Pt. 2

Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Homewood Capital Partners

Hm. What should I say about Homewood Capital Partners LLC, and how should I say it?

Well, I suppose the first thing I need to say is that this post, is not an offer to sell, nor a solicitation to buy, units in Homewood Capital Partners LLC.

Okay then - I created Homewood Capital Partners LLC because I believe that Homewood real estate, which has been undervalued for decades, will increase in value significantly within ten years, possibly within five. I believe that a lot of money will be made off Homewood real estate in that time frame. I want some of it, and I want to help my neighbors to get some of it.

I have a King. My King has issued a command - not a suggestion, not a request - to love my neighbor. Helping some of my neighbors to get some of the money that I expect Homewood real estate to generate over the next decade is a way of doing that.

So - units of Homewood Capital Partners LLC will not be available to the general public. It's about me, my neighbors, and people we know.

I don't want to say anything here that ought to be saved for the offering materials, so I'll just say this: I want Homewood Capital Partners to catalyze Homewood's transformation by buying, rehabbing and selling enough homes in Homewood to help raise property values.

And this: I believe that, partly because of the work of the Save Race Street Committee, Race Street is particularly well positioned to lead the renewal of the market for Homewood's existing housing stock.

I need to uncork this genie.

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

Elwin 3.0, Year One

I am approaching an anniversary, and I don't know how I feel about it.

February 21, 2011, was my last day as a reporter with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. I had started there in September, 2004, so I was just shy of six and a half years there when I left.

When I took the buyout being offered by the PG, I told myself that I was finally gaining the time I needed to do some things that were crowding my plate. Things like:

• publishing my first book
• publishing my second book
• completing and distributing my first short film
• completing and distributing my second short film
• shooting my third, fourth and fifth short films, and getting them completed and distributed.
• building my website, "Homewood Nation," into THE primary source for all Homewood-related news.
• completing my first feature film script
• completing my second feature film script
• becoming competent enough at day-trading stocks to make a modest living from it
• launching and managing an LLC for investing in Homewood real estate
• selling memberships to Pre-Paid Legal (now Legal Shield)

...and other stuff, but at this point the list becomes kinda embarrassing, becuase I have done none of those things. Not one.

What have I done?

• I have become chair of the Save Race Street Committee
• I have become chair of Block Watch Plus
• I have joined the board of Operation Better Block
• I have joined the Bridging the Busway steering committee

In short, I have accepted pretty much any invitations that came along that I thought would help me to serve my neighborhood.

That hasn't worked well economically (I could also question how well it has worked in other ways. One thing at a time.). Nearly all of the things in the first list would have been done with the expectation of making money. None of the things in the second list have that expectation.

I'm not rich enough yet to spend all of my time not earning money. Or more precisely, not even trying to.

Which brings me to PeaceBuilder: Homewood, an online game based on Homewood. It has been in development since July or August, and we're just about to do the public rollout. I am nervous because I've pretty much placed all of my marbles in the PeaceBuilder bag - savings, home equity. If it takes off, I pay off credit cards, replenish savings, pay off the home equity line of credit and then begin to experience genuine profit. If not....

Well, if not, I publish my first book, then my second. I complete and distribute my first short film, then my second. And I keep building "Homewood Nation" into THE primary source for all Homewood-related news. And I day-trade stocks. And I manage an LLC for investing in Homewood real estate. And I sell memberships in Legal Shield. Not necessarily in that order.

In other words, I get back on track to do the same things that I set out to do, and the same things that I would do if PeaceBuilder succeeds. I refuse to go broke again.

So, the anniversary simply means that time has passed. I have not achieved intentions within their desired timeframes. I have allowed myself to get distracted. Sometimes, I have not merely gotten distracted, I have sought out distraction.

The anniversary reminds me that I must work to learn un-distraction. I must keep asking, "How can I create value today?" Asking that question, and living the answer, will lead to making the money I need, and then some. Just like it says in Ephesians.

I wrote this at work Friday, and emailed it to myself because, well, you know, blogging at work would be uncool...

1:08 PM 6/13/2008
I was in the men's room when a colleague walked in and, out of the blue, asked me what I did before coming to the PG. I asked him how much time he had, then began rattling off the list - tax preparer, bank teller, cab driver, delivery person for a chocolate factory, three years in the Army, associate minister of a Baptist church...he asked if my current job paid better than those other things and I said yes.

"Why, do you want to sell me some investments?"

No, he said, he had just been thinking about what other work he might be able to do. He has been a journalist his entire working life, since college. Then he said something that didn't even sink in until later.

"I have no transferable skills."

Because it didn't really sink in when he said it, I didn't give much of a response. Only later did I think, "Are you kidding? You know how to dig out facts, you know how to think your way past B.S., and you know how to write! Dude, you can write your own ticket!"

Just seconds before that encounter, on my way to the men's room, I was thinking about using something called a small corporation offering registration to capitalize a new company, Homewood Development Corporation, to do real estate development in Homewood. After the encounter, it struck me that this type of thinking is habitual with me. During my checkered job history, I spent so much time asking, "What else can I do now?" and "What can I do next?" that those questions became second nature to me. The encounter with my colleague made me realize that in today's environment, that is an advantage. While he, an absolute slambang journalist, apparently has no idea of what else he could do with his life, I have such a long list of other things I could do that my biggest challenge may be deciding where to start.

None of the things that I tried to do in addition to my jobs ever quite worked, but now I am in a much stronger position than I've ever been in before to make them work. If my biggest challenge is deciding where to start, my second biggest challenge is sticking with a non-job activity long enough to get it well established.

Robert T. Kiyosaki makes an acronym of "FOCUS" - "follow one course until successful." I am already following at least two: real estate investing and filmmaking. I take some comfort in being able to view them both as activities of a single entity, and thereby to count that entity's development as the "one course."

In any case, real estate has taken what feels like a disproportionate amount of my time lately, but I tell myself that I'll be able to pull back greatly once I've acquired an investment property and placed it under professional management. Then I can focus more on filmmaking, to which I'm only giving minimal time right now.

Meanwhile, part of my brain will continue to churn Homewood Development Corporation, the entity that could build a movie studio in Homewood.