The Power of Detachment
Issue #2320
- WEALTHY: Making money in real estate, even in the current market (Michael Masterson)
- HEALTHY: A miracle substance with health benefits galore (Kelley Herring)
- WISE: the Bhagavad Gita on achieving inner peace
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- New opportunities abound… if you can do one thing (Robert Ringer)
- When is $25 better than $100? (David Cross)
- It’s Fun to Know… when a bread is not a bread
- Add "blandishment" to your vocabulary
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Dear ETR: "What else can I do to reach buyers?"
"We have been in the real estate business for a long time. Earning well into the high six figures, until the end of 07 and now 08. We are a small company and have implemented some things that we feel should help. We have added a website that should be up shortly, something we have not needed before. We have new mailing lists and are constantly searching for buyers and sellers. This has been to no avail. Deals on sellers’ sides are falling apart, thereby making other deals fall apart (even though they were solid-looking to begin with). Lending is at a standstill… and on it goes.
"We offer solid corporate guaranteed leases with minimal involvement by the landlord, making these easy to own. A ‘recession-proof’ asset, and an enduring one in these markets.
"So my question is this: What else can I do to reach buyers? I am on several publications, e-mails daily, working on a newsletter to put our name in front of buyers… but they are still not making the move. They have to be out there. We just need to tap them. And I have lists."
-Dolores B.
Shawano, WI
Dear Dolores,
It’s good to get a tough question from an experienced pro.
I have two things to say. First, I am - as longtime ETR readers know - the ultimate chicken entrepreneur. By that I mean that I love starting and growing businesses, but I never put all my eggs in one basket. As I explain in Automatic Wealth, real estate has been, for me, an extremely rewarding secondary investment. My net worth today is twice what it would have been because of the incredible appreciation I enjoyed for 25 years in the real estate market.
That said, I’ve been primarily an investor in real estate - buying condos and single-family homes, apartment buildings, and offices, collecting rents, and selling them after they appreciated. I have been a managing partner on a major development only once, in Latin America. My partner and I got into that so inexpensively that it worked very well. Even now, with a third of the property left to sell, we have seen our initial investment returned more than tenfold.
But, being a chicken, I never put more than 20 percent of my investible income into real estate. The lion’s share of my investing was in small direct-response businesses and publishing companies, which operate on a different cycle than real estate.
So I’ve hedged my bets. And that has worked for me. Like everyone else who has real estate holdings, I’ve seen depreciation in the past 18 months. In fact, I predicted that downturn in ETR three years ago and again every year since then. Because it was obvious to me that the market was bubbling out (and because I am a chicken entrepreneur), my investments in real estate have been minimal for the last year and a half.
It’s different for someone like you, Dolores, for whom real estate is a full-time endeavor. You have to make it work now in order to keep your business growing. The recession we’ve been living through (which started at least a year ago - the government hasn’t been the least bit honest about economic indicators) has made it difficult to stay in real estate. I have many friends who have suffered from the collapse. Some have lost tens of millions of dollars.
Meanwhile, others have developed new strategies that have allowed them to continue to prosper with real estate as a full-time business. If you’ve been reading ETR regularly, you’ve been introduced to several of these experts and their innovative ideas. I asked one of them, Justin Ford, what he thought you could do to weather the storm. (One of the investments I made in the past 18 months was with him and it is doing very well, even in this market.)
Since you’ve already exhausted the obvious ways to find investors for your deals, Justin recommended trying these three less-conventional approaches:
- Look at local real estate investment clubs. Most of them are full of active investors, but a few may be interested in the type of passive investment you offer.
- Advertise, in local papers, the key benefits of your deals. Invite the people who respond to your ad to a luncheon or dinner where you will have time to deliver your full sales pitch.
- If your list broker has lists of owners of bank CDs, it might pay to advertise to them… offering them higher, secure yields on their money. (Banks are paying low rates on CDs these days - and since your properties generate income with guaranteed corporate leases, these otherwise conservative investors may be interested in the yield, amortization, and eventual appreciation your investment may offer.)
The long-term future of real estate looks bright, so try to stick with it. In another six months or a year I expect the market to bottom. Then I’ll be investing heavily again. There is only so much good land to go around. Between now and 2025, the U.S. will need to add something like a million housing units. Thousands of Americans will make billions of dollars from that. I intend to participate in that boom.
- Michael Masterson
[Ed. Note: For more information about how to minimize risk, spot hidden opportunities, and build lasting wealth, sign up for ETR's free real estate success newsletter, Mainstreet Millionaire.
And to get unusual but very practical and powerful off-the-radar wealth-building techniques from an elite team of real estate experts, entrepreneurial wizards, and wealth-building gurus, join us this month for our Profits in Paradise Wealth-Building Summit. Learn more here.
Send your questions to AskETR@ETRFeedback.com. Include your full name, your hometown and state, and the ETR team may answer you in an upcoming issue.]
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"Better indeed is knowledge than mechanical practice. Better than knowledge is meditation. But better still is surrender of attachment to results, because there follows immediate peace."
Bhagavad Gita
The Power of Detachment
Detachment is an incredibly powerful tool that I wish I had understood much earlier in life. There are many things from which you can detach yourself, and one of the most important is the habit of judging people, actions, and circumstances as being right or wrong, good or bad.
As Deepak Chopra says in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, when you are constantly classifying, labeling, and evaluating, you "create a lot of turbulence in your internal dialogue." The more internal bickering that takes place, the less time and room (in your mind) for constructive thinking.
Worry, irrelevant thoughts, and fears only add to this internal bickering. All of these are abstracts from which you should make a conscious effort to detach yourself. Even more important is the necessity to detach yourself from needing the approval of others. When you are attached to peer approval, you tend to make bad decisions.
Then there is the pain and discomfort of your present situation. The more you struggle against the unpleasant circumstances of the moment, the more time and energy you waste. It’s okay to want things to get better down the road, but don’t waste time and energy wishing things were different than they are right now.
Accepting your present situation means detaching yourself from the pain it is causing you. Philosophically, you should learn to accept pain as a normal part of life. Which means, paradoxically, that the best way to eliminate pain is to not try to eliminate it. The more you fight pain, the more it is likely to persist.
Above all, learn to detach yourself from specific results. Practice the art of being flexible. Understand that circumstances constantly change and that things rarely work out precisely as planned. The results you end up with may be much different from the results you were after, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they will be less satisfying. If you are too attached to a specific result, it shuts down your creativity.
As with peer approval, when you are too attached to a specific result, you have a tendency to force decisions. And forced decisions are most often bad decisions.
The quickest and most certain way to achieve a goal is to mentally focus on what you want, and attach very strong feeling to wanting it. If you picture a result without attaching strong feelings to it, it’s no more than a thought. And that’s where the subtle connection between desire and letting go comes in.
Having strong feelings about wanting something in your life is a good thing. The stronger your feelings, the better. But, at the same time, you have to let go and allow it to come to you - perhaps in a different form than you expected.
If a specific objective becomes an obsession - if you believe that you can’t be happy without achieving it - your feelings pass the point of diminishing returns and your focus becomes counterproductive.
All this does not mean that you should permanently resign yourself to the circumstances of your currently bad situation. Nor does it mean that you should give up your desire or intention for a specific result. What you should give up is your attachment to that result. Or, as Chopra puts it, you should "accept the present and intend the future."
When you become adept at detachment - from pain, from evaluating and classifying everything that crosses your path, from precise results - it gives you the time, energy, and mental clarity to focus on the single most important activity for overcoming an impossibly bad situation: exploiting opportunities.
What opportunities? The opportunities that are part and parcel of every "impossible" situation.
Based on personal experience, I am convinced that the greatest opportunities lie in the eye of the storm - at the very center of your worst problems.
Use your will to detach yourself from your impossible situation and, instead, spend your time cultivating the opportunities it has brought into your life - keeping in mind that such opportunities may be heavily camouflaged.
[Ed. Note: If you're ready for a treasure chest of proven ideas, strategies, and techniques that are guaranteed to dramatically improve your dealmaking skills - and, in the process, increase your income many times over - you won't want to miss out on Robert Ringer's best-selling dealmaking audio series, A Dealmaker's Dream.
And sign up for his Voice of Sanity e-letter here.]
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When Making Sales, Pricier Is Not Always Better
By David Cross
You created an e-book, tested various price points, and determined that you can sell it for as much as $100. But wait. Just because you know people will buy it at $100 doesn’t mean that’s the ideal price. You might be better off selling it for a lot less.
This may sound illogical, but it’s true - and it’s based on a direct-marketing principle ("price elasticity") that says you can sell more of a product at a lower price but still wind up with the same amount of profit as if you sold it at a higher price.
Let’s say you tested your e-book at $100 and got 20 customers. That’s a gross of $2,000. And let’s say you also tested your e-book at $50 and got 40 customers (which, according to the principle of price elasticity, is highly likely). You still grossed $2,000 - but the $50 price point is much better for your business.
Although the gross is the same, the lower price brought in twice the number of customers. Remember, the bulk of direct-marketing profits comes from repeat sales to existing customers. So the more customers you can acquire with your e-book, the more profits you can practically guarantee for your business in the future.
The moral here? Test, test, and test again. Try out your products at different price points. Then go with the price that brings in the most customers.
[Ed. Note: David Cross is Senior Internet Consultant to Agora Inc. in Baltimore. If you're interested in profiting from all the benefits of starting an online business, click here to learn more about ETR's Magic Button program.]
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Bulk Up to Lower Inflammation
You’ve likely heard quite a bit lately about a certain "miracle" substance. It’s proven to foster weight loss, improve gastrointestinal health, protect the heart, and even guard against cancer. Food manufacturers are boosting it in their products (and proudly displaying it on their labels). TV commercials featuring models exposing taut tummies urge you to whirl it into juice or water. And a recent book suggests that getting 35 grams every day is the key to losing weight and staying healthy for life.
What is this miracle substance? Fiber! Although devoid of calories, this non-nutritional vital nutrient is anything but lacking when it comes to your health. And new research shows yet another way roughage (as Mom calls it) can help prevent one of the major causes of chronic disease - inflammation.
A recent study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition examined the relationship between C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker of inflammation and a predictor of heart disease and diabetes, with dietary fiber. The study evaluated the body composition, CRP, diet, and physical activity of 524 people. At the end of the study, CRP levels in the body were found to be inversely associated with the total fiber in the diet.
Bulk up on fiber to keep inflammation down. For maximum benefit, eat a variety of plant-based foods that provide both soluble and insoluble fiber. Here are a few:
- Black beans, 1/2 cup: 7.5 grams of fiber
- Chickpeas, 1/2 cup: 6.2 grams
- Kidney beans, 1/2 cup: 5.8 grams
- Navy beans, 1/2 cup: 5.8 grams
- Northern beans, 1/2 cup: 5.6 grams
- Pinto beans, 1/2 cup: 7.4 grams
- Brussels sprouts, 1 cup: 6.4 grams
- Apple: 5.7 grams
- Pear: 5.1 grams
- Whole wheat spaghetti, 1 cup: 6.3 grams
[Ed. Note: Kelley Herring is the founder and CEO of Healing Gourmet (www.healinggourmet.com), and is editor-in-chief of the Healing Gourmet book series. Learn more about how simple lifestyle choices can improve your health by reading ETR's free natural health e-letter.]
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It’s Fun to Know: When Is a Bread Not a Bread?
Two "breads" you don’t want to order by mistake:
Sweetbreads - light, firm meat from the thymus gland or pancreas of beef, pork, and lamb. According to WhatsCookingAmerica.net, veal sweetbreads are the best.
Laverbread - a gelatinous, black Welsh "delicacy" made of oatmeal and seaweed. According to Laverbread.org, it accompanies bacon and eggs to make a traditional Welsh breakfast.
The World Is Shrinking… and the Opportunities to Make Money With This “Global” Economy Are Nothing Short of Staggering! If You Know How…
Imagine how well your business would be doing if you could slash your costs by more than 49% while boosting your profits by more than 57%.
You can do it… if you know how.
Today, as a matter of fact, all the Fortune 500 companies are doing just that, and they’re posting record-breaking profits by taking advantage of the “Global Economy.”
Unfortunately until now, only big companies could even think of doing this. But not anymore. Now it’s your turn.
Click here to find out how you can put the “Global Economy” to work for you.
The global borders are shrinking… The world’s becoming a smaller place… Will you just stand there watching opportunity go by or will you seize the moment and put the “Global Economy” to work for you?
Word to the Wise: Blandishment
"Blandishment" (BLAN-dish-munt) is speech or action that flatters and tends to coax, entice, or persuade. From the Latin for "mild," the word is often used in the plural.
Example (as used by Richard Stengel in You’re Too Kind: A Brief History of Flattery: "Perfect, gentle reader: I will not begin this book with a tribute to your discernment, because a person of your obvious accomplishments would certainly be immune to such blandishments."
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2008