Spring & Opportunities are in the Air

Welcome to May - Happy May - Day - Cinco De Mayo (I think I messed that up), happy Beltane, and if I forgot a holiday I apologize. It is a great time of year and in Oregon we are having sunshine, springtime...it is hard to not just go out and play.

I've been so busy since returning from San Juan I am forcing myself to just "stop" (laugh) and let some thing settle. Last weekend I volunteered my time with a good friend who does Foster Care for Young Men in our state. He does a program called "Waking the Warrior" once a year for his boys and other young men. The last event is an overnight in the wilderness with a voluntary jump into a glacial fed river. This year all the young men make the jump. I know it sounds crazy but something powerful happens when a young man facing doing something he doesn't want to do, does it, and then comes out changed in a positive way. It is also a powerful bonding experience.

No, our IQ Money Team doesn't need to do that (laugh), but we can - I'm up for it. I've participated in "men" events like this since 1998 when I attended a "Men's Weekend". We men in our culture tend to get isolated from each other. We can become very predatory and isolationist not trusting each other (for good reason) and in many ways we've lost ourselves. We embrace the "warrior/hunter" side - in our careers and businesses, but we often are out of touch with our "father" side, and as we grow in life experience the "sage/elder" side of things.

What does that have to do with commercial real estate investing? Nothing and everything. I'm sharing tidbits of my life so you can get to know me. The IQ Money Team founders - we're three men coming together to use our talents and abilities to go into new directions in our lives. Right now we are creating this in our spare time though it has been a full time effort along side our current professions but we feel it is a worthy work because besides the money what we are doing is a life enriching experience.

(We found a DEAL in our back yard on Friday - I sent a note out to folks, we'll probably miss this one unless a miracle comes together, but it gives me a insight that my current ROI projections are conservative. DEALS don't come around all the time, but they do show up from time to time. I am looking forward to the day when our "team" knows and trust each other so that when any of us find a "deal" we announce it to the team, bam the resources we have are activated and we can move fast in both the analysis and the financial power to just pull the trigger on good deals using "cash", and then optimize it and get the principle back out while we all enjoy the long term benefits of a self sustaining well managed and maintained asset.

Once principle is back out of an acquisition - there isn't any risk if something goes wrong. I love our business process it is so simple and makes so much sense. But people do not know me, or our team yet. I have a whole new website update in mind to include audio and some video interviews so people can get to know us. Lawrence and I have also talked about doing a road show of sorts but the truth is we do no need a lot of people to make this team work if we are working with Qualified Investors. 3 people with 5 million capacity we can buy solid deals pretty much on demand.

Our plan calls for a planned 2 year optimization process before getting principle back out of properties as an expectation in today's economy. The "Deal" that showed up I suspect I could get most of the principle out in 90 days, and have the property optimized in less than 12 months, probably 6 months. People are selling property for different reasons. We don't have 10+ CAP properties show up in our back yard because we are 6 CAP area. We could literally acquire and then refinance almost immediately without optimizing the property. Optimizing simply increased value. I need 8.9 million to make a cash out offer. If I had a team that could handle that, I suspect we could acquire it "cash" for under 8 million which would push the cap rate up significantly.

OK, I have to let that go (laugh), I got the word out, these types of deals show up for those who are "in the game" and are ready to take action on them. Our team is not in place yet, I'm still revamping our paperwork because I want to protect each team member and their principle in the event of say - we get into a deal together and I get hit by a truck or something, now what? The written plan and agreements have to cover these kinds of catastrophes so nobody gets hurt by normal life stuff while at the same time protecting the "mission" or the "project" and the "team".

Many businesses rely on a "key" person or "rain maker", and isn't it great to be in a financial groove when you find a niche to pursue. Cherif for example found a niche in Old San Juan that is where he build his wealth working small deals. I applaud him. He was in the right place at the right time with the right resources. Can I duplicate his success? Not really, not until I find my own niche, at the right time, and right place with the right resources. That is pretty limiting for any of us. Does it work?

Yes absolutely. Jeanne my S.O. found a niche online in jewelry, she sells stuff online around the world and does very well.

I see a bigger niche in commercial real estate but beyond the money when I say I want to form a money team, unless you know me you won't fully understand what that means to me. Whom ever you are reading this - you have hopes, dreams and aspirations. It is our nature to dream bigger and do more.

In looking over my life (45 years worth as of June 14 this year), when been working hard and "getting by" there wasn't much time to think about much of anything outside of myself and the needs of my family. Some call this the treadmill of life. Career, or self employment, or business development - we establish a way of life for ourselves.

I noticed when I do well financially in a time efficient way I find myself looking for ways to make my world a better place. It could be blogging, working on a writing project to getting information out to others and thinking - really looking at the world around me and pondering solutions to real problems. It is frustrating to see the solutions, but not have the resources or influence to inspire changes. I touch peoples lives all the time with thoughts and insights. One of my tag lines is:

"You and I cannot change the world. We can change OUR world. If enough of us change our world, the world will change."

If you are wondering what motivates me it isn't greed. I've been there - greed gets things done but it is and empty energy and even addiction. I am really into this team concept.

Two years ago I went downtown Portland with a friend who wanted some advice. We walked around, I bought some homeless kids some McDonald's food (laugh), they asked politely. I was inspired to lay down in the middle of Pioneer Square (It's a gathering place for the city in the center of Portland.), and look up at the stars. So my friend and I did that.

Within a few minutes we had probably somewhere between 15 and 30 homeless teens wanting to see what we were seeing and there was this whole group of us staring at the stars. To make a long story short a dialog began about the many things these young people could do if they worked together to better their lives. What was interesting to me was non of them asked us or anything. They shared their hearts and dreams - and I was moved by that. I helped them see their current lives in a different perspective and where they could go from there. I helped them think a little differently. We also talked about healing their relationships with their parents and going back to school and things.

When I was creating this plan, I thought of them. Years ago I had the idea of a "Secret Millionaire Project" - it was about enabling wealthy people to covertly get in the middle of a situation like that and through the combined network of resources help a "team" exit the rat race while at the same time teaching them life and business principles to help "create" a better world.

We need a new class of wealthy people in both political, and financial power in the world. We need more "Henry Fords". Not everyone is going to be a successful and wealthy business owner or investor, but those of who are - we have to (in my opinion - and not everyone - OK), but for me, I have a responsibility to teach what I know and help inspire and one of my motivations is to put financial resources behind what I do.

Last week I met a new friend who has a dream/vision for a community that focuses on kids. She's aligning herself with a non-profit and is expecting a fairly large resource infusion coming into her life. I outlined a sustainable way of deploying resources for her non-profit community and even how benefactors could actually help in a way that benefited the community long term and expand their own asset base at the same time so that they can help even more good causes.

I read about someone giving xyz organization 10 million dollars, or 100 million dollars and that is fine and good, impressive and admirable and then those assets are taxed and or managed by a committee that doesn't have a clue as to how such assets could/should be managed, and often they are manged through a mix of both fear and greed and an arrogance shows up within the receiving organization that is now financially empowered.

I don't know - most of the wealthy people I have met are amazing and interesting people and our culture is such that most end up having to isolate themselves from their own communities. People start treating them differently and it is just odd how we have lost touch with "community" or our genetic tribal instincts from days gone past.

There are good solid sustainable opportunities for wealth preservation and advancement. We do not need to be predatory to pursue them and there is no need for the usual and customary risks (gambles) most people take. There is no need to find that super special secret to get lottery level wins in business or investing. It's great when they show up, but like any casino the longer you play at a gamble the odds stack up against you and usually deplete your gains/wins. Just look at every one's retirement portfolios - all the gains of a life time of participating in the Stock Market casino's and traditional paths wiped out in months and a few years. Gambling is like that.

Our team doesn't gamble, we have no need to. Our process is compounding because we approach the process from an advantage we can only gain from building trusting relationships with each other and functioning as a team. These processes are duplicatable.

My friend Brian who I mentioned who does Foster care - I spent a few hours with him last week to apply my team concepts and real estate concepts to his current business plan. He started exploring the team concepts and discovered a new type of care facility (a niche) that the Federal Government is pouring $$ into for the actual building of the facilities. He's in the perfect position to not only capitalize on the opportunity but expand his reach and impact dramatically through contribution. Each center he establishes will probably make $30,000/mo net at least. I'm waiting to find out the details because this is a combination of a "B" quadrant business opportunity - i.e. self running, self sufficient, and a commercial real estate opportunity.

It is something the IQ Money Team would put a plan together around to support the literally development of commercial real estate backed by long term federally funded cash flows for an growing sector of need.

Anyway - this is all a very spiritual thing for me. I navigate my day through making contributions around what presents to me during the last 8 months this whole Commercial Real Estate knowledge and management team surfaced.

Since opportunities are now surfacing, that means to me that the financial partner team must be close to coming together. Ultimately my vision here is about simple, sustainable financial and asset expansion for all team members that are in alignment with similar values and principles.

I call it Independence through interdependence. I have a model I developed about 5 years ago where a "secret millionaire" can go into any group of homeless individuals, inspire them to come together as a team with their talents and resources and create a self sustaining business process whereby the homeless can help the homeless through the ancient concept of "free enterprise", that has turned into something odd today. (laugh).

Anyway, that is one of my pet projects I want to test sometime in the future. There is also the "Helping Wave" project that was a part of that which I think will revolutionize how the species of humanity helps each other. I've seen some folks play with some things that are similar. That is another personal pet project of mine.

Behind all of this is a desire to help humanity evolve to another level and people need hopes and dreams that inspire them to do more, be better and compete, and I firmly believe we can do that without fraud or milking & bilking each other. We no longer need to be predatory as part of our business processes (thinking of the banking and investing industry in particular) - I sense that our IQ Money Team concept can redefine that whole mess, and we can do it by quietly setting the example and we'll wake up one day with a financial powerhouse of cash flow, assets and a team in alignment with a new set of life views and business principles that we would be able to literally buy out Chase, or Wells Fargo, etc., and bring to those organizations a human resource policy plan and customer service model that isn't predatory.

I think a lot about these things. When I think I have learned to thing large, global and unlimited. My friend Brian is thinking about 3 centers, when he was talking to me about it last night my mind was thinking of 300 centers per state around the U.S.

Peter can design the centers
Brian can managed the Government and Licensing part of it
Lawrence and I will hammer out the legalities and business terms, standards and processes
I'll take care of the IT side of things so that is uses technology for proper monitoring of quality and control and keep things efficient.

300 Centers per state - you get the idea. One of my governing contexts is to make $$ no longer an issue. A point is reached for each of us where money is irrelevant, we have it, we have the cash flow, now what?

The "now what" is where I live. I want men like Brian to be financially empowered and independent. He'll make this work, he's already doing well financially and he's always achieved anything he's decided to pursue. He'll build it from the ground up.

I'm think - humm, if we could put $10,000,000 behind his business plan, or even $100,000,000 but not in the usual and customary way - but in a dynamic way - we solve an evolving care facility problem in a sustainable way, we create solid jobs and opportunities around the U.S., and we empower a man like Brian to take his concepts of contribution which once he is financially empowered - to literally transform the foster care systems of the U.S.

He knows what is wrong, he's been doing it as the #1 results based Foster Care provider in our state. Anyway, he's just one example of a man with a vision the IQ Money Team concepts could come together around for mutual, sustainable benefit.

That is all I have around this posting for today. I need to get to work on our website this week, (laugh). I need to hire a team of personal assistants! Someday soon!

Namaste'

- David