This month’s newsletter is the first in a series of motivational talks that I am incorporating into my seminars. I truly believe that today represents a perfect time to get into the market as an investor. It’s also a time for existing investors to change out the proverbial tools in their proverbial tool boxes. A great lesson should be learned from the way business was conducted in 2005 and 2006 and the savvy investor will know that it is no longer business as usual.

The market has changed… and is forever changed from what it was in 2004. The price spikes and feeding frenzies of 2005 and 2006 and the subsequent inertness of the 2007 market has contributed to a tremendous attrition of investors, title and closing companies, real estate agents and lenders. The strong have survived and the weak and disreputable are gone.

Consistently I am finding that most people who are starting out in real estate investing or any entrepreneurial venture for that matter have a tough time taking that first step. There is a vision they lack. Many want to get started, but they fall prey to years of negative conditioning. Sure they buy the books and tapes and CD’s, sure they attend the seminars, but all that good intention means nothing without follow through.

I used to belong to a gym in Melbourne Beach. There was an overweight fellow who use to come in every day. He had designer work out clothes, the best sneakers, even a monogrammed towel around his neck. He would suit up, but I never saw him actually working out. He would migrate from machine to machine and yak to the people using the machine. He’d then show up in the shower, completely exhausted and complain. He’d say he was at the gym everyday but wasn’t losing any weight. Great intention… no follow through. Small vision…big problem.

Our seminars are packed full of detailed information and procedures. We take our time delivering this information in clear, concise and easy to grasp terms. It came to my attention at the last seminar that all this data can be lost on the person who can’t muster the courage or find the motivation to put a company together or to make their first offer. Their fear originates in several areas, but consistently I find it rooted in a lack of vision. It’s not always self-confidence that is lacking. Very few people understand or appreciate the concept of starting with the end in mind.

So I thought that we would start the 2nd quarter of the year somewhat from scratch. Let’s start over with the mind set and then we will build a new 2007 tool box and put shiny, bright 2007 tools in our new box.

If you are like most people, you often dream of living a more rewarding life. You aspire to a better job, a stronger relationship or marriage, a happier home, even a strong retirement fund. If you are retired and not adequately prepared, you see the economic world slipping away from you. The cost of goods and services keep rising yet your income remains fixed. You want to accomplish more and you want to leave a lasting legacy for your children and future generations.

If you are like most people, you have written these goals and dreams on a list. They remain something to be done tomorrow! But you can’t pursue what you really want and find important because your day is crowded by the demands of mundane routines and other people’s priorities.

How do you break out and experience your full potential? The answer lies in a simple yet profound process that requires you to change the way you think about your life and that will help you accomplish what is truly important.

Many people go through life with low self-esteem, focusing on the negative, feeling inferior or inadequate, always dwelling on some reason why they can’t be happy. Others put off their happiness until some future date. Unfortunately for most, that “someday” never comes. Philosophically speaking today is the only day we have. We can’t do anything about the past (except learn from it) and we don’t really know what the future holds.

You may have experienced adversity or trials in your past. Perhaps you have had more than your share of setbacks and heartaches. But today is a new day! You need to shrug all of that off. You need to sit down and really think about the things that you want in life. I would hope that your sense of conscience guides you to want those things that are righteous, moral and of high standards. And there is nothing wrong with wanting a better, more prosperous life. To start, there is nothing magical or burdensome about it...you simply need to imagine it!

As long as you can’t imagine it, as long as you can’t see it, then trust me… it’s not going to happen for you! You have to conceive it on the inside before you are ever going to receive it on the outside. If you don’t think you can ever have something good, you never will. You see, the initial barrier is in your mind. It is not the lack of God’s resources in this world or your lack of talent that prevents you from prospering. Your own wrong thinking can keep you from your best.

You may have assumed that you have already peaked, that you’ve reached your limits in life, that you will never be more successful. If you truly believe that, well then you are truly correct….unless you are willing to change your way of thinking. Unless you are willing to make yourself a different set of rules. Unless you are willing to expand your vision. You must start looking at life through eyes of faith, seeing yourself rising to new levels, envisioning yourself at the end of your goals. You must start imagining your dreams coming to pass.

To conceive it, you must have an image on the inside of the life you want to live on the outside. This image must become part of you, in your thoughts, your conversations, deep down in your subconscious mind, in your actions, in every part of your life.

Back in 1984 I had a dream, a wish to be driving a Mercedes Benz. My sister had a beautiful MB sedan and I wanted a dark navy blue 300E with gray leather interior. I had driven my sisters, and well let me tell you, the feel of that thick leather steering wheel in my hands and the solid, luxurious feel of the way that car responded… well I was hooked. My only obstacle of course was finding the $30,000.00 to buy one. Now $30,000 doesn’t seem like much to pay for a car in 2007… but in 1984 it was beyond my imagination.

I found a picture of the car I wanted in a Mercedes Benz brochure. I picked up four brochures and cut the pictures of the car out of them. I taped one picture to the inside of my medicine cabinet so it would be one of the first things I saw in the morning. I put another picture on the dashboard of the GMC pickup truck that I was driving every day, I put another picture beside my drafting table in my office so I could look at it each day and I put the last picture in my wallet so every time I went into the wallet for money, I got a glimpse of my dream. No matter what picture I looked at, I would always imagine my bright, shining, smiling face behind the wheel.

I noticed something beginning to happen. I found myself in situations and dealing with persons or companies that were helping me advance my goal. Developing the capital to buy such an expensive toy was becoming easier. I was so focused on that goal that it was actually enhancing my business and my relationships.

In 1987 I bought my very first Mercedes Benz. It was beautiful deep, dark navy blue, with soft, luxurious gray leather interior. It was almost exactly as I had imagined. The only thing different was the fact that the body style had changed from 1984 to 1987 but I was actually happier with the new body style. I achieved my goal and

it was the first in a series of enlightening experiences I have had throughout my career with respect to goal achievement and the power of intention.

What you keep before your eyes will affect you. What you focus on will grow. You will produce what you are continually seeing in your mind. If you foster an image of defeat and failure, then you are going to live that kind of life. But if you develop an image of victory, success, health, abundance, joy, peace and happiness…nothing on earth will be able to hold those things from you if you carry through with your intentions.

Too many times we get stuck in a rut, thinking we have reached our limits. We don’t really stretch our faith; we don’t believe for anything bigger. It is my belief that God wants us to constantly be increasing, to be rising to new heights. He wants to increase you in wisdom and help you to make better decisions. God wants to increase you financially, by giving you promotions, new ideas and creativity. But if you’re going to receive all this favor, you will need to expand your vision. You will need to rid yourself of small-minded thinking and start anticipating success and abundance. This is where it all starts.

I do not subscribe to the old adage that to be successful all you need to follow your dreams. The truth is life will follow your expectations (if they are not in sync with your dreams). What you expect, not what you wish, is what you will get. If you dwell on positive thoughts, your life will move in that direction; if you continually think negative thoughts… guess what! The key element to enlarging your vision is raising your level of expectancy.

You have to change your way of thinking before you can ever change your way of living!

It’s important that you program (or re-program as the case may be) your mind for success. It won’t happen automatically. Each day you must choose to live with an attitude that expects good and prosperous things to happen to you. Wake up each and every day thinking “This is going to be a great day. I am being guided and my footsteps are being directed. I am excited about today!”

Start your day with faith and expectancy, and then get out there anticipating great things. Expect circumstances to change in your favor. Expect people to go out of their way to help you and teach you. Expect to be at the right place at the right time. Start expecting doors of opportunity to open for you. Expect to excel. Expect to succeed. Expect to rise above the challenges that life throws at you each day.

If you don’t expect things to get better then they probably won’t. If you don’t develop a habit of expecting good things to come your way, then you’re not likely to receive anything good... I have found so many people who tend to expect the worst. They have that “poor ol’ me” attitude. So many others are so overwhelmed with their problems they have long ago lost their belief that things will get better. But this is what faith is all about. Let’s talk about this faith thing.

I do one-on-one tutoring for several of my students. I have one student I would like to tell you about. Let’s say her name is Lucy. She is married to Fred and they are an elderly couple that was really down on their financial luck. Every day was a struggle and they had managed to develop a tremendous amount of credit card and medical-related debt… somewhere in the neighborhood of $60,000. This is huge when you consider their only income is social security and a small pension.

About two years ago, this person came to my office with a real estate investor who wanted to buy their home. The investor was a ”friend” of theirs and a member of their church congregation. The investor was offering to buy their $100,000 home for the balance of the mortgage (about $35,000) and give them $15,000 cash.

They came to me to develop a Florida Land Trust wherein the investor would become the beneficiary and Fred and Lucy would become the Trustees. As Trustees they would be given a life estate and be allowed to remain in the property. On any terms this was NOT a win-win transaction. The investor was buying the property (in an up market) for fifty cents on the dollar. Fred and Lucy were losing $50,000 in equity simply for the privilege of being allowed to stay in their home. They were desperate for cash. The creditors were beginning to close in on them and they feared they would lose their home. There were no judgments against them yet but it was only a matter of time.

I did my best to talk them out of going through with the process. I explained that their home was their homestead and in Florida that truly meant it was their castle. The creditors could not force the sale of it if they got their judgments. They could only cloud the title and wait until the property was sold. Their Social Security and pension were also judgment proof. This should not be the reason for not paying their debts, but I needed to explain to them that it was also not the reason to walk away from their home and the equity they had developed in it.

Fred and Lucy were convinced by the investor’s daughter that bankruptcy was the only way out for them. So, they referred Fred and Lucy to the investor’s daughter-in law who happened to be a paralegal and developed “self-help” bankruptcy filings for $1000.00. This whole thing absolutely stunk. I could not talk them out of the deal. You see, they had lost their faith that things were going to get better. They had no reason to expect anything good was going to come out of their travail.

After apprising Fred and Lucy of their options, they still settled for the deal with the investor. I developed the Florida Land Trust and sent them all on their way. But I made Fred & Lucy a deal. I promised that I would teach them a way to get themselves out of debt, free of charge, if they promised me that they would not file the bankruptcy pleading. They agreed.

Shortly thereafter, the investor revoked the life estate as was her privilege under the terms and conditions of a Florida Land Trust. Fred and Lucy were forced to move out and rent a tiny and trailer in a trailer park. As expected, they keep it meticulously clean but neither of them feel at home there. All this simply added to their despair and worry. The word worry comes from a Greek word meaning to “divide the mind”. It creates what I call a double-minded thinker. Rather than take away tomorrow’s trouble, worry voids today’s strength. It was difficult to watch them go through something like this at their age.

We began weekly tutoring sessions where I am teaching them the business of investing in real estate. I am not doing it for them rather I am letting them learn at their own pace. Their confidence in themselves needed to be rebuilt. They needed to develop a new and expanded vision of what they want and expect at this point in their lives.

I am overwhelmed with their success. Lucy has learned a great deal. She is now comfortable on the computer, relatively fluent with real estate terms and concepts and they are poised on the verge of putting their first offer together. It will be an offer that, if accepted, will provide them with their own home again. It will give them back their dignity and their hope.

So many people told them they should just settle for where they were. So many people told me I was wasting my time. We did not listen to the negative people - rather I taught them to expand their vision. I showed them that it was their right to expect improvement in their lives. They are not out of the woods yet, but they are a darn sight better off today as a result of positive thinking, expanding their vision and raising their expectations. They are a text book example of the power of this concept.

What about you? When you look at your future, what do you see? Do you see yourself getting stronger, happier, healthier, and more prosperous? If you can see it, it can come to pass.

I want to close with a favorite phrase of my dear Debi:

“You say you will believe it when you see it, but the truth is you won’t see it until you believe it!”

I know this newsletter sounds pretty gooey and sticky. It sounds cliché at times and perhaps too philosophical. So I would ask that you simply give it a try for one month. See if changing your mindset, enlarging your vision and raising your expectations makes changes and improvements in your life. I promise it will.