How do you measure success? I was standing in a store the other day buying materials for a project when I saw a friend I haven’t seen for years. He also happened to be buying things for a project he was working on. We talked for a while, catching on up on the past. Toward the end I said, “So, you’re still at it” in reference to his…
Only rejoicing I’m writing this during the Feast of Tabernacles, which is the fall feast mentioned in Leviticus Chapter 23. The feast brings with it two purposes. The first is a remembrance for the Children of Israel of how Yahweh made them to dwell in booths for the 40 years they were in the wilderness prior to entering the Promised Land. During those years the Children of Israel were…
I recently read a book called “Negotiate This! By Caring, But Not T-H-A-T Much.” I really liked the author Herb Cohen. Not only is he funny, but he has some impressive negotiating credentials, like being hired to successfully negotiate a hostage crisis for the White House. This book has a lot of great suggestions. In one section, Herb uses a biblical example to illustrate some key negotiation tactics….
I was having lunch with a good friend and investor named Emmett, recently. We talked about the current market and strategies we’re implementing, and we discussed what we see our other investor friends doing. One of those friends hasn’t done many deals lately because she got her start when the market was at the bottom. Now that the market is moving so much, she is afraid it will…
Ashley and I went up to Kentucky to see her side of the family for an early Thanksgiving. It was great. Her Dad lives in Pulaski County, and the mountains there are just beautiful. We spent our time riding the kids through those mountains on four wheelers and visiting with family we see only a few times a year. We came home the day before Thanksgiving. Traffic…
I read a familiar story with Ashley and the kids last night out of the biblical book of Numbers. In chapter 13 we read that Yahweh had just led the children of Israel out of Egypt, they’d organized themselves into an army, and were planning to spy out the Promised Land. They chose 12 men for the recon mission inside of Canaan. Among them was Kaleb, son of…
Make a life, not just a living: I had a very spiritual moment last week as I was out door knocking. I found myself on a little country road in Adairsville named Hall Station; it’s the road you take to get to Barnsley Gardens. Way down on Hall Station, almost to Kingston, there’s a pull-off on the west side of the road where kids go to jump off the…
Knock on the door of success: It’s that time of year again. It’s time to evaluate last year, to celebrate your successes and investigate where you need to improve. Once that’s done, you can move on to the all-important task of setting goals for 2017. Are you excited? Something I love about this time of year is that personal development goes into overdrive. If you’re like me, you’re…
How the Fourth Commandment will make you a successful investor It never fails: each time we start a new property a contractor will ask me why they can’t work for us on Saturdays. You see, our job sites shut down on Saturdays. That’s because I observe Sabbath from sundown on Friday night to sundown on Saturday night – and no it’s not because I’m Jewish. Believe it…
Investors need to have faith like potatoes: Since Ashley and I got married, I’ve been trying to grow potatoes – notice I said “try”- It’s been crazy: every year something happens. The first year I didn’t know you were supposed to mound. Mounding is when you put dirt around the stalk of the plant. If you mound as the plant grows, it stimulates the plant to produce more…