New Name Coming - Making Lemons into Lemonaide

I have been publishing this blog for some time now under the current title of Easy Money in Real Estate: Telling You How Real Estate is Really Done.  I have decided that a makeover is in order.

I am going to rename this blog to be "The Lemonaide Stand" and integrate it with my electronic newsletter (coming soon).  Yes, I am aware that I am using an old way of spelling lemonade, since in current dictionaries he "i" after the "a" has been dropped.  I am spelling it this way deliberately to emphasize the "aid" nature of this endeavor.

When, I first started this column is was with the intention of actually dispelling the myth that it is easy to make big money in real estate.  I have listened to many "experts" sell their solutions on how to make lots of money really fast in real estate.  They are still selling that line to those who will listen.  I know that making big money in real estate is very possible.  It is even very simple at times, but it is never easy.  No one should ever confuse simple and easy.  That is a very dangerous and costly confusion to deal with.

So, I am emphasizing the aid element in my new endeavor.  It is based on the aphorism that when life gives you lemons, make lemonade, or lemonaide.

There are lots of lemons being handed out in today's economy; unemployment and foreclosures to name two of the biggest that many people face.  My desire with "The Lemonaide Stand" is to provide a forum where people of ordinary means can find ways to turn the lemons life is handing them into something good, lemons into lemonaide.

Shakespeare asked, "What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."  No disrespect to the Bard, but a name means a lot.  In the past this column was focused pretty narrowly on real estate, and although there will be a real estate related thread in the newsletter (and hence this column) there is more to the Lemonaide stand than real estate.

Imagine for a moment that you are living the life you want.  How does it feel inside you when you imagine that?  Can you actually feel the easing of tension in your chest, neck and back?  Do you feel the warm rush of well-being suffuse your body as the endorphins (or as I jokingly call them n-dolphins) swim through your blood stream at the speed of thought?  I do.  I am going to help you to Get and Keep the Life You Want (tm).

We will deal with Work, Relationships, Wealth, and Health.  You will learn to:

• Get and Keep the Job You Want (tm)
• Get and Keep the Relationships You Want (tm)
• Get and Keep the Wealth You Want (tm)
• Get and Keep the Health You Want (tm)

I am in a fairly unusual position.  I know quite a few people who are living the life they want.  I will bring to you their stories.  I will help you to apply their lessons to your life so that you can Get and Keep the Life You Want(tm).

Aside from knowing some very successful, fulfilled people, "what qualifies Tom to do this?" you ask.  Well, I am pretty much living the life I want, and have for several years.  So, learning from others and knowing a few things for myself, having done some things that very few people around me have, and having the desire to help, qualifies me for the job.

So, I hope you will subscribe (click on the "Follow" button) and follow this newsletter, not just tune in once in a while.  I hope you will read it and challenge what I say.  But most of all, I hope you will decide to do what you need to do to Get and Keep the Life You Want(tm).

Tom Sheppard has been successfully investing in real estate since 2001 while working part time. In 2008 he left a six-figure job as an enterprise project manager with a major national bank to manage his real estate business full-time. His goal is to help 100,000 people find peace of mind by finding quality, affordable homes. Why pay retail when you can buy a home at below market prices? www.buybelowmarket.com. He is currently looking to expand his network of funding partners who are helping him achieve this goal. If you would like to know more about how you can do well by doing good, contact Tom at TSheppard@ADBProperties.com

What Gene Simmons of KISS Taught Me About Business

You might be surprised at what you can learn about business from a guy who wore more makeup and bigger high heels than his mommy.

Pictured below, left to right, are JT Foxx, Gene Simmons and Thomas K Sheppard.  This picture was taken February 12, 2011 at Mega Partnering 2011 in Los Angeles, California.

June 10 through 13 of February 2011 I attended the JT Foxx Mega Partnering event in Los Angeles.  If you have ever attended a celebrity business event, they are typified by headline speakers punctuated by 90 minutes pitches for programs that promise you wealth and happiness, each easier than the programs touted before.  That is NOT what happens at these JT Foxx events, especially the Mega Partnering brand he has built.  In these events you get a collection of powerful, unarguably successful speakers who teach you their secrets to living the life they want.  They don't pitch you on products to make you happy, healthy, and wealthy.

The event this February (JT holds two of these each year), featured Gene Simmons, the legendary rock star from KISS and the star of Family Jewels (yes his wife Shannon Tweed of Playboy fame did make an appearance).

I openly confess here that when JT told me he was going to get Gene to headline this event, I asked him why?  I really couldn't imagine what I could learn from a guy who made himself famous wearing more makeup and taller heels than his mother while puking up blood and sticking out his tongue.  In case you don't release it, most rock stars end up broke and destroyed almost as soon as the passion of their fans for their music fades away.  So, when JT told me that Gene Simmons has a worth in excess of $700 million and is considered a branding genius and a formidable businessman, I was intrigued.

I was not disappointed.

Gene Simmons is more than just a guy with a long tongue.  Although I cannot tell you all that he taught us over the course of about two hours, because I would probably get a call from his lawyers, I can share a couple of nuggets that I took away from his conversation with us.  Yes, it was a conversation.  He came down off the stage, mic in hand and walked up and down through the audience asking pointed questions and challenging our thinking.  He pulled up several different members of the audience and on the spot taught them how to brand themselves and their businesses - a quick consultation that would have cost them at least $100,000 if they had approached Gene and asked for a consultation.

In case you didn't realize it, Gene is an immigrant to America.  His mother was Hungarian, a holocaust survivor and he was born in Israel.  Did you know that immigrants to the US are 4 times more likely to become millionaires than native born Americans?

Here are some nuggets he shared:

• You cannot fail in this country.  You can rack it up and then go broke, declare bankruptcy and then start all over.
• Don't rely on just one business for your money, build several.
• Learn to speak English with a mid-Atlantic American accent - that is what you hear from the new folks on TV and the most successful people in the world.  American English is the speaking pattern and accent of success in the US.  English is the language of money.  Although learning Mandarin (not Cantonese) is a pretty good idea right now.
• Use trademark laws to protect your brands and use lawyers to enforce your trademark rights, or you will lose them both - by law.
• Operate your business like a Navy Seal.  Come in below the RADAR.  Minimize your exposure by having a lean and mean operation.
• Educate yourself, don't rely on the drivel that passes for education in our schools.  Go to the library and take advantage of the best free education in the world, reading library books.  And now we can get a lot of that over the internet too.
• Be nice to rich people because a poor person never gives you a job.
• Be a rock stat - walk into the room and own it.

Although I could go on with what he taught and fill up several entries in this blog, I will leave it at this, feeling it is sufficient to illustrate my point.  I am glad that JT Foxx had the good judgment to look beyond the comic book image of KISS to bring to his friends and students the knowledge and influence of a business and branding powerhouse like Gene Simmons.

Likewise, I am glad I had the good sense to trust JT and not turn up my nose at the prospect of expecting to learn some serious business from someone who wore bigger high heels and more makeup than his mommy.

ON THE PERSONAL SIDE - Gene asked if anyone there spoke Spanish.  I raised my hand and he asked me to translate how his Puerto Rican students greeted him each morning when he was a school teacher.  Although I was able to translate it, I couldn't bring myself to translate that without being prepared to fight to the death.  I later determined a tactful way to convey it which I include here and leave to you to struggle through my deliberate obfuscation to get to the reality of what they said.  Here is my sanitized translation, "Hello my odoriferous Jewish friend who mates with boys. I want you to know that I really enjoyed getting to know your mother, in a very Biblical way."  Yes, that IS cleaned up. Sorry Gene, I hope I didn't ruin the effect you were after.

Tom Sheppard has been successfully investing in real estate since 2001 while working part time. In 2008 he left a six-figure job as an enterprise project manager with a major national bank to manage his real estate business full-time. His goal is to help 100,000 people find peace of mind by finding quality, affordable homes. Why pay retail when you can buy a home at below market prices? www.buybelowmarket.com. He is currently looking to expand his network of funding partners who are helping him achieve this goal. If you would like to know more about how you can do well by doing good, contact Tom at TSheppard@ADBProperties.com