The basics, the basics, the basics - I can't express enough the important of the basics. There have been many times in the past when people have asked me all these fantastically complex questions on the subject of real estate and creative financing.
I found myself trying to explain complex methods and formulas for creative real estate financing, but I found that the majority of these people could not apply the data I was giving them. They just were lacking what everyone should have first - and that's the basics.
I can tell you a story about way back when I first got started in real estate. Oh, I thought I really knew what I was doing. I'd heard other people talk about it and so forth, but I really didn't have the education or the basic foundation to really play the game. So, I went out and tied up my first residential property that I had bought, and received a contract on it to sell the property. Then, I decided that I would go and participate in a basic seminar to find out what I could learn about this particular area. My goodness, it wasn’t even within the first two hours of the seminar I realized that if I had known the basic data on how to sell a property, and how to get the best deal for myself, I could have made an additional $30,000 in profits on that deal. With this information, I was really excited to say the least. But it was too late because I had already signed the contract, and I had missed out on the opportunity. But I’ll tell you, I really kept that in mind and realized I wasn't going to pass up those basics again. At that point, I really started to make some progress.
Later, when I started to give my own seminars and educate people on finances, I found that I would give them a high level of data but they could only expand so far. But when I cut down the information closer to the basics, I found that their ability would be considerably higher to produce because they could actually take the data and really create with it. The more granular I went and the closer to basics, the more able the person seemed to be. He could make the data his own now and he could do his own creating.
I remember several years going by, and while I had a certain level of the basics down, I realized we have a tendency to forget these basics. We have the tendency of getting on Cloud 9 or Cloud 42, or whatever realm of "pie in the sky" we get into, and at that point we kind of forget the basics of how we got there. You think, “Well, I don't have to look at the basics - I pretty much know what I’m doing now. I’m doing much better than most and the basics are just something I’ve gone beyond now.” At this point, I was having a problem on a particular business deal, and I didn't know how I was going to get myself out of it. But, I realized that I had a successful action in the past of just getting the basic data. So, I looked in my local telephone directory to see if I could find the person that was delivering the seminar that I went to three years prior. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it so I called the home office of the company and found that the same guy was delivering the seminar in a different city. I flew in and listened to the same guy give the same seminar all over again - and I’ll be, it was an incredible experience! Within 15 minutes of that seminar, I realized that the basics had fallen out again and it was time for me to get the basics in. I got so hyped up and just flying in my mind that the toughest thing for me to do that day was to stay for the rest of the seminar and listen to the rest of the data, which was quite creative. I had the basics back in now. And I went out and made myself $300,000 in profits with those basics.
Well, this story goes on and on. Actually it’s been four times now that I’ve been to the same seminar and all four different times it reiterated the basics in my universe. All four times I’ve walked away and made fantastic profits as a result.
The individual that I was able to meet back in those early days when I first got started in real estate was Mark O. Haroldsen. I learned a lot in those days from studying what Mark had to say and I’m very happy to announce to you that Mark will be speaking at our upcoming Millionaires Course Graduates Reunion on March 13 and at the public banquet that night. You are all invited to the banquet. I find it amazing that after the second time through Mark’s course I went off and bought and sold a commercial building and made $300,000 within a six-month period. It was a basic deal sitting in front of so many real estate experts that laughed at me when I bought it. They were looking and thinking about it at too high of a level. When I saw the deal it hit me like a bomb as to how I could structure the deal and make it work. It was all about the basics. After that success I wrote Mark to thank him, and he called me after he received my letter. What a surprise - he put my name and picture in his second book! The story of a guy named Richard G. Stewart Jr. in El Paso, Texas that knew nothing about real estate and took his courses and made $300,000.00.
Now, Mark is speaking at my graduate courses and I am truly grateful that he recognized me in his book because I received calls from all around the country from people asking me how I did it. I have to say, thank you to Mark for helping me and for now coming to my events and helping my students.
When I started delivering my Millionaires Course seminars and teaching people how to get control over their financial life, I realized that they needed to have a continuous connection with the basic data and with people who were successfully applying it. This was because there were so many people out there who were in doubt of them making profits. These guys would leave my basic courses and they would go out into life and someone would tell them, "Ah, it can't be done." Well let me tell you, there are a lot of people making profits right now! And if you sit back and listen to rumors, then you're going to be the effect of all those other people and their reasons of why they can't go out and do it. So, after I started the Millionaires Course and had several people who were graduates, I needed to keep them connected so that they could come back on a quarterly basis. We would debug them and help them handle any ruins and stops they had as to why they couldn't make it from the last reunion. We'd also update them on changes in the investment environment. This was a sort of method of keeping everyone at cause over their own particular area of finance. It's been an amazing thing. We educate them just as if it was another day on the Millionaires Course, or two days, because the reunion now has gone to a two-day weekend. Now, we're even having special guest speakers, like Mark O. Haroldsen, come to each reunion and educate the Millionaire Course graduates to an even higher degree.
Richard G. Stewart Jr.