You Think You Have It Tough-Read This

Hello DG Community:
I am new here and yesterday, I spent a few hours actually going back over postings others have left here over time and it blew me away. Alot of very motivational messages.

One pattern I did see out of many were the plees for help. I am way too new here to offer much help to anyone except to maybe go against my own grain and tell my story.

I grew up in New Orleans, LA, to parents who worked hard to really end up very poor. When I was growing up, mom worked for the New Orleans Saints organization as a secretary, then left to work for a company that provided maids to people who were too busy to clean up for themselves.

Dad was a mechanic who fixed diesel trucks and other diesel powered vehicles. Between the two of them, their paychecks provided a roof over our head, food and clothes and a few dollars for a po boy and a picture show once a month.

I quit school and worked many odd jobs to make my own money, not alot but I had my own money, which took some pressure off pop and my momma.

At age 24 I joined the United States Army and went to basic training at Fort Knox, KY. I also did my armour crewman training at Fort Knox, KY as well. I was assigned to Fort Riley, KS in what is known as the Big Red 1, the elite armour unit in the US Army.

I boxed in the Army and later worked my way up to being a Drill Sargeant. I was always a very tough individual. I didn't take guff from anyone. I used to walk down Bourbon Street as a teen and spent time in the 9th Ward also as a teen. I had no fear of anything except God.

I learned Israeli Street Fighting from what is now known as Krav Maga. I was always taught that people will attack weak people first and I was determined not to be called out as a result of being weak, which I was not anyway.

As a Drill Sargeant, I was making men out of boys. I was honest while tough and I commanded respect. My favorite saying was if you want respect you have to know how to give it and I still believe that to this day. You will never get respect from someone who does not know how to give it, and believe me, it is a very humbling experience to those who finally grasp the concept.

I spent time at Fort Benning, GA and out of that gained the right to call myself one of the elite, known to many simply as a Ranger. The US Army felt I was Ranger Material.

I would never admit I was very frightened of some of the things I had to go through. When your walking through swamps and you never know whats in it, it is frightening.

I was called to duty in Iraq. I remember walking through fields in the middle of nowhere at only God Knows what time of day or night it was and poof out of nowhere the guy walking next to you is blown up and once that happens, gun fire erupts and you see people fall by the wayside.

I remember seeing a bus of kids go by on the way to some rural school and the bus blows up and all you see and smell is carnage.

There are many more stories of war I could share but there is no way to mask the gruesomeness of them, so I will not mention them here.

I lost an arm in Iraq on my last mission and after spending time in a mash type hospital, I was sent home. I was told by a US Army Chaplain, son, your one of the lucky one's and you should embrace that. I did not feel like one of the lucky one's until I was at the airport and I watched plane after plane be loaded with the remains of those who were not returning home alive. Men and woman who were brave and maybe more braver than I.

It finally hit me that I was one of the lucky one's when I was at Delta Airlines Cargo in Dallas, TX, picking up a small package from a friend. I walked into the office there and saw seven marines and a Marine Captain who was a Chaplain.

They were there to recieve a coffin with the remains of one of their own. The entire Delta facility became so quiet. The family stood there teary eyed as they were handed the US Flag that was draped over the coffin.

That was the day that I realized it could have easily been me arriving home in that coffin, with my family standing there teary eyed.

I wake up each day thankful to be alive. It is never easy looking at myself with one arm.

Out of this experience I realized I could go through life feeling sorry for myself. I could go through life making excuses. I could go through life saying, oh I can't be a real estate investor, the economy is bad.

I could also make excuses and use the losses of those more experienced in the economic down fall and say no one is lending money, so I guess I can't make money because oh wow, if the banks are struggling maybe I should wait until the economy gets better.

Now this is where I get tough. You want to come here and announce that you bought one of Deans books two years ago and you just lost your job, so you guess it is now a good time to dust that book off and try this.

Trying is for those who want to kick tires. Trying is for those who couldn't make a decision two years ago because they had a job and were doing better than those they would talk about, saying things like, oh well that person is trying to become rich because they have nothing else for them.

I am sorry to tell you that if that was you or describes something similar, you were never any better than anyone else. You were just one of the one's that kissed butt enough to keep your job a bit longer than all those who didn't last as long as you did. You were never any better than the next guy or gal, you were just stupid enough to believe you were.

You want to make money in real estate? then get off your derier and do it.

If you really don't believe in your ability to make money in this endeavor, then go stand on the line marked, Unemployment benefits, and wait for a handout.

If you think your good enough to stand in that line, but too proud to do this, then get out.

No one is going to hand you a bunch of money. No one is going to meet a seller for you, do the deal for you, and hand you a check for your lack of effort.

Let me tell you some reality. I get up everyday, seven days a week at 0500. By 0700, I have done 1 hour of P90X and ran five miles. By 0800 I have already begun driving the neighborhoods looking for deals. By 1000, I have already begun calling lawyers, CPA's, people with money.

Larry Winget has a book out called If Your Broke It's your fault. Buy it, read it. It's true, if your broke it is your fault. Too many people take for granite that the company they helped make wealthy thought enough of them to keep them around forever.

For you former executives who used to chase the deal, acting wealthy when your only tie to wealth was a paycheck from a job, how does it feel to be on the outside looking in. Not very good does it.

For the wives of those former executives who thought they were rich, driving around in those fancy cars, shopping at Barneys and Gucci, how does it feel now to realize you were a product of a paycheck.

My message in all of this is this. Real estate can make you wealthy. Don't come here and talk about how you read Deans books, watched his informercials and now after all of that, don't know where to start.

You don't know what to do, oh please someone help me. Or how do I assign a deal, is that wholesaling or I have a great deal someone please show me where to get the money. Or my favorite, this is so hard, I don't understand this.

You were smart enough to make some employer rich beyond their wildest imaginations and collect a big salary for years and live in excess but you can't figure out how to go look at a property, fill in the blanks of a purchase offer, write a check for earnest money, advertise a property and sell the contract to a investor who is willing to pay you for that right.

If you expect people here who do that everyday or atleast once a month to bail you out or give you money for that deal, your fooling yourself.

Look I am not rich and will never walk around like I am. Truth be told, I don't want to be rich, but at the same token, I don't want to be poor either. I will suck it up when it is hard and make it work.

I drive through the wealthy neighborhoods in Dallas all the time. I look at the big houses with the Mercedes in the driveway and I know it is only a matter of time before that house will have a foreclosure sign on it, just another by product of those foolish to believe that this world revolved around them and that they dream of making it big, but don't know how.

This business is really very simple and those who have made it big are the very one's who used to work in the warehouse, the mailroom and maybe even waited on your table at a restaurant but chose to do this. Their lives compared to others were not pretty, yet they knew they had to do this or end up with nothing.

Very few of Dean's success stories were big time executives who lost it all and needed to do something. They never came here and said this is too hard, I read the book and can't figure out what to do next.

When you begin to say that, think about 44 year old Manny Priestly, who walks around with one arm and has managed to do six deals, well five if you take out the personal residence I bought for myself and brother. Or Carol Stinson who woke up everyday worrying about how her kids were going to eat today because they were once foot away from having absolutely nothing. Or Dean who grew up in traditionally poor Up State NY and couldn't go to college because there was simply not enough money to afford it.

If this business can work for others it can for you, you need to simply read the strategies and do nothing more than what it tells you to do. Open your ears and listen to what investors need and match up the deal with those needs and get paid.

For those of you who are still members of the Country Club and we all know they are here, start talking to your friends there about what you do and ask them to fund a deal.

Why not do it??? If you had a choice of being on the bread and government cheese line or asking for money to help you'd have no problem asking someone for help, so if you need money to fund a deal, you need to ask those with money to fund a deal it's that simple.