“How many of you know the next car that you’re going to buy?
How many of you know the next pair of jeans, the next dress you’re going to buy?
Does it make sense when I say that if you don’t have your goals written down…
…someone else does—and in this case, in the United States it’s corporate America?”
End Results
I’d like to start off talking about goals with a warning. And that is — as I talk about this and I preach and I harp and I complain if you don’t have written down goals, and I just—for anybody that helps people set goals, I think the biggest challenge is not that people don’t think that goals are important — I don’t think anybody in their right mind says that — but still: It’s getting people to take action on it or inspiring people or encouraging people.
The end result for me would be if every one of you went home—the ultimate end result would be if every one of you went home, sat down with your significant others and wrote down exactly what your family was going to do over the next five years. And this is everything, not just money.
Remember we’re Lifestyles Unlimited not “money unlimited,” so it’s got to be a holistic approach that includes family, fitness, relationships, charities—all the things that are important components to a balanced life. But I harp and I complain and I preach, “Write them down, write them down, write them down.”
Sales
And I’d love to start off with this. As I said, the reason is is even if you think you don’t have written goals down—in other words, you say, “Well, Steve, doggone it, I know I should, but I just haven’t ever done it.” Oh, don’t worry, if you haven’t done it for yourself, then someone else has.
What do I mean by that? How many of you know the next car that you’re going to buy? How many of you know the next pair of jeans, the next dress you’re going to buy? Does it make sense when I say that if you don’t have your goals written down, someone else does—and in this case, in the United States it’s corporate America?
They literally structured their advertising system for you to set goals based on what they want you to have your goals for. It’s called sales. And they put clothes on TV — let’s look at a movie now. In a movie you will see brand placement throughout the movie—and I’m not putting down any of these companies.
Selling to You
I love all of these companies that I’m mentioning—you will see when the person opens their laptop. They open the laptop and there’s the bright Apple emblem on the back of the laptop. You will see them pick up a Pepsi or a Coke and do you not notice that by coincidence every single time they do the Coke emblem is facing you?
They stand there and pull their iPods out of their pocket and put them on their heads, or Dr. Dre’s headphones are in every music video now. They’re selling to you sometimes when you don’t even realize it, and they’re setting your goals for you.
This may sound ridiculous, but be hard on yourself for the next 30 seconds and answer this question: Is it not true that you know more about your next vacation, you know more about the next car you’re going to buy or the next piece of clothing or shoes or whatever that you’re going to buy than you do about your next investment?
Consumer Goods
Now, I said be hard on yourself for the next 30 seconds. Isn’t that true? You really do. You know more about those clothes, all those consumer goods, than you know about your next true investment. That is the problem. That’s why having your goals written down is so important.
And we have a free goal-setting workshop. I actually talked about this last month as well and we went through this workshop—and I’m not going to go through the workshop again because I just did it last month. What I’m going to be focusing on is taking one singular aspect—and that’s real estate investing—and giving you a goal laid out.
I’m going to base it off of the Wall Street Journal; I’m going to base it off of our goal-setting workshop. But I’d like all of you to have the free goal-setting workshop for you and your family so that the corporations—and too, this is another thing. Am I saying the corporations are horrible or evil or controlling and—not at all.
Making Money
Because you have to give them permission to manipulate you the way I just described. That’s you; it’s not them. They’re just selling goods; they’re just making money. It’s your responsibility. And if you let them do it to you, it’s you, not them. Don’t blame Coca-Cola for advertising or McDonald’s for advertising. It’s you that lets them. You’re at fault if you’re allowing them to manipulate you. Okay?
But if you’ve got your goals written down—I still think this is great. This is based off of about 11 different goal-setting workshops I went through before I wrote this. I try to give credit to the ones that I went through as much as I could effectively.
But get this by going to LifestylesUnlimited.com. On the right-hand side you’ll see the Free Starter Kit. In there is the free goal-setting workshop. Get that goal-setting workshop. Print it out. Get one to your son, get one to your spouse, get one to your daughter. Get them to the people that you care about and then all of you sit down and read it.
It’s 27 pages, but a lot of them are just little worksheets where you just list things that you want in every aspect of your life from your family to your fitness to fun—believe it or not—you should be planning on the fun parts of your life as well. But it’s very, very effective.
Compliments
I really appreciate the compliments that I do get. I’m going to give you a sales pitch from some of the comments that have been made to me through e-mail or in person here by people who have gone through this goal-setting workshop. They basically say that it did change their lives.
And not—remember, all I did was go to 11 different goal-setting workshops, so I’m not trying to take credit for this. But what they were bringing up is that writing down their goals changed their lives. And the work that we did here at Lifestyles Unlimited to come up with this and give it away free was what they were saying they appreciated.
So go to LifestylesUnlimited.com and click on the Free Starter Kit. And like I said part of that Free Starter Kit—among the other free stuff that comes with it—is the member and mentor goal-setting workshop.
Getting Started
So let’s look at how do you get started? What is the general goal? Getting started with real estate is very simple. The first thing that you’ve got to do is get involved with other real estate investors networking and start reading. These things should be done at the exact same time.
Where I see people fall into a trap of linear thinking—they think, “I know what I’ll do. I’ll take this reading list that Steve Davis gave me that all the members and mentors use at Lifestyles Unlimited, and I’ll read all of these books on the reading list. As soon as I complete all of these books, I’ll then go join a real estate investor group so I can network and educate myself to learn how to do this. Then I’ll buy my first house. Then I’ll do this. Then I’ll do that.” And they try to make it linear.
I guess I should have gone a little harder towards this and it would be, “First I’m going to read all the books, then I’m going to join a group, then I’m going to pay off all my credit cards, then I’m going to buy my first house, then I’m going—“ No. Almost all of this stuff should be done at the exact same time. Do not ever think that you are going to be a real estate expert before you do your first deal. You just won’t do it.
