I came across this video the other day.

It’s a great story with a sad ending .. but with a profound lesson.

It’s a long video… It took me two sittings to get through but it was well worth it.

If you are interested below you will find other items related to his story.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/

One of my favorite speeches of all time is from Vince Lombardi.

Lombardi was a legendary coach for the Green Bay Packers long ago.

If you can apply the principles laid out on this speech to your life and business you will achieve that which others only dream about.

—- NUMBER ONE SPEECH —-

“Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while; you don’t do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.

“There is no room for second place. There is only one place in my game, and that’s first place. I have finished second twice in my time at Green Bay, and I don’t ever want to finish second again. There is a second place bowl game, but it is a game for losers played by losers. It is and always has been an American zeal to be first in anything we do, and to win, and to win, and to win.

“Every time a football player goes to play his trade he’s got to play from the ground up - from the soles of his feet right up to his head. Every inch of him has to play. Some guys play with their heads. That’s O.K. You’ve got to be smart to be number one in any business. But more importantly, you’ve got to play with your heart, with every fiber of your body. If you’re lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he’s never going to come off the field second.

“Running a football team is no different than running any other kind of organization - an army, a political party or a business. The principles are the same. The object is to win - to beat the other guy. Maybe that sounds hard or cruel. I don’t think it is.

“It is a reality of life that men are competitive and the most competitive games draw the most competitive men. That’s why they are there - to compete. To know the rules and objectives when they get in the game. The object is to win fairly, squarely, by the rules - but to win.

“And in truth, I’ve never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn’t appreciate the grind, the discipline. There is something in good men that really yearns for discipline and the harsh reality of head to head combat.

“I don’t say these things because I believe in the ‘brute’ nature of man or that men must be brutalized to be combative. I believe in God, and I believe in human decency. But I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour - his greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear - is that moment when he has to work his heart out in a good cause and he’s exhausted on the field of battle - victorious.”

–Vince Lombardi

Recently I came across this video on you tube. It’s about Rocky and his story of never giving up.

It’s very easy in life to allow obstacles to stand in the way of your dreams. Then you look back with regret!

Take a few minutes and listen to Rocky’s story as told by Tony Robbins.

You will be glad you did.

I would love to hear your comments!

I come across many deals on a daily basis and am just amazed at how off the numbers are. Many of the wholesalers out there are just trying to take advantage of someone that does not know any better.

As a real estate wholesaler you have the obligation to give accurate information about the properties that you are selling, especially if you are working with people that are new in the business. One bad deal for them could mean the end of their real estate investing career.

As a real estate investor, shame on you if you are relying on other people to provide you comps and dictate the value of a property. If you lose your shirt then you have no one to blame except for yourself.

So to try and help you I created a video that shows our analysis for a deal that we recently sold on www.jaxrehabdeals.com

Let me know what you think.

I don’t know about you, but nowadays everywhere you turn there is one more password that you have to remember.

Soon enough you have a ton of passwords that you have to try and remember (that is if you actually use different passwords for all of your sites like you are supposed to) and it’s just a big pain in the ass!

I have over 400 myself with all the membership sites, bill payment sites, credit cards, etc.

I have used for about 2 years an indispensable tool to help you manage all of this information.

It’s called Roboform. I could not live without this very useful tool. At first I was a bit skeptical about keeping my passwords on my computer and laptop. What about if the computer was stolen or someone started poking around. Well that is no problem because the program has great security. It gives you a master password that allows you to protect all of your passwords and make sure that only you get access to it.

I definitely suggest you check it out

Let’s face it. With all the information that is published out there each day, there is no way that you can ever expect to take it all in. As a matter of fact, you have to make some hard choices about what you are going to try and learn, about what will take you a step closer to your goals.

One very effective tool that you can use to speed up your learning with audio files (or CDs if you rip them) is to use Windows Media Player to increase the play speed with your audio files. Just think about it…how about if you were able to speed up your listening by 20%.

It does not seem like that much but it really is a crap load of time. I listen to at least 10 hours a week of audio files. That is a total of 600 minutes. If I can shave off 20% then I have just saved 120 minutes - that is two hours. Sometimes I can listen to them faster and save even more time.

Remember the 80/20 rule. Out of all the information that you listen to there is very little that you can implement. It may be that the program has a ton of information but to try and get 100% is impossible, especially the first time around (that is why I listen to the good stuff again and again). When you speed up the voice you can get to the top 20% faster into your brain and get moving on taking action.

Check out the video to see how you do it.

Let me know if you have any questions via the comments section.

I watch very little TV nowadays… but I take the time to watch 24 on Fox (via TiVo so I don’t watch the commercials). It’s a great show and would highly recommend to anyone.Jack Bauer

The other day my wife and I were watching a few of the episodes and I was amazed by the efficiency in communication in their moments of crisis. There is no “hello” “how are you” “what are you doing” small talk. They call… they get to the point… and when they are done… they hang up.

Don’t get me wrong… I like to be personable. But how many times have you been running around like a madman… (or madwoman) a million calls… a million things to do… and you answer the phone and you hear “So what is going on?……”

The problem is that there are too many phone calls like that!

So I would like to establish a few things that are necessary in any business phone call…

1. Be prepared - Many times people just pick up the phone with no real intention as to what the purpose of the conversation is. Then they get on the phone and ramble on and I’m left wondering what the hell they called about to begin with. Know your outcome!
2. Get to the point quickly - We are all busy and attention span is very thin nowadays. We are in a constant state of information overload. So be succinct with your conversation, get to the point quickly and without a ton of details that don’t matter. Most busy people don’t want that many details… if they do then they will ask you for it.
3. Don’t ask “Is this a good time to talk” - If it was not a good time to talk then I would not answer the damn phone and let it go to voice mail. Any more stupid questions??!!!
4. Don’t ask “Are you busy” - Same principle applies as “Is this a good time to talk”. In addition, the answer to that question is always YES! I am always busy, too many things to do and not enough time in the day. So let’s get on with it please!
5. “How are you” and “How are you doing” - …are not necessary. Assume that I am doing fine. If I was not and I thought that you actually cared then I would tell you. Otherwise… let’s roll.
6. Don’t overstay your welcome - How many times have you seen your caller ID and thought “Oh no, I won’t take that call… he’s a talker. They will just keep me on the phone” Do you want to be that caller? If you are succinct, get to the point and be attentive to not taking other people’s time unnecessarily. Then guess what will happen? More people will take your phone calls. They know that when you call you are not going to keep them on the phone and so they are going to be more likely to take your phone call.

So what about Jack Bauer? He calls CTU and gets what he needs and then he does the thing that is sooooooo hard for many of us to do (including me sometimes)… he HANGS UP! That is right! He does not have the time… there are terrorists out there and he has some serious ass kicking to do and has NO time to waste on formalities.

We have our own terrorist out there. They are time sucking vampires, customers that just annoy us, relatives and friends that have nothing better to do than just talk us to death on the phone and so on…

Jack Bauer

So start being like Jack Bauer and you will find that not only will you have more time… but more people will want to talk to you(at least the ones that matter).

Cris Chico