By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Get Stefan Aarnio's book "Money People Deal: The Fastest Way to Real Estate Wealth" at MoneyPeopleDeal.com!

Remember: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine and I asked her for her opinion on the local Asper school of business.

Her answer surprised me "needed for some, not for others."

Formal education usually has mixed reviews in the business world. Some people love it and swear by it, others think that it is an outdated dinosaur of the industrial age.

Although I did attend the University of Manitoba, and did take classes at the Asper school of business, I am a business school drop-out. My ambitions for taking classes at the school were quickly quenched when I learned that they were grooming me to become an employee and not an entrepreneur. No matter how much education is received from an institution like Asper, the teachers are employees and they train people to think like employees.

Many of the world's greatest entrepreneurs were drop outs: Steve Jobs of Apple, Bill Gates of Microsoft, Mark Zuckerburg of Facebook, Henry Ford and others. These men build their businesses on passion, experience, and practical hands-on-study in their fields. 

"Formal education will make you a living, Self education will make you a fortune." - Jim Rohn

With enough hands on study and experience, these great entrepreneurs build the most valuable asset of all - sound business acumen. The greatest difference between most WANTrepreneurs who have day jobs and real entrepreneurs who derive their livelihood directly from their businesses is:

1) Entrepreneurs live off of their business acumen
2) WANTreprenerus trade time for money

Where entrepreneurs can turn their ideas and passions into assets that create strong enough income to reach their dreams, many WANTrepreneurs are stuck trading time for money building someone else's dream.

In Robert Kiyosaki's game CashFlow, there are two circuits:

1) The Rat Race, a wheel that the players circulate around in collecting pay checks. In the Rat Race, these players have jobs and trade time for money. It doesn't matter if the player has a low paying job like a Janitor or a high paying job like a Doctor. All of the players in the Rat Race trade time for money, have a limited earning potential, are susceptible to the pitfalls of relying on a fixed income i.e.: players may become downsized and lose 100% of their income for a short period.

2) The second circuit in Cash Flow is called the Fast Track and on the Fast Track players move much faster. The Fast Track is reserved for players who have strong enough business acumen to create enough passive income to exceed his expenses. In other words, these players have become smart enough to not need their jobs  and live off of their ability to invest and create income. Players on the fast track make disproportionately more money, have larger deals, cannot be downsized, and are unaffected by many other disadvantages of the rat race.

One circuit relies on trading time for money, the other relies on business acumen.

Many new investors and WANTrepreneurs want to make the transition from the Rat Race onto the Fast Track, but the sad thing is, many of these WANTrepreneurs refuse to invest in their financial education - the most important asset of all.

Your education and business acumen is the greatest asset, far more valuable than Gold, silver, cash, stocks, real estate, companies. All of these "real" assets mean nothing if there is not a strong base of skill and education backing these symbols of wealth.

But if formal business school teaches most people to be employees, then where can one get an entrepreneur's education.

There are many places to get an entrepreneur's education:

1) Books written by real entrepreneurs
2) Seminars for teaching business put on by real entrepreneurs
3) One on one coaching from real entrepreneurs
4) Mentorship or apprenticing under a real entrepreneur

The key word with all of the above is REAL entrepreneurs. When choosing to learn about entrepreneurship or business from someone, it is counterproductive to learn from a good employee. Employees are trained to think differently from entrepreneurs and they collect pay checks instead of build companies.

ACTION STEP:

In your life, ask yourself; "are you living off of your business acumen?" Or are you trading time for money?

What do you need to get to where you want to go?

Who do you need to help you get there?

Thanks for reading,
By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Get Stefan Aarnio's book "Money People Deal: The Fastest Way to Real Estate Wealth" at MoneyPeopleDeal.com!

Remember: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Get Stefan Aarnio's book "Money People Deal: The Fastest Way to Real Estate Wealth" at MoneyPeopleDeal.com!

Remember: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

Jim Rohn, an american entrepreneur, once said "If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much."

I always struggled with the idea of getting a job. Some people call their job a J-O-B which stands for Just, Over, Broke.

From age 17 to 24 I struggled every year with employment. When I was in university, every summer, I had to go out and "get a job" to pay for next year's tuition. Every year I would procrastinate, the idea of a job bored me, and I felt in my heart that I didn't want to work for someone else. Every summer was different, I worked at Tim Hortons, local restaurants, odd painting jobs, and even had a short taste of direct sales. Nothing felt good and every year as the summer would approach I felt myself feeling depressed.

In 2008 when I graduated from university with an Arts degree, the game was over. My parents and society both agreed that it was time to leave the fantasy world of school and join the "real world" and get a "real job".

I had made most of my money in university by teaching guitar lessons out of my mother's living room and had made a good little cash business out of it. I also played numerous music gigs throughout the city and had experienced the life of being self-employed. Now that I was done school it was time to "wake up", shut down my little business and join the real work force.

I followed the advice of my parents, society and the status quo and got a real job in telephone sales. I worked in the middle of the night, on straight commission and although I was one of the top performers in the office, I only made about $10 an hour selling on the phone. My life was completely upside down, I was making less money at my "real job" than I was making it my guitar teaching business, my quality of life was the lowest it had ever been, and I was isolated by working the graveyard shift.

After a few weeks of working my real job, I fell into a depression. Everything I had done was "right". I went to school, got a degree, and got a job, but I was living a miserable life and was making less money than I made in school doing things I enjoyed less.

What was wrong with me?

Looking back, I realize that I was living a life of convenience, not a life of choice. Everything that was in my life came to me by way of convenience. Nothing was consciously chosen by me and this was the source of my unhappiness.

They say there are only two sources of unhappiness in the world:

#1 is not getting what you want
#2 is getting it (not what you want)

When we get something we do not want, unhappiness ensues.

The downward spiral of unhappiness and dissatisfaction continued for years until I learned to take control of my own mind and use it towards endeavours of my choice.

As the great Napoleon Hill writes in his book "Think and Grow Rich":

Everyone comes to this world with the privilege of controlling the power of his mind and directing it to whatever ends he may choose.

At birth, everyone carries the equivalent of two sealed envelopes:

1. The RICHES You May Enjoy If You Take Possession Of Your Mind & Direct It To The Ends Of Your Own Choice.
2. The PENALTIES You Must Pay If You Neglect To Take Possession Of Your Mind & Direct It

In the contents of the first envelope named RICHES are the following blessings:

• Health
• Peace Of Mind
• A Labor Of Love Of Your Own Choice
• Freedom From Fear And Worry
• Positive Mental Attitude
• Material Riches Of Your Own Choice & Quantity

In the envelope labeled PENALTIES are the prices one must pay for neglecting to take control his/her own mind:

• Ill Health
• Fear & Worry
• Indecision & Doubt
• Frustration & Discouragement Throughout Life
• Poverty & Want
• The Evils of Envy, Greed, Jealousy, Anger, Hatred and Superstition

For many years I allowed others to take control of my mind and I drifted through life living a life of convenience with very few elements being of my own choosing. After I hit "the bottom" through depression, poor health, fear, doubt, worry and debt, I began to design the life that I wanted.

Today, I have made drastic changes and every aspect of my life has been chosen by me. Perhaps there are parts that are not 100% of my choosing, but every single aspect is improving steadily towards my vision and my ideals.

All of the improvements in my life came from having a concrete vision of what I desired. I began to write down my goals, my wants, and my vision. I began to reverse engineer and design the life that I wanted. I am very happy to enjoy the blessings that Napoleon Hill names above and be free of the penalties he warns against.

In your own life, ask yourself: Are you living a life of convenience or a life of choice? If you are living a life of convenience, begin to write a vision plan detailing every aspect of your ideal life. When your vision is put into words and written down, the subconscious brain will begin working towards the life of your dreams.

Thanks for reading,
By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Get Stefan Aarnio's book "Money People Deal: The Fastest Way to Real Estate Wealth" at MoneyPeopleDeal.com!

Remember: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Remember: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

Why do some businesses grow to enormous while others fail in the first five years?

90% of businesses fail in the first five years and of the survivors, 90% will fail in the following five years. Business is not an easy game.

Consider the average realtor; Average realtors make less than $40,000 per year and do 12 transactions or less. You see realtors printing their faces on park benches, printing their faces on note pads and mailing them to strangers, and sending letters that say it's the "perfect time to buy and sell your home" (which makes no sense). If it's the perfect time to buy, it's not the perfect time to sell and vice versa. However, because Realtors make such great commissions, buying and selling is always good for them (perhaps not for you).

These self employed salespeople do some of the most ridiculous things to hunt and "kill" new prospects every month. It's a proven fact that it takes 7x more effort to sell to a new customer than an old customer and yet, most realtors, business people and entrepreneurs are running around chasing new business when they should be focusing on their existing business. Existing customers are much more likely to do business with you than new customers, yet most of us do not consider the lifetime value of an existing customer.

This year I did 12 joint venture deals and I learned very quickly how valuable pre-existing customers are. I was originally planning on doing 12 deals with 12 different partners. However, after acquiring 6 partners, my existing partners were lining up to do more deals with me and I didn't have to pick up the phone to call on new business; such is the magic of existing customers.

My goal in this upcoming year is to strengthen my current relationships with my partners and grow my business organically by emphasizing my new mission to create partners for life. If we do the math, we actually do not need very many customers to make a decent living. I saw a book a few years ago targeted towards independent musicians and the premise of the book was "you don't need a record label". The message of the book was that with 1000 paying customers, you can make a decent living in the music industry. Many bands have more than 1000 fans, yet the bands do not bother to create ongoing relationships with those 1000 people. Since most bands don't build 1000 relationships with their fans, the band members have to work at McDonalds to keep the music dream alive.

If you are in real estate investing, you need less than 10 customers to make a very comfortable living and can even become very wealthy by establishing less than 5  partners for life. The lifetime value of a few good relationships is more than enough to send both you and your partners to higher levels of wealth.

Build your relationships vertically rather than horizontally, keep in touch with your customer base, know your audience and give them what they want. We are all standing on very fertile soil, we just need to work the land and reap what we sow.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio

Thanks for reading,
By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

P.S: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Remember: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

This morning I was having breakfast with a colleague of mine and we were trying to find ways to compliment each other's respective real estate businesses. Sometimes it can be difficult to find ways to compliment another person's business due to personal similarities or differences and we spent a considerable amount of time talking about our business philosophies and dreams.

My philosophy in business has predominately been: it is better to sell one $1,000 hot dog than sell one thousand $1 hot dogs. 

Selling one hot dog for $1,000 makes much more money, requires less effort and has a completely different clientele and resources required to sell one thousand $1 hot dogs. 

However, we don't often see any hot dog carts selling $1,000 hot dogs… Why?

Years ago on the Celebrity Apprentice, one of my business heros Gene Simmons sold a $5,000 hot dog to one of his friends for charity. The context of the sale was a battle between two teams of Celebrities to see who could raise the most money selling hot dogs for charity. The business models of the two teams varied greatly with one cart selling $5 hot dogs and the other cart selling $5,000 hot dogs. The results for the two teams was vastly different with the $5 hot dog making approximately $17,000 while the $5,000 hot dog made closer to $52,000.

All of the money was raised for charity and both teams were loaded with celebrities. Both teams did very well, but the huge difference in money raised was that one team was thinking bigger by asking for more dollars per hot dog.

Years ago when I was in the music industry, I wanted to find a way to do business in a bigger way. Naturally I got into real estate because in music I was selling hundreds of $1 "hot dogs" whereas in real estate I could sell a few $1,000 "hot dogs" and make a much better living. Real Estate in general when compared to a music business has much better margins, takes less time, less work and is much more sustainable because there is usually only one customer instead of 1000 for a similar profit.

After I had mentioned that I would rather sell one $1,000 hot dog, my friend replied that his philosophy has been to sell one thousand $1,000 hot dogs. He elaborated by saying that he was working on a multi-million dollar land subdivision deal where he would sell nearly 100 lots of land and metaphorically speaking sell one thousand $1,000 hot dogs. His thinking was clearly bigger than mine.

When we had met that morning, we were looking at a house that I was going to buy to flip. I had clearly illustrated my $1,000 hot dog thinking with my current business model of flipping houses one at a time. My colleague had a much greater plan to take the profits of my plan and multiply it by 100 with the same effort.

But what do the hot dogs mean?

There are two ways to build a business model. One is vertical and the other is horizontal. 

HORIZONTAL BUSINESS - $1 hot dogs x 1000

A horizontal business will have lots of customers with low transaction volumes. The business relies on having a high amount of customers and transactions to make a profit. This is the hot dog cart with $1 hot dogs.

VERTICAL BUSINESS - $1000 hot dog x 1

The other model is the vertical model. This model has less customers, but makes more money per customer. It relies on having a few great repeat customers who account for 80% or more of the business. This is the model I am building in my business today. This is the hot dog cart with the $1,000 hot dogs.

DIAGONAL BUSINESS - $1000 hot dog x 1000

There is a third model, and this model is the diagonal model that uses both vertical and horizontal strategies where we sell $1,000 hot dogs to 1000 customers. This model is much more advanced and requires the customer care of the vertical model with the systems and velocity of the horizontal model. If you can build a diagonal model, you will be rich - guaranteed. However, this model is the most difficult to create and few people know how to actually build a horizontal business model that works.

After examining the $1 hot dog cart and the $1,000 hot dog cart, which hot dog cart would you like to own? Which cart are you running in your current business? Is this where you want to be today? What is holding you back from building a diagonal business?

Thanks for reading,
By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

P.S: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Remember: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

Everyone loves perfection.

We demand perfection when we go out to a restaurant for dinner. We demand perfection when we go the dentist to get a tooth drilled. We demand perfection when a relative goes into the hospital for surgery.

Of course, perfection has a cost - perfection is not cheap!

For our perfect dinner, we need 5-10 people working in the restaurant dedicating their lives to our dining experience plus all of the suppliers of food, contractors who built the restaurant, interior designers who designed the restaurant and everyone else who indirectly created our experience.

When we see the dentist, he usually has a team of 5+ people working in the office plus nearly a decade of post secondary education to earn the right to work on your teeth.

The surgeon is has a similar team and education to the dentist.

Perfection is something we all want, but is it something we need?

Studies show that Top Achievers, the world's most successful entrepreneurs, actors, sales people, sports stars etc. strive for perfection but choose improvisation over perfection.

Top achievers improvise.

Consider the 80/20 rule, 80% of our results come from 20% of our actions. If we want to achieve the last 20% the "law of diminishing returns" comes into effect. After a certain point, the same actions will yield no further results and the last 20% becomes nearly impossible to reach.

Perfection is an ideal, something that we all strive for, but something that we cannot achieve without an irrational amount of effort. Therefore, top achievers will reach their point of satisfaction, improvise and will move onto the next task. 

You are better to grab the first 20 cents of every dollar than to try to grab 100 cents of every dollar because the last 80 cents are so hard to achieve that the return on time yields no measurable result.

Improvisation is a key skill for success. In his book Lynchpin, Seth Godin talks about the concept of "shipping". When creative, influential people are working on a project, they set a deadline and on that day they "ship" the product whether it is ready or not. The deadline benefits the author twofold:

1) It gets the product out the door in it's first revision, the product is imperfect, but it exists and is ready to go.
2) The product no longer has the risk of never becoming completed

Instead of perfection, we have a shipped product that is ready for use and is ready for improvement.

Microsoft (love them or hate them) has a very practical business model. They always "ship" their software - ready or not, bugs and all. The software that they ship is not always ready, but with patches and revisions, it eventually becomes functional and the company is able to earn revenue and serve it's customers. Bill Gates became the richest man in the world by "shipping" his software like this and improvising rather than seeking perfection.

If software companies would hold onto their software until it's perfect, they would all go out of business before the software is ready. The fact of the matter is that perfection should be reached for, but we cannot wait for the "perfect" product to ship because perfect does not exist.

What is much more practical is to produce a good product and slowly adjust it towards perfection.

Even companies like Blizzard Entertainment, the creators of World of Warcraft, the most profitable video game of all time are known for "taking their time" to produce their product. They will develop a title over 10 years and reach the closest they can to perfection without achieving it. After 10 years of development, they will release the imperfect software and continue to patch it to bring it closer to perfection over a 5-10 year period on the back end.

Are you addicted to perfection? Is your addiction holding you back from achieving your dreams?

For myself, I have renamed my company and brand nearly 6 times this year, I have gone through 6 runs of business cards, I have created and re-created 6+ websites to get the exact message I want. My motto is to "ship" whether or not it's perfect and adjust as necessary. The benefits of shipping when it's functional instead of perfect vastly outweigh the drawbacks. For example, I won the Canadian Real Estate Wealth Magazine's Joint Venture Partner of the Year award for 2012 because I had started blogging on an imperfect blog and gained some visibility.

My business was exactly the same with or without the visibility, I still did 12 deals, however, because I had an imperfect blog with imperfect articles distributed in an imperfect way, I was visible and nominated for the award.

Had I not "shipped" my blog until it was perfect, I would not have won the award. The deals still would have been done, but I would have lost out on $30,000 of press and exposure.

Perfection is a fickle mistress, chase her as an ideal, but do not succumb to her allure. Favour the maiden of improvisation and all will be well.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

P.S: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

By: Stefan Aarnio

Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Remember: Please share this article if you found it helpful

“We have this notion in America of the Lone Ranger/Batman type - you know - someone who takes on the world alone. But in reality, all successful people need help. We need advisors, coaches, lenders, customers, and clients. True we ourselves have to do the work, but our "team" that we put together - makes it all worth-while. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we can reach our goals.” – Robert Shemin

Although many entrepreneurs enter the field of business alone, achieving success in just about any field is impossible without a team.

This is especially true in business where “lone rangers” get squashed on a daily basis by teams of professionals.

1)   The local “mom and pop burger shop” gets wiped out by McDonalds,

2)   The local “mom and pop hardware store” gets crushed by Home Depot

3)   The local “mom and pop” department store gets destroyed by Wal-Mart.

These small “lone ranger” businesses may provide better services than Walmart; They may provide better burgers than McDonalds and they may offer more expertise than Home Depot. However, they cannot compete with teams of professionals that make up the talent at Wal-Mart, Home Depot or McDonalds.

One thing that separates “mom and pop” from the Walmarts, Home Depots and McDonalds is that “Mom and Pop” have to sleep: Walmart, Home Depot and Mcdonalds don’t.

Kevin O’Leary, Canadian Investment Guru, once said that he prefers investments that make money while he sleeps.

Investors make decent returns when their money grows during business hours... However, the same investors get rich when their money keeps working for them after they have gone to sleep.



In real estate investing, many investors don’t consider themselves to be entrepreneurs. Most investors manage their own properties, hammer their own nails, paint their own walls, lease their own suites and pick their own deals.

Most real estate investors do not get ahead because they are too busy pinching pennies at the $10 an hour level to make serious dollars at the CEO level.

In order to break out of the $10/hour mentality, it’s up to the entrepreneur to break the link between time and money.

Most of us are taught from an early age that:

Time = Money

In reality, time does not equal money:

·      Sales = money

·      Assets = money

·      Brand = money

·      Press = money

·      Information = money

When time equals money, we are stuck in an advanced form of slavery. We must trade hours for dollars. The problem with this model is that we only have a limited amount of hours and cannot make money while we sleep.

Sandman Empire: (noun) An empire of business or real estate created passively through a joint venture or partnership between a passive money partner and an active working partner. The active working partner handles all aspects of the business and the money partner is only responsible for financial backing. The passive partner is removed from all operations and can essentially sleep; hence the word “sandman”.

Investors who can create a “Sandman Empire” can earn serious returns in a completely passive way and have unlimited earning potential: Investors who fail to create a “Sandman Empire” are limited by time, focus, management, skill sets and capabilities.

But how can one create a “Sandman Empire”?

In investing, there are two types of investors: Active Investors and Passive Investors.

Active Investors are essentially entrepreneurs. They pick their own deals, manage their operations, manage their contractors and run the enterprise. Naturally, these entrepreneurs get the highest returns possible and in many ways, they take a risk on themselves to perform and run the enterprise profitably. Active investors may or may not invest money into their enterprise. Since they invest their entire lives into the business, usually they do not have money invested.

Passive Investors are more like silent partners who park their money with an Active Investor. Silent partners trust the Entrepreneur to run the enterprise profitably. Silent Partners need to be proficient at analyzing people and deals. These Passive Investors are the ones who get the benefits of building a “Sandman Empire” if they can select the right Entrepreneur to grow their money.

Usually passive investments have lower returns than active investments. However, Passive investors can get much higher returns by partnering with an Active Investor and splitting the profits.

If a Passive Investor can find the right Active partner, the possibilities are endless. When financial backing is paired with time and talent, tremendous value and profits can be created.

However, if the Active partner is not chosen correctly, massive financial destruction can occur; including losing the investor’s capital or worse.

A Passive Investor must perform proper due diligence on their Active Partner before “taking a leap of faith” and making a final decision to place their money with him or her.

Some questions that need be answered in the due diligence period are:

1)   Does the Active Investor have experience with these types of assets?

2)   Does the AI have experience with this strategy?

3)   How do we recover if things don’t go according to plan?

4)   Has the AI lost money before? How did he or she handle the loss?

5)   What is the track record of the AI, does it show success? Is he or she hiding anything?

6)   Has the AI built an adequate team? Can the team handle the additional business that the Passive Investor is funding?

7)   How has the AI handled himself when things went wrong? Can he turn bad luck into good luck?

8)   What transparency is offered?

9)   What options does the Passive Investor have to exit if things don’t go right?

10)                 Does the AI have good relationships? Is he loyal and in what way?

11)                 What is the brand of the AI? What does he stand for?

12)                 Is the AI 100% focused and committed to the venture or does he or she have a day job? Do you want a “weekend warrior” managing your money?

13)                 What is the X-factor for this AI? What makes him the over-the-top best choice for your dollars? Are you investing in someone who takes care of the details and provides an excellent product and experience? Or just another “real estate guy”?

If an Active Investor can provide satisfactory answers to all of these questions, then he or she is a prime candidate to build a “Sandman Empire”.

Of course you will have to trust and verify all of the answers to make sure that the “walk” matches the “talk”. When it comes to money, people will say whatever they have to get your dollars. Don’t be a victim of bad due diligence, put your potential partner through extensive scrutiny, ask the hard questions and make sure that you have a competent, trustworthy partner to build your empire while you sleep.

Thanks for reading,

Stefan Aarnio

Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

P.S: Please share this article if you found it helpful

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Remember: Please share this article if you found it helpful

If you were offered $35,000 a year to sit at a toll booth and collect change from cars crossing a bridge, would you take the job?

Or would you decline and look for the next opportunity?

What if you were paid $100,000, $200,000 or $300,000 for the same task? Would you take the job?

What if you were paid $1 a year to sit at the same tollbooth?

For myself, I would not sit at the tollbooth for any amount of money because money earned at the tollbooth is “dead money”.

We are human “be-ings” not human “do-ings”.

Daily tasks that help us become the person we want to become create life, energy and success. These tasks have purpose, feed our spirits and nourish our souls; By performing tasks we enjoy, we become the person we want to “Be”.

If a task or job does not bring us closer to the person we want to become, we earn dead money and in some ways, waste our time, effort and energy.

Eventually if you earn enough dead money, you won’t be able to get out of bed in the morning.

Dead money is a term I learned from Raymond Aaron, a New York Times best selling author. Raymond explained that the money he earned from his published books that were unaligned with his core purpose were “dead money”. In some ways, these books hurt his brand, wasted years of his life and were very expensive in opportunity cost.

In my own business, I make sure every action I do advances my career by building brand-equity or by earning cash AND brand equity. If I am able to monetize my actions and build my brand equity at the same time, I make the biggest gains in spirit and in my bank account.

My mentality is: Even if I earn $0 at the end of the year, but have built a $1,000,000 brand, I succeed. Steve Jobs paid himself a salary of $1 while he was the CEO at apple because his mission was to build the company and put a dent in the universe by challenging the status quo. I have a similar philosophy to Steve Jobs who I have idolized since 6th grade when I first learned about who he was and kept a picture of him on my desk at school.

I am fortunate enough to aware of my brand and purpose, the average person does not consider his or her brand, his brand equity, who he is, who he wants to become or where he is going in life. For the average person, this is very unfortunate.

These people are stuck in “dead end” jobs that are either high paying or low paying and every dollar they earn is a “dead dollar”. The dollars they earn do not build their dream or advance their career.

If you earn enough “dead dollars” you will eventually build the bars of an emotional prison.

Money is a medium of exchange and a currency because it needs to move in order to be relevant and useful like electricity or water.

If money stops moving, money dies.

If people stop moving for long enough, people die.

If the spirit stops moving, the spirit dies.

If you are earning money in your career, but are NOT moving towards becoming the person you wish to become, your career and spirit will eventually die.

Years ago I used to work Frito-Lay, the company that makes Lay’s chips and Doritos. I used to put chips on shelves at Wal-Mart every morning at 4:00 am and I earned a disproportionately high salary for doing so. Walmart employees stocking chips at 4:00am were making $8 per hour, I was making closer to $20 per hour to do the exact same task.

However, every dollar I earned was dead money.

The money was dead because although I was earning money daily, I was not advancing towards my goal of becoming an entrepreneur. The money was good, but my soul was dying. I was becoming a professional shelf stocker and not a professional entrepreneur. I was NOT advancing towards the person I wanted to become. The life that I wanted was not being built with my actions and consequently I was earning dead money that did not help me in my pursuit of happiness.

Many people think that earning money in itself is a good return on time, but in fact, earning dead money is a complete waste of time, waste of spirit and a waste of life.

Would you rather live a life of poverty doing what you love or a life of riches in a life of indifference?

Most people will say that they would rather do what they love and live in poverty. However, 70% of people are not happy with their current jobs or current careers.

70% of people earn dead money every day.

A wise man once said “Talk is cheap and money buys the whiskey.” What this wise man is saying is that most people say whatever makes them sound good: “I would rather do what I love” but their actions do not align with their words.

Remember: Talk is cheap and Money buys the whiskey.

I’m not saying that we should choose a life of poverty out of passion to pursue what we love. I’m a firm believer that we can “have our cake and eat it too”.

I think it’s 100% possible to do what you love, monetize it and become rich. 

I believe you can have it all, happiness, love and money. When it comes to happiness, love and money; there is always enough for everyone.

Obtaining happiness and money is a topic of major study for myself at this time in my life. What I find is that the more I love my career, the more I love my daily routine, the more fun I enjoy, and the more money I make.

Fun = money.

Love = money.

Enthusiasm = money.

Money = life.

The more fun, love and enthusiasm I enjoy, the more life I have, and my wallet benefits as well.

I have abandoned the pursuit of “dead money” and if a task or job doesn’t line up with my mission, my vision and who I want to become, I will not perform it.

Do what you love and the money always comes.

Complete the mission and the money always comes.

Provide enough value and the money always comes.

Money is a result of a job well done; it is an effect, not a cause. Actions performed at a level of excellence equate to money earned. Money itself can never motivate someone to be better, achieve excellence or create more value because money intrinsically has no value.

Money is intrinsically dead, we are the ones who breathe life into money. People are the ones who attach external value to money and we use it to build our dreams.

Money is neutral and money doesn’t care. Money doesn’t cry for you when you are sad and money won’t drink champagne with you when you want to celebrate.

Money will, however, buy you a bottle of champagne.

Money can either be alive or dead depending on how we earn it. It is up to us as the wielders of money to respect the neutrality of money, breathe life into money and allow money to flow through us in our personal pursuit of happiness.

Money, life, spirit, happiness, enthusiasm and joy are all currencies and we must allow them to flow.

If we allow money, life, spirit, happiness, enthusiasm and joy to flow through us, we will become congruent. We will prove our integrity and the universe will reward us for respecting it’s laws and creating abundance.

If we shut off our spirit, enthusiasm and joy, then we also deactivate the spiritual power of money and the power of life.

If we deactivate the spiritual power of money, the money we earn will die the moment it touches our hands. Instead of using our earned money to build our dreams, our dead money will build an emotional prison around us where we are forced into slavery for the all-mighty dollar.

When we align with the person we want to become, we earn the Midas touch and everything we touch turns to gold. When we are out of alignment, we earn the touch of death.

Ask yourself; do my daily actions help me become the person I want to become? Am I earning dead money? What is my purpose? How am I achieving my purpose?


We all have the Midas touch if we can find our purpose deep down inside of ourselves. Respect money as a tool; respect the neutrality of money and the power of money. Allow money to live and money will let you live the life of your dreams.

Disobey money, kill money and you will find yourself in financial prison. Don’t let money die.

Protect money and it will protect you.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio

Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

P.S: Please share this article if you found it helpful

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
http://www.facebook.com/stefanaarnio

"Pressure makes diamonds" - General George S. Patton.

What do you do when you are under pressure?

Do you crack? Do you fold? Do you avoid and hide from the world?

Or do you stand up, get stronger, and push harder to persist?

Pressure makes diamonds... but it can also crush people.

Years ago, when I attended my first Real Estate seminar, the speaker asked "And what about stress...? After you have made your money, do you think the stress goes away?"

Almost every hand in the room went up and the room was silent.

After a long pause, the speaker continued "Stress never goes away, and you must learn to manage it. Just because you have more money, does not mean that your stress levels change."

Throughout my life, I have constantly placed myself in high pressure situations. I played music at a professional level, I was a national leader in direct sales and I'm currently playing the highest risk/reward game in the world: entrepreneurship.

Somehow, I have always been attracted to high pressure situations because I am naturally a competitive person and have always wanted to compete and work with the best.

For me, the pressure has always been necessary for me to push to the next level: pressure makes diamonds.

Of course, being under pressure is extremely uncomfortable and it can take it's toll on your sleep, your comfort and over all quality of life. But looking back on my life so far, the greatest, most exciting, relevant moments have been the ones of greatest pressure and greatest importance.

In contrast, my most unhappy, joyless, depressing moments have been the moments of absolutely no pressure.

We all remember the days of high school where we would have an exam in 3 weeks...

3 weeks would go by and we would neglect to study.

30 hours before exam, we would still neglect studying...

8 hours before the test starts we are up all night trying to learn Calculus while trying not to over dose on caffeine.

Somehow pressure can bring out the best in people.

Pressure brings clarity, decision and action to people who normally have confusion, indecision and passivity.

Pressure shows us who we really are and can bring out the hero OR the wimp inside of us.

Pressure lets us know what we are made of and lets us know how far we can be pushed so that we can see where our limits truly are.

One of my favourite things about pressure is that it brings out our natural instincts.

Instinct is not a common topic of conversation in our modern world because we think of feral cats, wild dogs or rabid beasts as having instincts - not civilized people!

Civilized people do not have instincts...

Or do they?

Kathy Kolbe is a theorist and educator who developed a test called the Kolbe index.

The Kolbe index is a series of short questions that measure your instincts show you what your strengths are when under pressure.

For myself, this information has been unbelievably helpful. It also explains why I am happiest under pressure.

The reason why I am happiest under pressure is because I am forced to become my natural self. 

Pressure brings out my natural instincts and allows me to pursue the "best version of myself".

My Kolbe index tells me that under pressure I "improvise". People with instincts similar to mine make great salespeople, public speakers, on camera people, radio hosts, interviewers, storm chasers, video game designers and non-conventional educators.

All of the above "careers" are high pressure, performance based career paths that require little or no formal training to achieve success.

This would explain why I am least happy in low-pressure situations and most happy in high-pressure situations. 

Pressure forces me to become who I naturally need to become.

Pressure is what turns coal into diamonds and it also turns a raw undeveloped average person into a refined success.

I would encourage you to take your Kolbe index and find out what your instincts are and find out how you work under pressure.

Find out what your natural skill sets are, where you are happiest and then focus your whole life and business around that skill set.

For myself, I need to "improvise" all day long to feel full-filled and happy. I have re-organized my entire business around myself being able to "improvise" while key team members around me handle all of the other tasks.

By pursuing this strategy, I have seen greater success, experienced more fun, and felt more excitement. All of this can be had from selecting the tasks and roles that excite my instincts.

Please take a moment to invest in yourself, learn about your instincts and harness your talents. You're worth it.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
http://www.facebook.com/stefanaarnio

P.S. Please share this article if you found it helpful

By Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca

Remember: Please share this article if you find it helpful!

Image: Would you rather have half a watermelon or a whole grape?

According to Robert Kiyosaki, there are 4 types of people in the world: Those who want to be liked, those who want to be comfortable, those who want to be right and those who want to win.

• People who want to be liked are motivated by what others think of them. They don't want to "rock the boat" and want to be everyone's friend.
  
• People who want to be comfortable are motivated by their comfort level. They don't want to be pushed outside of their comfort zone and want to remain in complete control of their comfort.
  
• Those who want to be right are motivated by winning arguments and asserting their authority over others. These people will win an argument and don't mind losing a friend in the process.
  
• Those who want to win are motivated by "winning" and getting what they want in life above all else. These people will lose an argument to win in the long term.
  

Each one of us wants to be liked, comfortable, right and win, but the question is, which of the 4 types motivates us the most?

In negotiation, business and deal-making, success depends on our desire to "win". Creating win-win situations is the most important skill in negotiating or deal making.

• When negotiating with people who want to be liked, these people will give up key positions just to maintain their likability. This makes people who want to be "liked" bad negotiators, but easy to make deals with.
  
• When negotiating with people who want to be comfortable, they will never give up positions of comfort and this makes them harder to make a deal with.
  
• When negotiating with people who want to be right, they will argue over non-critical points until they kill the deal.
  
• When negotiating with people who want to win, they will do whatever it takes and give up any position just to win the position they need in the negotiation. These types of people make the most effective negotiators.
  

Mark Cuban has used the following line on the hit TV show Shark Tank many times "What would you rather have? Half a watermelon or a whole grape?"

When negotiating or making a deal, we need to ask ourselves, are we willing to sacrifice some of the things we want so that we can end up with a watermelon and not get stuck with a grape? Negotiation is always a"push and pull" process where the objective is never to obliterate the other side. We have to create win-win situations so that both sides end up sharing a large tasty watermelon.

Unfortunately, we all have personality traits and qualities that can inhibit our ability to negotiate effectively.

We all have the ability to be great negotiators and great deal makers, but unfortunately we also have many opportunities to be deal-killers.

I have identified 11 questions you can ask yourself to find out whether you are a deal maker or a deal-breaker.

13 DIAGNOSTIC DEAL-MAKING OR BREAKING QUESTIONS:

1. Is your personal profit on a single deal worth more than the lifetime value of the relationship with the other side? Yes or no?
   
2. Do you take more value than you give? Yes or no?
   
3. When doing a deal, do you try to get something for nothing? Yes or no?
   
4. When negotiating on key points are you looking at the big picture or just the minor details? Are you focused on the forest or the trees?
   
5. Do you need to win every point of a negotiation? Can you give in on less important points?
   
6. Do you care what the other side gets as long as you get what you want?
   
7. How many deals have you done this year?
   
8. Are you easy and pleasant to deal with? Or are you hard and tough to deal with?
   
9. Do you go back on your word? Is your word your bond?
   
10. Will you try to kill a deal that you are not a part of? Will you try to disrupt or block someone else's deal?
    
11. When great opportunities come up, do you get called first to participate? Or do you get called last or not at all?
    

13 ANSWERS FOR DEAL-MAKING OR BREAKING QUESTIONS:

1. Lifetime value is always worth more than personal profit on a single deal. Networks and relationships are always worth more than a single deal. If you are too focused on transactional profit, you may be a deal-killer.
   
2. If you take more value than you give, you are a deal-killer. Deal makers always give the other side much more value than anticipated. Think value, not price.
   
3. If you try to get something for nothing, you are a deal-killer. Nature is based on inputs and outputs, it is impossible to get something for nothing in this world.
   
4. If you are obsessed over the small details of a negotiation and fail to see the big picture, chances are you are a deal-killer. The best deal makers can see the big picture and find flex on small details.
   
5. If you need to win every point in a negotiation, you are absolutely a deal-killer. You are also probably a painful person to deal with.
   
6. You should not care what the other side gets, as long as you get what you want. Someone will always get more than you. Focus on what you want and forget about the other side. This is key in deal-making and in life. Happiness comes from getting what you want, not getting what the other guy gets.
   
7. If you are not doing as many deals as you would like, you are likely thinking like a deal-killer and not a deal-maker. It might be time to change our mindset.
   
8. The number one personality trait for top negotiators and deal makers is personality. If you are not a pleasant and easy person to deal with, then you are likely a deal killer. Personality is #1.
   
9. If you go back on your word, you are a deal killer. Integrity is extremely important in making deals. Get this fixed immediately if it's a problem.
   
10. If you try to disrupt someone else's deal because you are not in it, you are a serious deal killer. Avoid this at all costs. Allow commerce to happen and opportunities will flow towards you.
    
11. If you do not get called first for a deal or business opportunity, chances are, you are a deal-killer. Work on your negotiation and your personality skills to increase your chances of getting the best opportunities first.
    

Neogitations, business and life are all very simple games. To quote Zig Ziglar "You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want." Effective negotiation is a skill that revolves around people and people skills. If you can eliminate the 11 ways to kill a deal above, there is no reason why you can't sell more, transact more and have better more fulfilling relationships.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca

P.S. Please share this article if you found it helpful!

By Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca

Remember: Please share this article if you find it educational!

Photo: Soldiers in the Afrika Korps with an 88mm gun.

A wise man once said "wars are won by legs, not by arms".

One interpretation of this quote is: battles are won by distance covered, not by physical strength exerted in one battle.

By covering more distance, smaller armies throughout history have been able to wear down massive opponents and take victory over large distances.

Atilla the Hun was able to wreak havoc on the much larger roman legions by having a fast, small, elite, mobile force. 

Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps were able to beat the british into the submission in World War II with a small elite, mobile force.

Lawrence of Arabia employed similar tactics in the pre World War II era that have evolved into modern day guerrilla warfare.

There are two commonalities between Atilla the Hun, Erwin Rommel and Lawrence of Arabia. All 3 men employed the following into their strategy and tactics:

1. Speed
2. Distance

In the days of the Roman empire, business and war were synonymous - there was no separation between business and war. Business was war and war was business. Men in Roman society became wealthy through the spoils of war and later in life would venture into real estate, trade or politics. This is why books like  "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu are found in the Business section of the book store and not the War section. The same principles that apply in warfare also apply in business.

Speed and Distance are just as powerful on the battlefield as they are in the boardroom and let me elaborate on why.

In business, speed wins. First mover advantage, speed of implementation, and velocity of money are all concepts that revolve around speed. In business if you have a chance to be fast or slow, most of the time it is better to be fast.

In business and warfare, distance is just as important as speed. Strategically, we need to have a short position, a medium position and a long position. Whether we are building a company or managing an investment portfolio.

Our ability to win over distances whether short, medium or long is imperative to success.

Strategies that are effective in short positions may not be effective in medium positions and medium positions will not offer the same advantages as long positions.

In business, we need to have an effective mix of 3 types of strategies to be effective over distances and become a leader in the market.

In my past businesses, I focused too much on "long" positions and neglected my short and medium positions.

I would load up my real estate portfolio with long position buy-and-hold cash flow real estate. In my music business, I would pour my time, effort and energy into producing a long term brand strategy and forget my short term strategy. In my debt buying business, again, I had a long term cash-flow strategy but no short or medium position.

These businesses were aggravating, painful and hard to grow because there was no short or medium strategies to generate the cash needed to properly grow and expand.

This summer I began to study JT Foxx. JT Foxx is a very successful real estate investor who has transacted over 500 deals in five years, partnered with some very large money partners and currently owns a huge speaking and coaching business.

JT has very good business acumen and I noticed that he has weighted his business transactions around short positions and the "shortest ways to make money".

The 4 Shortest Ways to Profit

1)   Flipping real estate - Flipping real estate has always been one of the fastest ways to make money in history. Real estate allows an investor to make huge leveraged gains with little or no work and if you do your homework, real estate can be turned in 30-90 days with little to no effort. If you're in real estate, this should be a strategy used often as part of your portfolio and overall strategy.

2)   Local marketing/branding other people - Selling marketing and branding services to local businesses is a very fast way to make large profits. Most business people have no clue about marketing and branding and will pay large sums of money to learn marketing and branding techniques. This is especially apparent in Real Estate Investing and Internet Marketing. Where there is pain, there is profit and branding/marketing is place where many entrepreneurs feel lots of pain. Many companies make large fast profits by relieving this pain.

3)   Public speaking - Donald trump charges $250,000 an hour to speak in public. Raymond Aaron and Tony Robbins have both made over $1,000,000 in an hour giving speeches. Most people would rather be dead than to be speaking in front of an audience. However, this is one of the fastest, most lucrative endeavours for an individual if executed properly. There is enormous leverage in public speaking and tons of branding opportunity. Consider the value of this avenue for a short term strategy in your business. This strategy can be offered for free (just for branding value and lead generation) or it can be monetized - who doesn't love options?

4)   Joint ventures - This year I built my company from the ground up using none of my own money because I used joint ventures to build it. Joint ventures are the fastest, highest leverage business tool available. Only 2% of entrepreneurs know how to use Joint Ventures and this gives savvy entrepreneurs an advantage. Credit Card companies and fortune 500 companies derive major profits from Joint Ventures while small entrepreneurs try to do everything themselves. Whenever I am missing a resource, I will source a JV partner; "why try to own everything?" I have become a specialist in Joint Ventures and I am never low on resources because I know how to create favourable deals for everyone. Some greedy entrepreneurs don't like Joint Ventures because they have to give up a percentage of their business for access to extra resources. In the words of Mark Cuban; "Would you rather have half a watermelon or a whole grape?"

After learning the 4 "shortest ways to profit", I began to re-think my business. I have began restructuring it and adding short and medium positions to my long positions and have begun to find balance. Today my business is healthier than ever and my strategy going forward is more sound. I recommend you review the "4 shortest ways to profit" and plan to implement at least one of the 4 strategies into your business in the next 60 days.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca

P.S. Remember to share this article if you found it useful!