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!

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“The richest people in the world build networks, everyone else looks for work” - Robert Kiyosaki

Love him or hate him, Mr. Kiyosaki is onto something.

I recently spent a weekend with my mentor and I asked him “how can I find more great deals?”

The answer was: “networking”.

Other investors might ask: “how do I find money to fund my deals?”

The answer is “networking”.

This past weekend I was looking for a someone to clean a house I owned.

The solution came from “networking”.

As humans we are pack animals. We roam in gangs, we help each other, we are who we associate with. With people, just like in nature, lone wolves get slaughtered by packs of other wolves. If you are in business, you don't want to be the lone wolf.

Early in my business/real estate investing career I used to act like the tough guy and “go it alone”. I was a one man band, a chief cook and bottle washer and the guy with all the answers. I was the smartest guy on my team, had no connections to mentors or coaches and didn't belong to any networks.

This was the recipe for disaster. Instead of joining a few small local clubs and accessing the information of other investors and entrepreneurs in the market, I tried to re-invent the wheel. The mistakes were painful and costly and I will never forget the lessons I learned.

In business, we are always limited by the resources, skills and knowledge of our team. To grow the business we must access the skills, knowledge and resources of others and there is only one way to find the pieces of the puzzle that we are missing; and that is through networking.

The truth is, everything we need is “out there”. The question is, “who do we need to know” to get what we need?

When I started in real estate investing as a full time investor, one of the first things I did was sit down, write out a list of names of people who would potentially have money to invest with me. What amazes me today, is that almost anyone who knows 100 people can put together $1,000,000 cash to do a deal. Almost everyone, no matter how broke, can access $10,000 cash or credit and if you know 100 people, 100 x $10,000 is $1,000,000. We all have access to at least $1,000,000 – sometimes, we just don't know it.

The top 3 reasons why people don't like to network and why they are wrong:

1. They think that there is no one new to meet
   
   

Just when I think I know “everyone in the business”, I am proven wrong over and over again. Networking events attract all types of people and often it's not the initial person you meet who is the most important – but the people that they know that are most important!

1. They don't want to pay fees to belong to clubs
   
   

Leads, connections and relationships are very expensive to find and maintain. Paying nominal fees to networking clubs and groups is often a very economical way to find all of the above. In many cases, the fee paid to get into the club pays for itself many times over if it's the right group for you.

1. They think that networking is a poor use of time
   
   

The best opportunities never see the light of day. Whenever a great opportunity comes along, it always goes out to someone's personal network before going out to the public. The only way to capitalize on “hidden” opportunity is to be well connected and have a great network. For myself, when I have a deal, it is often gone in less than 30 minutes because the investors in my network snatch it up before I have a chance to show it to any outsiders.

Networking is one of the easiest ways to get a great ROI on your marketing dollars. I spend a considerable amount of my time daily networking, meeting people and finding opportunities. I also dedicate a portion of my income to clubs and associations and make sure I am an active member to maximize my opportunity for my business. If you don't belong to any clubs, it's time to join.

Thanks for reading,

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!


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

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

Remember: Please share this article if you found it helpful

“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.” – Christopher McDougall

In every market whether business, jobs or investing, there are lions and there are gazelles. The lions are the fastest, strongest, fiercest animals in the field while the gazelle is a fast, light, pack animal that finds safety in numbers.

The lion represents the leader in the market: he feeds on his competition and swallows up the slowest weakest gazelles. There are few lions, and only the best can become lions in the field.

The gazelles symbolize the “herd” of average players that flood the market and swarm the terrain in packs. Where one gazelle goes, the rest follow.  Unlike the few lions on the field, there are scores of gazelles. As a gazelle, you do not have to be the best to survive. Instead, you must only be faster than your slowest competition to win another day of life.

The lion requires a complex skill set and a high standard of performance to live, He must become strategic while hunting and move contrary to the direction of the herd. He must appear where the herd does not expect him if he is going to kill and live another day.

The gazelles only need an average skill set and average standard of performance. The herd feels secure when everyone is the same and the gazelles organize themselves in a crowd. The crowd makes the gazelles feel safe because it gives them a thin veil of protection from the lions. This thin veil keeps the lion from focusing on any one gazelle, for the lion cannot catch them all. The lion can only catch one gazelle for his dinner and let the rest of the herd go. The gazelles know this and they base their survival strategy around this fact.

As an investor or entrepreneur, which would you rather be? The Lion or the Gazelle?

Would you rather have the illusion of safety and move with the herd as a gazelle?

Or would you rather have the freedom of the lion to hunt and kill on your own terms?

In my investment/entrepreneurial career, I have always chosen to become the lion.

In my opinion, the lion is a better choice in the investment/entrepreneurial world because I have always had a rule for myself: Whatever the average person does – do the opposite of it and you will succeed.

Most people are not successful at all, so if you do the opposite of the average person, logically you will be a success.

If the average person wants to buy, then sell.

If the average person drinks, then don’t drink.

If the average person smokes, then don’t smoke.

If the average person has a 60-inch plasma screen TV, then don’t own a TV.

If the average person has a PC, get a mac.

If the average person doesn’t exercise, then exercise.

The formula is quite simple and it works more often than not.

People are pack animals, much like gazelles. As mammals, we flock and freeze when we are scared. We form packs to feel safe and we want to belong to a group.

Unfortunately, groups don’t know how to make decisions or create good ideas. Decisions and ideas come from an individual and never a collective.

A committee of professionals built the titanic while one man built the Ark.

No matter which subset of the world or the market you look at, there is always a majority and a minority.

Pareto law states that 20% of your actions create 80% of your results. This relationship applies to markets and people as well. 80% of the market is dominated by 20% of the players.

In the case of the lion and the gazelle, it would be more skewed. Perhaps the lions as 5% of the animals control 95% of the gazelles.

In America, 1% control 99% of the world. This is exactly the same concept as the lions and the gazelles.


The question is, why would anyone want to be a gazelle when you could be a lion?



The truth is, most people are not lions because it’s easy and convenient to be a gazelle while it is extremely difficult to become a lion.

The gazelles have safety in numbers; they do not have to be fast (just faster than the competition), they can feed on grass, which is plentiful and at the end of the day they can go to sleep with a belly full of grass. They don’t have to worry about hunting and killing because they can graze all day. Gazelles know that tomorrow will be the same easy routine and find security in the herd.

Lions on the other hand hunt alone or in very small groups. They have to be much faster than the slowest gazelle or they starve to death. Lions cannot eat grass like the gazelle and require meat survive. Every day the lion must be tracking and hunting for his next kill.  If the lion fails to kill a gazelle, he goes to bed with an empty stomach and too many empty stomachs in a row means death for the lion. The lion has no security and must be better than the gazelle to survive.

To be a gazelle is to be average.

To be a lion is to be a champion, a performer and an athlete.

Every day, both the lion and the gazelle are running, to survive. But what makes the two animals different is “who” they must be on a daily basis to survive.

In every business, every industry and every market, there are lions and there are gazelles.

Every morning when you wake up, you must make the choice between running the field as a lion or a gazelle. No matter which one you choose, you are going to be running anyways.

Are you committed to being the best in your field and taking the lead as the lion? Or would you rather blend into the crowd and take your chances as a gazelle?

In the end, it doesn’t really matter which animal you are. Either way, you will be running. But if you’re running anyways, you might as well choose excellence and learn to be the lion.

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
Fredomway.ca

Remember: Please share if you found this article helpful!

A wise man once said "put your money where others can see it."

As humans we are tribal creatures and we are constantly judging and placing value on each other on a social scale.

Some people we meet score high on the ladder, others score low on the ladder.

All of this value is calculated and determined within seconds of meeting; aka: a first impression.

We are able to calculate social value extremely quickly and can determine if we want to further associate with a new prospect within 30 seconds of meeting them.

There is an unwritten rule in dating, networking, relationships and business that states:

• 3 seconds will buy you 30 seconds
  
• 30 seconds will buy you 5 minutes
• 5 minutes will buy you 30 minutes
• 30 minutes will buy you 2 hours
• 2 hours will buy you a day

There are many variations of this rule, but the concept is always the same.

When we meet people, we run a series of subconscious tests to see if we find enough value to bring our new prospect into our social circles.

If we find a person's appearance to be inoffensive, we will give them 30 seconds. If we find them to sound somewhat intelligent in an introduction, then we will spend 5 minutes with them. If we find them interesting, we will spend 30 minutes with them. If we feel good after 30 minutes, we will spend two hours with them. If we still like them after 2 hours, we will spend a day with them.

Every single person works the same way, we are constantly screening who we will and will not accept into our social circles.

The question is, if you had to invest money into yourself, would you invest in the first 3 seconds of yourself or would you hold back and invest later in your social process?

Although some may argue that "getting to know a person on the inside" is true value, we all behave the same way when we go on a first date. Even idealists who believe in "truly" knowing people on a deeper level invest heavily at the beginning of the relationship.

A wise man once said "If everyone kept the promises they made on a first date, there would be no such thing as divorce."

Lets consider a first date...

The man puts on his cleanest, best clothes, shaves his face, washes his hair, puts on cologne, shines his shoes, tucks his shirt in, brushes his teeth, cleans his car, shows up on time, holds the door, pays for dinner and drives his date home as a gentleman.

The woman puts on her best dress, shaves her legs, washes her hair, puts on perfume, picks out the most sexy shoes, tucks her stomach in, brushes her teeth, shows up on time, acts like a lady, says please and thank you and gives her man a modest good night kiss.

These two people have invested heavily at the front end of the relationship because they want to give a good first impression.

They want to impress their date in the first 3 seconds to earn 30 seconds. They want to hold their date's attention for 30 seconds to get 5 minutes, they want to say the right things in five minutes to earn 30 minutes, they want to be interesting enough to last two hours and eventually spend a day together.

Out of the whole process, however, the most important part is the first 3 seconds.

If you don't look appealing, confident, happy and successful, the rest of the social process is difficult and potentially impossible.

If I am going to invest money into myself, I will stack all of my dollars in the first 3 seconds to create a great first impression.

10 WAYS TO CREATE A GREAT 3 SECOND FIRST IMPRESSION:

1. Smile
2. Be well groomed (hair is trimmed, styled, no facial hair)
3. Shoes are shined, appropriate for the setting (Lace-up oxfords are very versatile and so are dress loafers... wingtips are good too). Your shoes must communicate social value. Shoes indicate how you spend your time, what your profession you are in and are a primary indicator of social status. Spend some money on really good shoes - it's worth it.
4. Pants are pressed, tailored and "break" only once.
5. Shirt is clean and pressed, white collar is stiff, shirt is appropriately buttoned for the occasion.
6. Tie is tied, selected and worn appropriately for the occasion. Tie bars may or may not be fashionable, depending on the setting/demographics of the room.
7. Blazers have appropriate color and lapels for the current fashion and setting. There are over 9 types of common lapels. Spend some time to learn about lapels, they are extremely important for social status. Men's magazines like "GQ" can give you an idea of what messages different lapels give and which ones are relevant today.
8. Your wrist watch must fit well and be appropriate for the setting. No cheap watches. If you don't want to spend thousands of dollars on a watch, pick a fashion brand that at least lets people know that you know a fashionable name for a few hundred dollars.
9. Jewellery is kept to a minimum and is kept tasteful. No costume jewellery.
10. If you are wearing a suit, it MUST be tailored, no exceptions. Nothing looks worse than an un-tailored boxy suit from Moores.

If you can follow the 10 rules above, depending on your geography, you will automatically be in the top 80-95% of people for giving off a clean, professional appearance which is invaluable in today's social market.

Social opportunities are always offered to those that look clean, professional and successful. Maintain your appearance and invest in your first 3 seconds because it only takes 1 person or opportunity to change your life. Remember, you only get one chance to make a first impression.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca

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