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DIY: Go the Extra Mile! How to Properly Finish a Basement (Video)
December 16, 2014
In this week’s DIY video, Andrew shows you how to go the extra mile and properly finish a basement. Instead of merely painting the walls white and leaving cement floors, Andrew properly finished the basement. Now, instead of just being a storage area, it is a comfortable and aesthetically-pleasing living space. ...
read more8 Steps to Sure Success: Our Journey
December 16, 2014
“Success is not to be measured by the position someone has reached in life, but the obstacles he has overcome while trying to succeed.” – Booker T. Washington This article represents the tenth and final blog posting for our series “8 Steps to Sure Success.” I hope you’ve enjoyed it and learned from it as much as I have. But I wanted to use this final article as a reminder to all of my readers that this journey never ends. Once you reach your milestone, you will hopefully challenge yourself to reach for greater heights! Let’s do a quick re-cap of the “8 Steps to Sure Success.” First Step: Vision – Conceive it, believe it, and achieve it. Second Step: Virtue – Conforming to a standard of moral excellence and/or having the moral power to accomplish a given effect. Third Step: Know-how – Knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. Fourth Step: Focused Attention – When you remain able and willing to say “no” to any and every distractions and keep your attention focused, you will be successful. Fifth Step: Stay Under the Pressure – Pressure is the price of winning and you need it to prove your worthiness. Accept it, embrace it, learn from it, but stay under it! Sixth Step: Earn It – You’re not renting success like you rent a car. You are buying it with your blood, sweat and tears. Seventh Step: Calling, Electing, Training, and Empowerment – “Calling” refers to the invitation you should be broadcasting for others to join you. “Electing” refers to your choosing of certain individuals from your base of followers and pupils. “Training” refers to knowing the difference between training and teaching. My father taught me daily but he always had me by his side working with him, that’s training! “Empowerment” is the confidence that you bestow on your pupils by the responsibilities and knowledge that you entrust to them. Eighth Step: Sacrifice – If you’re not willing to put your dreams “on-hold” in order to help someone reach theirs, you have not earned the success that you desire. There’s going to be times, however, when you feel like there’s no hope. Maybe your dreams were crushed by a personal tragedy or a heart wrenching break-up. Maybe even a negative work situation or some other type of stumbling block. Remember, these are the times when you must push harder! You’re going to hit all kinds of obstacles along the way. The most efficient, effective way to get through those tough times is by charging straight ahead. I know from experience! If you’ve had a chance to read my book, “The Boom After the Bubble,” you’ll remember. After making my first million prior to the crash in 2008, my then-wife had left me and took with her every penny I had. I ended up unemployed and living in my parents basement. Still, I persevered and forged ahead through those barriers which ended up making me a better man in business and in life. You can do it too! We’ve learned that life’s road to success is filled with potholes and speeding tickets. But it’s the long journey that makes us who we are. As long as the motors still running and your eyes...
read moreDIY: Installing an Affordable Granite Bar in the Basement (Video)
December 16, 2014
In this video Andrew explains how to install a granite bar in your basement, on a budget! Granite is one of the many “Wow” factors in rehabbed investments. Take a minute and enjoy this video. You can learn how to install an affordable granite bar and make your basement stand-out! ...
read moreA Brief History of Memorial Day
December 16, 2014
Happy Memorial Day 2014! In honor of those who gave all, here is a “Brief History of Memorial Day” from Time.com. Memorial Day marks the unofficial start of summer, conjuring images of picnics, barbecues or just a lazy day off. But originally the holiday was charged with deeper meaning — and with controversy. The exact origins of Memorial Day are disputed. At least five towns claimed to have given birth to the holiday sometime near the end of the Civil War. Yale University historian David Blight places the first Memorial Day in April 1865. At this time a group of former slaves gathered at a Charleston, S.C. horse track turned Confederate prison. More than 250 Union soldiers had died. Digging up the soldiers’ mass grave, they interred the bodies in individual graves. They built a 100-yd. fence around them and erected an archway over the entrance bearing the words “Martyrs of the Race Course.” On May 1, 1865, some 10,000 residents marched around the Planters’ Race Course. Both singing and carrying armfuls of roses. Gathering in the graveyard, the crowd watched five black preachers recite scripture. They also watched a children’s choir sing spirituals and “The Star-Spangled Banner”. While the story is largely forgotten today, some historians consider the gathering the first Memorial Day. Despite scattered celebrations in small towns, it took three more years for the holiday to become widely observed. In a proclamation, General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic dubbed May 30, 1868, Decoration Day. It was “designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion”. On Decoration Day that year, General James Garfield gave a speech at Arlington National Cemetery. Afterward, 5,000 observers adorned the graves of the more than 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers entombed at the cemetery. At the outset, Memorial Day was so closely linked with the Union cause many Southern states refused to celebrate it. They acquiesced only after World War I. When the holiday was expanded beyond honoring fallen Civil War soldiers to recognizing Americans who died fighting in all wars. It was also renamed Memorial Day. Some critics say that by making the holiday more inclusive. However, the original focus, as Frederick Douglass put it, on the moral clash between “slavery and freedom, barbarism and civilization” has been lost. Most Southern states still recognize Confederate Memorial Day as an official holiday. Many celebrate it on the June birthday of Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy. But Texas, for one, observes the holiday on Robert E. Lee’s birthday, Jan. 19. Which also happens to be Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The long-cherished Memorial Day tradition of wearing red poppies got its start in 1915. While reading Ladies’ Home Journal, an overseas war secretary named Moina Michael came across the famous World War I poem “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae, which begins, “In Flanders fields the poppies blow/ Between the crosses, row on row.” Moved, she vowed always to wear a silk poppy in honor of the American soldiers who gave up their lives for their country. She started selling them to friends and co-workers and campaigned for the red flowers to become...
read more8 Steps to Sure Success: Step Eight – Sacrifice
December 16, 2014
“The most sublime act is to set another before you.” – William Blake I recall a story that took place many years ago at a hospital in the Midwest. A little girl named “Liz” was suffering from a rare and deadly blood disease. The doctors had tried virtually everything to find a cure. Several years before Liz came down with the disease, her younger brother was stricken with the same disease and somehow survived even though his doctors had given up on his recovery and told his parents that death was imminent. After further research, her doctors realized that her only chance at recovery would be a blood transfusion from her younger brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease a few years previously. See, his blood carried the antibodies needed to combat the illness. The doctors explained the situation to her little brother and then asked the little boy if he would be willing to provide blood for his sister. To the surprise of the doctors, he hesitated for a moment, took a deep breath, and replied, “yes, if it will save her, I will do it.” The doctors brought both of the children into the hospital room and laid them in beds adjacent to each other. As the transfusion progressed, he laid in his bed and smiled, as everyone in the room did seeing the color returning to his sister’s cheeks. But then, her little brothers color grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and with a trembling voice said, “Will I die right away or how soon?” See, the boy had misunderstood the doctors! He thought that he would have to give all of his blood and his life to save his sister….but he went ahead with the procedure anyway. Sacrifice. So now that I have tugged on your heart strings, feel free to grab a kleenex and then continue reading! While on your journey to success, if you’re not willing to forfeit your dreams in order to help someone reach theirs, you have not earned the success you desire. In the story above, Liz’s little brother was willing to forfeit his life in order to help save his sisters. This is a fine example of sacrifice. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you will have to forfeit them…but the fact that you’d be willing to is sufficient in my book. Don’t confuse being successful with reaching your goals. I’m a goal-setter. I do not trust people who have no goals – they are accidents waiting to happen! They are typically drifters, loafers, wannabes and are often underdeveloped in all areas except laziness. A person without a goal is a person without a dream and is probably someone who is more or less dependent on others for their basic necessities in life. I set goals that require more than what I know possible. Others refer to these as “super-sized” goals or “God-sized” goals. But whatever name you want to call them, you must have the goals that push you past the sum of your available assets and past your own strength and knowledge. Striving for something beyond your abilities stretches those abilities. “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp,” wrote one philosopher. Goals keep you focused!...
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