Amy and I don't remember what the conversation was about. She was reading a book, I think it was Napoleon Hill's Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude, but neither of us is certain. In any event, we began discussing the house we live in.
We are in a very unusual situation. We rent the home we live in with an option to purchase it. At the same time, we own a house about 7 miles away that we have lease optioned to the same folks we're leasing from. They've invested between $10-15,000 in fixing it up and they are trying to find a lease-option tennant to buy it. Some time in the future I will go into more detail on this arrangement, but you need to understand that we were talking about whether or not we should exercize our option to purchase the house we live in.
Somehow the discussion came around to the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki. I had started reading a borrowed copy of the book several years earlier, but hadn't finished it. One of the things I remembered about it was Kiyosaki's assertion that a person's residence wasn't an assett, but was a liability. I couldn't remember the details of his argument, so we decided to get a copy of the book. If there is a turning point that marks the beginning of our story, it will undoubtedly prove to be the purchase of this book.
Beyond purchasing Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Amy and I have purchased "Cashflow 101," a board game designed to teach financial literacy, and we've enrolled in a course on stock market investing offered by Rich Dad Education. We've also ordered other books, Cashflow Quadrant and Rich Kid, Smart Kid from the Rich Dad series.
Amy and I are avid theater geeks. When we're not working on a show for our favorite community theatre (The Empress Theatre in Magna, Utah) on a Saturday night, you'll find us listening to Laura Bedore's "Showtunes Saturday Night" on a local radio station. One of Laura's sponsors is John Cumuta's "Turning Debt into Wealth" program. One evening around the same time we started reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Amy felt inspired to call the toll free number and find out what the program is all about. That call hooked us up with a 30 day trial of the "Turning Debt into Wealth" program, and other programs offered by Nightingale-Conant, including Cumuta's "Wealth Masters" series, and Phillip X. Tirone's "Seven steps to a 720 Credit Score." Through these programs we've also been introduced to several personal coaching programs, and a company called "Prosper Learning," which is located right here in Utah. (Their Orem, Utah office aparently does coaching for Kiyosaki's Real Estate Investing programs, and their Draper, Utah office works with Cumuta's programs.)
Finally, I am the secretary for the Oquirrh Hills Performing Arts Alliance Board of Trustees. Our chairman, Rodney Walgamott, is a real estate agent and investor, and through him we've been introduced to Kris Krohn, a multi-millionaire real estate investor and the founder of "The Real Estate Investment Club. (REIC)" We will be joining REIC and participating in REIC's real estate investment training. In an interesting twist of irony, it turns out the Kris Krohn worked at Prosper Learning while he was in college. (A fact we learned about when Amy interviewed for a job at the company...She didn't get it.)
Through REIC and a bit of serendipity, Amy and I met Greg Blackbourns, the CEO of "The Accredited Network," another coaching organization. Mr. Blackbourns gave us a copy of Killing Sacred Cows by Garret Gunderson, another multimillionaire business owner who also does success coaching and is a principal in "Freedom Fastrack." (Mr. Gunderson himself was there that evening, but we weren't able to actually meet him.)
In the course of all of this, Amy realized that her work as a financial advisor was not consistent with her values and has resigned from the brokerage house she worked for (Hence the application at Prosper Learning). Meanwhile, I have made myself available for short term contract work as a software developer while we work on creating a couple of businesses. (This blog is part of that process.)
So, to sum it all up: I am an unemployed software developer, and Amy is an unemployed financial advisor. We have embarked on a plan to create prosperity for ourselves and our family, and have decided to increase our financial intelligence in many areas. We are actively seeking knowledge about value, businesses, debt, credit, insurance, real-estate investing, stock market investing (including options trading), retirement planning (you know, IRA's and 401(k)'s and the like) and other investment opportunities while we work to build our own businesses and educate the seven children living in our our home.
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