Michael Santos

Lessons About Building Wealth While Sleeping

Michael Santos — Sun, 28 Oct 2018 02:23:24 +0000

My good friend, Lee, built an amazing business.

He is the founder of several companies that, cumulatively, employ more than 500 people. The original company has spread into many divisions:

Lumber
Home Furnishings
Doors and Windows
Manufacturing
Hardware
Tools
Apartment Buildings
Shopping Centers
Ranching
Cattle
Gold Investments

Do you know the one thing Lee doesn’t invest in?

He doesn’t make traditional investments in stocks or bonds.

When I asked Lee why he didn’t invest in stocks or bonds, he made it very clear.

“I invest in businesses that I can run, or in assets that I believe will grow in value.”

All of my friend’s businesses operate on properties that he owns.

So he is the landlord and he is the tenant. Sometimes he is the builder of the property, the supplier of the materials to construct the property, and the owner of the business that pays rent on the property.

He earns money at every level, and this strategy has led to his controlling several hundred million dollars worth of real estate.

When I asked Lee how he was able to start the empire, he explained that it was all through real estate.

He negotiated a deal to purchase his first piece of real estate with no money down. He created a business that would pay debt owed on the real estate.

As the real estate grew in value, he leveraged his equity to invest in more real estate.

Lee repeated that cycle over and over again.

Lee never pursued get-rich-quick schemes. He looked to the future. He considered properties that would grow in value over time.

He strove to acquire as many such properties as possible. Businesses he built wuld generate sufficient revenues to pay for the properties.

That strategy is part of a long-term, well-executed plan to create wealth. It’s what has worked for my wife Carole and me.

You can learn more about creating plans in my free course on building an insane work ethic. Here’s a link to class two:

20-minute Video on Creating Plans

When I got out of prison, I created a plan to build my first million dollars in assets, and I set a goal of achieving that goal within five years.

I knew that acquiring $1 million in assets would be a big step toward creating wealth.

There are many types of assets.

For example, a savings account is an asset. But there was no way that I could earn enough money from a job that would allow me to build a savings account that would be worth $1 million within five years. I could work for 50 years and it would be unlikely that I would ever be able to save $1 million from earnings on a job.

I had to think differently. And lessons I learned from leaders like Lee convinced me that if I wanted to build $1 million in assets, I would need to start by investing in real estate.

I would not need $1 million to acquire $1 million in real estate. If I created a good plan, I could create opportunities to use leverage. With leverage, I would be able to acquire real estate with little to no-money as a down payment. Leverage would allow me to borrow the funds to purchase the real estate.

But I had disadvantages.
I was in prison for longer than a quarter century.
I didn’t have any credit.
I didn’t have a work history.

Despite those obstacles, I felt confident that I could create a plan that would lead to my first investment I real estate.

Pursuing success begins with good plans.

What plan do you have to build prosperity?

Have you thought about steps you can begin taking today that will lead to more wealth in your life in the years to come?

In tomorrow’s email, I will share more about the steps I took to begin acquiring real estate.

I’ll share how leverage worked for me and how leverage can work for you if you want to begin to own assets that appreciate in value.

I hope these tactics and strategies will set you on a path to build more prosperity for your family.

Always think about steps you can take today to create more value tomorrow.

Make life happen!

Sincerely,
Michael Santos

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Setting Priorities Helped Me Build $5 Million in Assets While Sleeping

Michael Santos — Wed, 19 Sep 2018 02:37:12 +0000

Do you ever wonder how the decisions you’re making today will influence your life in the weeks, months, and years to come?

Some people live for the moment.

They think about getting through the day rather than setting themselves up for the success they want to enjoy in the future.

As a result of the bad decisions I made as a young man, I had to think differently.

If you think back five years, ten years, or 20 years, what decisions would you make differently?

I learned the lesson about introspection while I was locked inside of a county jail as I embarked upon a dark journey that would keep me imprisoned for 26 years.

While locked in that jail cell, I trained my mind to think about the steps I could take to make things right with society. I set a goal of reconciling for the bad decisions I started making in my teens.

The strategy of making things right required me to set priorities.

First I would focus on educating myself.
Second, I would focus on contributing to society.
Third, I would focus on building a support network.

If I adhered to those disciplined, principled plans, I believed that new opportunities would open.

That strategy of setting priorities became a step-by-step pathway that I would follow to build success—as I defined success.

For me, success meant returning to society unscathed, ready to live as a contributing member of society.

How are you defining success?

If building prosperity is part of your definition, then perhaps it would be helpful to watch a free 20-minute video I prepared on the importance of setting priorities. You can access the video by clicking the following link:

How to Set Priorities

(If you like the video, please subscribe to my YouTube Channel and share☺)

That strategy of setting priorities led to my building assets that were valued at approximately $5 million within the first five years of my release from prison.

I built those assets even though I came out with a 0-0-0 credit score, without a work history, and with a long record of imprisonment.

The salient point is that a disciplined, deliberate plan can lead you from where you are, to a more successful future, if you follow incremental steps:

Define success
Create a plan
Set priorities

As I wrote previously, my first priority was to build assets worth $1 million. Since there wasn’t any way that I could acquire those assets from earnings on a job, I thought about other options to acquire assets.

First, I took a broad view of the market.

Here’s what I found:

In 2012, the real estate market was in the tank. Our economy had been growing through a recession and many people lost their homes. Banks were not lending on real estate. From a historical perspective, prices were low.

I was in the San Francisco Bay area. Historically, San Francisco was one of the hottest real estate markets in the United States.

Overall, I had a lot of confidence in the U.S. economy and I believed that the recession would end.

When it did, I believed that real estate markets would rise.

I set a priority of investing in real estate so that I could own an asset that would appreciate in value when the market started to appreciate in value.

Does that make sense?

But I had weaknesses. For example, in 2012, I was transferring from a federal prison to a halfway house.

I still had a year to pass through before I would complete my prison term. I didn’t have any credit or a job history.

None of those weaknesses mattered because I could focus on my strengths.

If I focused on my strengths, I would overcome my weakness and move forward in a methodical, deliberate manner to achieve my goals.

What priorities can you set today that will lead you to the success you want to become in the months, years, and decades ahead?

This strategy of acquiring real estate, even though I didn’t have credit, cash, or a work history, led to my building assets that are worth $5 million in five years.

In tomorrow’s email, I’ll share the specific action steps I took to get started.

In the end, I used debt to acquire real estate. As that real estate increased in value, my equity rose.

I could then build case studies. I used the case studies as a tool to create more resources that would advance my goal.

Think about the strategies you’re using to build wealth.

If you use debt wisely, you’ll be on your way to creating prosperity with real estate investments.

Make life happen!

Sincerely,
Michael Santos