When I started to write this blog several months ago, I had stated that I am on the quest to find the answers to the questions Who & Why ?

I found them and along a way I meet a few ” Zubispeaks” like me.

And that’s all I ever wanted.

I will keep the explanation for myself, but as always I’ll give you a hint…:

Yesterday I got the Economic stimulus payment check from the government in the mail.

It made me want to puke, it made me sick .

I will tell you people, what it is. First they steal the money from the producers like me and others entrepreneurs under the threat of taking our biz. away otherwise and then, when everything goes to hell, they want to bribe us to make it work.

Well, I tell you, I don’t want it ! It is probably partially money coming from some of you my fellow warriors out there, but I did not sent it back to them, they would waste it on some “needy” useless project.

I contributed it to one of the local Animals Shelters.

Because of the actions of us humans, animals are those who are needy, not the humans.

I am writing  final post of this blog. I had said everything I wanted to say……

This is end of this blog, but rest assured, Not the end of THE ZUBISPEAK

Now, I have a railroad to build and steel to pour, I may appear somewhere else one day…..

Who Knows ?

GODSPEED

When you enter a race with horses, mustangs, greyhounds and other common racing creatures with a business model, which looks more like a donkey, you are well aware of it and not giving crap about audience laughing at you, there must be reason for that. If you are a lunatic, who has a plan to not only finish the race, but ultimately win it, don’t be ashamed and enjoy the “ride”

Donkeys are stubborn, determinate and if there is a purpose for them to go, they go. Don’t look right or left, don’t pay attention to storm, rain, wind or any other uncomfortable situation which always gets the prettier, faster creatures of the “track”.

There is no such a thing like a neverending sunshine, so pick up a race lasting long enough to capitalize on your animal values. But be aware, you can’t never count on any type of bail out of the race.

Those in the audience, who came to see a horse race, don’t like a donkeys. Because of this fact, they usually don’t care or don’t pay attention to jockeys riding them.

You are going to be in that race alone, for very long time, until the horses starts falling, their jockeys giving up and chaos comes to the race track.

You ride a donkey, remember to trust it, chaos does not affect their way of going ahead as long they have a “worthy” jockey who knows the path…

As is in every good “fairy tale”, there is always someone in audience, who crosses fingers for the underdog and maybe that’s even me.

I like donkeys, but what I like even more is the jockeys who ride them and finish the race.

I am fairy tales writer and in this fantasy race, I know the donkey & jockey will win the task, surprise the audience, they’ll see the abstract transformation from an ugly bird to the eagle, while all around stay stunned in awe I want you quietly come behind the scenes and start preparing for the next race.

I am seeing donkeys and jockeys competing with horses all over many racetracks, while they can’t be fully aware of it, the status quo of the races is changing and some of them will have the chance to actually win. I bet on them now, before all the blind audience realize the fact the race is over.

Would you like to be the winner ?

Would you like to place a bet ?

There is a lot of jockeys on donkey out there, the storm has come and  Status Quo has Changed. Who will be the winner, who will be the looser, we can’t know just yet.

The race is about to start.

Wow, what a Fairy Tale……or is it ??

  He walked the Sin City streets when dark falls on, and rain quit washing the muck , the slam, the trash, he needs a place.  Place to sit and wait.   

Wait on something he had no idea what it is and when it comes, he knew it will.

He knew it comes, he made it come, with everything he had ever done, at will he did, he knew.  

He knew, he did not know, he knew…

He found a quiet bar in shady corner at the end of the main street, lit by dirty bulb replaced thousand times for those who’s drunk the night before busted it and left , he knew.

 He went inside, he sat. He wait, don’t talk, don’t order anything, just wait. It is the strangest feeling he ever felt, he waits. 

The hassler, the explorer, the pioneer, the climber, the shooter, the gambler, the provider, the careless care taker, the knight, the valor, the action entrepreneur, the King, the servant…He waits.

Every  attemted contact by other guests or waitresses is a great  bother to him. Not theirs presence, just theirs disturbing, annoying questions “how can we help you?” makes none sense to him. He does not need help, never needed, they don’t know, he knows, he waits.

He is there to help.

He saw a women enter the bar with fear and curiosity. She standed by door and looked around..

He knew.

“Come home Doc”, she said, he’s hurt.

 ”Why”, he asked with  expression on his wrinkled face describing eating 2 months old piece of steak, carved of the bull, which died last last year by “Old Age”. 

” I need you home with me!” 

“You don’t, You go, I’ll wait”

He knows it’s coming.

The call will come, he’ll go.

He’ll walk the street, replace the bulbs, he’ll go…

” It’s time to press, to Do and Be,just go !”

He hears the voice, he smiles. 

He knows it is, he is,he’ll kill, he’ll give, he feels, he lives.

He smiles….

In  times when new type of technology is coming to any markets not every day, but every minute, I would like to take a deep breath and write about, what all the new tools, gadgets, new technology developments really means to me, the Dinosaur, who, by some joke of mother nature, is forced to live and adapt to 21st. century market conditions, while even by his own mothers opinion, should really be born 200 years ago.

I must admit. I don’t get excited much about any of the brand new fashion things. I don’t even have IPod and when I am in the mood to listen to my kind of music, I turn on old home stereo so loud, that the roof of my house, even by the building codes Hurricane resistant, is almost flying away.

I have PC, but only in my office, my house is a sacred place and I go back there to relax, play with my dog and when is my time to spend with my 6 years old son, it is just the 3 of us. My son, our dog and me.

There is no PS 3 or XBox or any other gadgets, which would take away the feel of rare, special presence, which only those , who are able to feel the true being could appreciate. The time will come and my son will require some of those and I will get it for him, but for now, we are happy as is.

So what all the new stuff really means to me ? I take it as a tool. No better or worse, than piece of rock or hammer thousands years ago. I will use it only when I need it in order to create something more. Maybe a masterpiece of some sort, who knows.
I like the action however, mostly on a tools, which could have a great impact how business will be done in particular industries. Currently, because of the chaos, there is a exciting action on real estate and mortgage related blog sites. I see, read and sometimes join debates about the new “hottest” thing, which is Tool for Transparent and Anonymous online pricing mortgages. The most debated is called Ratespeed and I have seen debate on one called RateWindow.

I will take the liberty and go back to use an expressions in my topic, my readers know it would come anyways.

There was a time , when humans used piece of rock to knock a wooden pole to the ground when building a fence. Soon after a guy came up with a way to create iron, another guy invented the hammer.

A great, warlike debate started all over the world, what is better for knocking the wood poles, easier to use and more accurate, then people started to use the hammer in practice.

History, as we know proved and showed , which tool is better and while there are still some using the rock, in parts of the world the hammer did not come yet, most of us, even dinosaurs like me, prefer to use a hammer. 

In the debate between the Ratespeed and RateWindow, I am already able to make a guess, which one is a hammer and which one is the piece of rock, but until you really start to use it, it would be ”foolish” of me to tell you out in the open, you got to give it a try for yourself.

History will show and as matter of fact is already showing the distiction between those two and I myself like to use the hammer as a tool ( if I would be in real estate related business)..

In amazingly huge commentary debate at ActiveRain.com, which I read all over, not joined ( did not wanted to spoil the action with my timeless, always above any issue comments), I had seen many Re-pros ask a question.: ” Does the industry need a new hammer?” The answer is obvious, silly, It Does ! Otherwise , you would never have asked the question !!

Don’t get me wrong, I am still a dinosaur and I use piece of rock still very often , just not at a time I want to build a nice fence which is meant to last.

Does this post make a sense to you ?  Just curious….

P.S. I entered the debate on ActiveRain.com after all, got a fatal weakness for action and having a hard time in resisting to jump into a crossfire.

Some of the Real estate guys are great and fun debaters, go and check it out for yourself.

Enjoy it…

Don’t worry, I won’t be talking about Titanic, however it may seems, that the economy looks like it, it is not. Plus the Titanic crash was the Captains fault, but when it comes to economy, markets, business conditions, society issues and peoples’ situation in general, the Capt. , as much as painful it is to say that for me, has not much to do with it.

The passenger them-self are the ones, who are sinking the ship !!

Let me explain..:

If your job is paying you $ 2,000.00/ month, you have no business to be buying $ 500,000.00 house .

When the banks are giving you a free money on credit and the media are encouraging you to spend it, it is your own fault, if you do so without knowing how to re-pay that. You are like a fish, jumping on a fat bait, just because at this moment, it looks like an easy, free lunch and you are too stupid or lazy ( in this case means the same), to cook your own.  

If you imagine all of this above like a huge boat and us, the business owners, consumers, employers, employees, home buyers and home sellers, credit card users and credit card issuers..etc. like a passengers on the board of this huge boat, the boat will stay afloat as long as us, the passengers stay evenly spread over the top of the deck. 

At the moment, when some naive idiot thinks that the other side of the boat, the one which he is not on, offers easier, better…blah,blah,blah ,  the”sheep” will follow . The balance gets broken and the boat starts leanning on a one side. Even the ones, who started the “mania” ( for instance banks giving credit to veryone, like there is no tomorrow a while ago), will get carried down with the crowd and pushed into water.

The ones who was misleading are sharing the missery with the ones, who they mislead right now and that is just fair, as long as some morons, who has the power to rescue the guilty, does not do so. You can’t expect an idiots to change, by bailing them out everytime they get in a mess.   

The good news however is, that even while many people drowns, or just get their lazy, stupid fat ass wet, the boat never really sinks totally. There is always a few of us left, knowing that “collectivism” is the ultimate enemy of an individual.

Crowd mentality has a tendency to ultimately kill the crowd it-self. It is the purpose and duty of an individual who has the gift of ability to resist the peer pressure and thinks free regardless of the crowd opinions to make sure the boat get balanced again.

The best way to achieve this, is to occupy the places left by the “blind”, maintain them, make them pretty, to attract the survivors back on theirs spots.

If you understand what I am talking about here, then you are one of the few. I don’t need to tell you how to do it, maybe just reminder.: Do Not Forget to “stake out” your new teritories and make up a Price for each piece, because we can’t be giving it back for free, for simple reason…:

The Boat would get too quick of the balance again.

Don’t worry about the drown dead bodies, you can’t polute the beauty you had created, make a place for those still swimming and the ones, willing to learn how to swim.

At the moment the boat gets afloat again and you had sold all of the “vacant” places, look over the whole deck and find your new spot to stay on, because while temporarily off duty & purpose, it will come back again…

The crowd has No memory and never learns..

History always repeat it-self, sooner or later and “uncle” BEN can’t do damn thing about it !!!  

I want to write about a “strange” dream I had last night ( or was it a months ago? Who knows), anyway, here it goes..

I seen myself walking cross a dessert, hungry, thirsty and tired to death. I sat down on the sand for a moment and went to deep comma like sleep. I felt a strange force picking me up, carrying me away and when I openned my eyes I was laying on the steps in front of beautiful monastery somewhere in the middle of a lost, imaginary world, build on the top of a hill, just driving the imagination wild about what’s on the other side..

I gathered strengh, walk up on the stairs and out of a natural curiosity, I knocked on the door of that amazing and at the same time a little scary, but beautiful building.

All the sudden a guy appeared, in a monk suit and he listened for a while the strange story of mine and my appearance there . Interesting, he said, obviously you were guided to this place for a reason, but before we take you in the Temle, I want to show you something…

Then he walked with me around the Temple and when I looked down the other side , I had seen a beautiful, thriving city with a different size of buildings, water fountains, lights, busy streets and I could almost see the happy faces of the citizens, full of satisfaction with them-selfs, sitting in front of their own stores and greeting every new customer in .

Then the monk said to me :

 ” All those people down there are our Temple students, they were just like You, before they got the chance to enter the city. We took them in the Temple to learn and participate on the knowledge, the power of the wisdom and the importance to give, in order to receive. Not everyone graduated however, but the one who did, drawn own blueprints for his building in the city and when he was ready to start building it, all the citizens helped him a little to get the store build.”

 Wow, I said, I want to start the trial and I rushed into the Temple doors…

“Wait a minute”, the monk said, “before we take you in, you need to always remember, that in order to Recieve, you have to be prepared to Give, so when you graduate and build your own little success in the City, Do Not Forget to give back to the Temple and it’s needs, because without the Temple, the City would stop growing, the well would dry out, the streets would get dirty and the lights would burn out !!”

I understood in my dream the point of it and I did not really wanted to wake up, but when I did, “Ohh my goodness, what a change!”

I am dressed up in a monk suit, sitting in front of a monastery on top of the stairs and I see people walking, some of them are carried by others, trying desperately to climb the hill to get to the other side.

And that could be the end of that story, well, maybe not….

When you make it to the stairs, gather the courage and knock on the door, I will walk out and listen to you and your journey, and then we’ll see, if I can get you in, because without going through the Temple, there is a huge possibility, that however you will see the city,  you will never be able to live in it.

P.S. It was a wonderful dream, I can’t wait to go to sleep tonight, when I wake up tomorrow, who knows what kind of suit I am going to wear and maybe I even catch myself in front of mirror shaving my head..

We will see…… 

Let me make one thing very clear here. I will be talking about placing the numbers on your business tax returns, not about making it up!!!

Numbers do not lie, only people working with them sometimes do. In my world, whatever you do, YOU DO NOT COOK THE NUMBERS !!

However, if you planning financing for your business, before you prepare the most recent biz. tax return, think about the kind of financing you will be trying to get, because the way you place your first net income profit in many years will have an impact on the type of the financing you will have the best chance to get.

The post is about a numbers so here goes an example..:

You put your own $ 100,000.00 into your business during the first 3 years. Treat it like loan from shareholder.

Now, in 3rd. year you finally have $ 50,000.00 net income profit.

The question is, Who do you want to impress? Private investors or the bank underwriters ?

Investors are generally smart and know how to read tax returns. You don’t want to place the first profit on return as a net income gain, you just pay yourself portion of your own loan to the business back and save money on taxes. If you approach me as a potentional investor in your business and explain to me what’s the deal with that, I will understand and I will think O.K, this guy is smart, profitable and know how to play the game. Here is your check right ? Right.

Underwriters in the regular banks ( not the biz. oriented) on the other hand, are generally morons and have no clue how to read the tax returns. So if you planning to go with traditional bank financing, you may want to file the profit in different spot. Forget about paying yourself the loan back, sacrifice a few thousand dollars to Uncle Sam and show the profit as a net income gain. ( In this case business still owes the original amount to you).

I must say, that if you approach me with this return, I will think you are an Idiot, but rest assured, the Underwriters will love you to “death.”

There is always next year and you can start paying the loan back to you then, while you have the bank financing secured, and to think of it, if you explain to me, what you did and for what purpose, I will understand too !!

After all, I don’t work in the bank underwriting department, and I know a little bit about numbers.

So again, Numbers Matters, the way you work with them matters, as long as they are The true, The whole true and nothing but the true numbers !   

A series of a random ( so we think) events and thoughts, ideas and visions happening in relatively short period of time for no other reason, than, you have been inspired…

Inspired by something or someone ( in my case both), of which a while ago you had no clue you are even capable of dealing with.

I took the challenge last night and early this morning to take out of my “secret” folder all my notes and pamflets I started writing considering my own business ventures, ideas and plans how it is to be done, every since I had decide to move forward in the way I see my own entrepreneurship. I wanted to read it from the very beginning and see if I can create The Mona Lisa picture from a pieces of puzzles, which left alone look more like The Shrek.

It was a challenge not for the reason of too many materials to read, but because in the light of a new ideas I currently have, my ego was afraid ( shame on me..lol), that I’ll be disappointed, bored and not interested anymore.

Place it on my desk and started to read it by the dates on the bottom of each page. It was a Chaos, thoughts I had at the beginning being interupted by other ones, just to comeback a few weeks later, extending and evolving the thought I had before the previous of the previous thought. Even now, my writing looks chaotic, but that’s only on the surface.

When I finished my first round of reading, I had started to place the individual pages into a sentence, not by the date, but by the merit of each idea ( regarding of what has been done, what’s in the doing stage and what’s coming) and I see, that however not really “Mona Lisa”, pretty nice picture is beginning to develope.

I still don’t have “the eyes” painted yet, but having an idea ( one of a few to come), how they should look like.

It is still a Chaos ( as all true entrepreneurship is), but more and more methodically organized. Sometimes it makes perfect sense and sometimes does not.

But that’s the beauty of it. When you write your next idea down, you can ( and should) read it and reorganize it again !

Believe me, it is a wonderful and very useful excersise…..    

When I wrote my article about importance of a “busines plan”, I had directed it in the matter of getting bank financing for your busines. You don’t really need to prepare it your self and if a bank requires have one done, get somebody familiar to this bank regulations to guide or even write it for you, because the  most likely  reasons for the bank is to estimate and find out the risk of an industry you are be doing a business in. In this case, you need to know the bank CURRENT policy, the one outlined yesterday, is probably in this credit chaos not valid anymore.  

This plan will end up in a trash can of the loan officer and even more importantly, should end up in YOURS.

But, if you even think to start and go on the road called entrepreneurship, you should, or even better Must have a plan in order to have any chance to succeed. This kind of plan you have to create for yourself. You should start it by trying to estimate your own personality. I said try to estimate, because in many cases further down the road, many of us find out, that we are not who we thought we are, simply because on focusing and observing anything and anybody around ourself, we don’t really pay attention on our true being.

Make it simple in this article, I see entrepreneurs either as a “Hunters” or a “Farmers”, I know it is more complicated than that, but it will help me to keep this post relatively brief.

Farmers

Those are the ones having the idea or expertise in one of industry, the plumbers, electricians, car dealers and other retailers, or even people involved in real estate. Form being just a self- employed, they crossed the line to the entrepreneurial world by creating some kind of system around their expertise. ( adding a people to various positions) They constantly growing their “farm” by re-seeding and re-planting their own ”crops”, they methodically expanding the ” Southport Ranch empire”

Hunters

Or call it action entrepreneurs if you like. Those are the ones, constantly looking and searching for opportunity, they have the instinct to know one , when they see one. They have no problem to “jump” in the type of business venture yesterday had no clue about it. Their motto is..: ” You don’t need to be a cook in order to run or own a restaurant!!” While many times seen by others as a “nuts”, they are the risk takers by nature. I must say, that I think in my point of view, they don’t hunt the prey just to “kill” and eat, but many times to “domesticate” it and further more to use it just like the “farmers” do.

The beauty of not knowing exactly from the beginning who you actually are by personality is, that when you build your farm ( just like I did for years), one day you look over your fence, see the other type of stock and crops out there, you finally realize the possibilities of catching it and “domesticate” it, that one day , you decide to go get the “traps” or ammunition and Do it.

On the other hand, the ugliness of not estimating your own self soon enough, could mean the danger, that if you fall in love for hunting, you may have all the traps and ammunition planted or seeded in the field within your own fence.

It is interesting to watch my own “personality” evolution and I must say ( no shame here), that you can call it surprise for me.

Well, I let you think about your own-self and it is not my business to say what kind is better for biz. success. But for the long term plan is good to know…

Are you a Farmer, Hunter or even Predator ?? Think about it !!

I am tempted, for a while now, to write an article about the government latest Joke, that is the “welfare check”, they sending to us in order to jump start the Economy ( which has been stalled ironically by their own actions). Had not written it sooner, because been thinking real hard how to start it politely and not to offend the bunch of idiots running the affairs on behalf “The People”.

For the purpose of this piece, by government, I mean not only the politicians, but also the Central Bank, the banking industry officials and other wannabe’s experts, all of them leaderlessly running in the chaos, caused by their ignorance and/or arrogance.

I think, I came up with a polite start, which nobody could sue me over.

Here it goes..:

” You bunch of Morons, you got it all wrong ( no surprise here). We, the rare breed of entrepreneurs, Don’t want to be fed free lunch ( in a form of stinking soup), we want to have a license to Hunt, to Grow, to Raise our meals…!!” I say stick the lates joke back to your ass and give me the right to access and buy the ammunition. I said buy, not to get for free…

I can see myself walking in the Central Bank money auction room, dressed in Columbo style, faded, wrinkled gray overcoat, with unlighted cigar in my mounth and two big guys on my side, in a black suits, each carrying a big, empty suitcase. We sit way back in the corner of the room and observe the auctioneer, offering a different amount of money to various banks and theirs officials, to make a bid for the interest rate on.

I would probably have a lot of fun by listening to the arguments of all those Citigroups, Wells Fargos & others, why they can not take it for more than 2,3,4,5 % and how hard it is to make a return on it. Of course it is, especially because they know only two ways how to use it. Either give it away, or sit on it. In any case, by some weird mechanism, they always get it “backwords”. In the time, they should carefully consider every loan, because of amounts skyrocketing, they were giving it away. In the time, when entrepreneurs need it, to light the fire to cook the meals for everybody to buy, they restricting the access to it.

But back to the Auction.

I would observe the “crying” for a while and at the point of getting “sick” of it, I would whisper to the ears of my two guys my orders and they would approach the Auctioneer telling him this.:

” Fill up the suitcases, our “boss” is offering 15 % and he is taking it all..”

Then we would walk out of the room and while lightning the cigar in my mouth, one of my boys will take down the “No Smoking” sign of the government room door, because every rule written by the Man, can be overwritten by another one!!!!

P.S. This post is imaginary expression and the smart readers will see the point in it.

The ones who don’t, good for you, and have a fun in standing in the line for the next load of the free & stinking government meal !!