Well, I only scanned the text - and I actually chose the low bandwidth video, so I guess my time is up....

:) nmw

Thanks Mark, for setting this up. As you probably guessed, this is my favorite topic of all. :)

Our solutions are largely determined by how we frame the problems. Here has been my line of questioning.

1. How can I make money and also do something I enjoy and feel good about?
2. How can a company be sustainable without sacrificing profits?
3. How can a business grow without ultimately making enemies?
4. What are the behaviors that cause poverty?
5. What is the opposite of poverty, and what are the behaviors that cause that?
6. How can we get people to change their behavior in a way that makes a difference?
7. What are the risks, i.e. what things might happen that would stop us from succeeding, and how can we avoid those things?

Each one of these questions would make for a good discussion.

So here you are, David. Hmm, let me do the reading and we'll talk...

Here are my thoughts on question 1: How can I make money and also do something I enjoy and feel good about.

My first idea was to list out all the things I enjoy and then look at ways to make money doing them. For instance, I enjoy teaching, and I enjoy playing the piano, so I taught piano -- I had 20 different students at one point.

• Problem 1: The money wasn't that good.
• Problem 2: While I liked the actual teaching part, there were tons of other parts, like scheduling, accounting, marketing myself, and setting up recitals, that I hated.

There is a book "Do what you love, the money will follow" which I haven't read but I love the title. If you go up and down any street in America or Germany or Mexico or Italy, you will find a small minority of the people really following that book's advice.

The main reason I've heard for working at a job you don't like is "I need the money (and benefits)". I've heard many people say that when they get 6 months pay in the bank they will quit their high paying job and do what they love. Of those who say this it seems only a tiny fraction follow through on their dream when they reach that goal. Many more come up with a new number, feeling like their life keeps getting more expensive at about the same rate as their income and net worth are increasing.

I calculated my own number in 1993 at $350,000. This was based on my confidence that I could earn 10% interest, and I was comfortably supporting a family of 4 in the San Francisco Bay Area on $28,000 per year then. People's ideas of "comfortable" are vastly diverse, and I consider myself lucky to have somehow inherited a relatively global view for an American -- I consider the "need" level to be under $10/day, and real decadent luxury to start at around $65/day, for an individual, including housing, that is.

When I exceeded my number in 1998 (age 33), I did retire and devote myself to travel, writing, gardening, and music. Believe me, I know the temptation to raise the number. Once you get rich, there's suddenly so much more you can't quite afford than ever before! But I thought about it a lot, and worked on my awareness of happiness, and ended up sticking to my number (i.e. level of expenses, and doing what I love), even to this day.

If you are working at a job you don't love, what's your number, the amount of money you feel you need in the bank in order to quit? If you love your job, but used to hate your job, did you hit your number or did you manage to upgrade your career satisfaction without retiring?

In "Facilitating Flow" nmw said on Sun, 14 May 2006 02:15:30 PDT:

I'm listening to a radio-program re:money.

Interesting: homeless in Calcutta are relatively less worse off (i.e., less isolated in their down-and-outness) than homeless in Hollywood

Personally, I think it is crucual to do what you love to make money. I've felt that way with every job, and each company I started, and seriously doubt I will ever retire.

I have a question about your biz model David. The last part is about getting the house in sale-ready shape. You don't go into the actual sale of the house. Do you use an agent, or does one of your team sell it? Anything special of note in getting it "open house ready".

Along the same lines, and a question drawn from the CNN report. How do you engage the local neighborhood? I know you give away 100+ plants and offer dumpters for all to use, but can you elaborate more on the community involvement process?

David,

In the poverty thread, you and I started to talk about other community development activities such as cooperative childcare, but got sidetracked. What do you think of sponsoring a Self-help Corporation as a part of your program?

Mark,

Getting the house sale-ready is merely a continuation of the renovation process. You drive to the house, and as you approach it, ask the question, what bugs me about this place? Then see if you can mitigate that or even turn it to an advantage.

Stand on the sidewalk in front of the house, and ask, if I were a buyer, what would I object to about this property? And then figure out a way to mitigate that. Walk up to the front door and ask the question again. Open the door and ask again. Walk to the kitchen, ask the question. Mitigate/beautify/enhance. Walk to the bathroom, same question.

There are tons of books full of clever cheap ideas for making a place more livable, more beautiful, more convenient. Including all those Feng Shui books. I've collected lots and lots of little ideas like that over the years, but almost none of them is originally mine (except maybe my elaborate energy schemes, like now I have a thermometer on every wall in my house, and I'm tracking the temperatures throughout the day. Today in the mail I got a 15w solar panel from www.northerntool.com for $99 including shipping! and I ordered 20 small 12v fans from some guy on ebay for $49. I'm going to hook them all up and blow all sorts of interesting air around in my house, based on the different temperatures, etc. Also I'm insulating in the hottest parts).

I am making a big list of all the most obvious of my ideas for mitigating problems and making a house more inviting to buyers. I will post it when I'm done. You'd be amazed though, the main thing you do for a house is simply care. Buyers can sense that right away. If you don't believe me, go look at houses for sale and the moment you set eyes on one, ask yourself, did someone care about this house? It's totally obvious.

So that's the number one trick to selling (once you've already bought a good deal). Care about it, make it better in lots of little ways (and big ones, if you are inspired).

Next you asked if I use an agent. Well, up until recently I have used agents and paid the 4-5% (they say 6-7%, but who are you going to believe?)

Now that we are going bigtime, we have hired a broker and trained all our property rating and property management staff and got them licensed, so we pay salaries rather than commissions. We will have to hire a different broker in each metro area we go into, but we will replicate this model because it's a huge cost savings.

I have paid over $3 million in sales commissions so far in my career, and my buying agents have made another $750K off me in addition to that. That was for 150 properties. Now we are going to buy and sell about 10 times that many, and the total salaries and bonuses we will pay to accomplish that will be approximately $2 million. (If we were to translate that into commissions the rate would be about 1/4%. But percentages are only used in real estate to confuse the seller. Think where else do people talk in percentages instead of dollars? Taxes, Restaurant Tips, Inventory Shrinkage, Contractor Markups, Bank Interest Rates, Mafia Protection Dues... what do all these situations have in common?)

But don't misunderstand me, good competent real estate agents are wonderful and you'd be crazy imo to buy and sell homes (repeatedly) without their help. If you manage them correctly they generally earn their commission.

David Braden,

I just started reading about the Self Help Corporation. That's really interesting, and yes, we are on the same page.

The thing I am wondering (haven't read the whole thread yet) is whether you can make money at that quickly (3 months), or whether it requires continual investment for a long time.

My next question is what would be the quickest and surest way to prove the concept? I could provide a neighborhood and a bunch of neighbors who could benefit from such a corporation. I don't see that it needs to cost anything, other than an initial contact of the people to sign them up and a meeting where you enlist them in volunteering all the services needed.

Btw, when I said it shouldn't cost anything, I meant it shouldn't cost US anything. Actually it would probably be an advantage at the outset if it cost the participants something.

Perhaps it could be a coop and they have to buy a share to participate, the fees being used to accomplish some group goal.

Ha! (Not cynical laughter, laughter about the way these efforts get corrupted.) See my post on Christian Right or Wrong:

http://www.omidyar.net/group/progressive_values/news/5/?page=7#unread

David Frayne in Phoenix said:

Perhaps it could be a coop and they have to buy a share to participate, the fees being used to accomplish some group goal.

I have also thought of a coop as a starting point.

And no, I don't think you can make "money" in 3 months. I see it as lending your credit to arrange for the initial assets in exchange for shares in the corporation. Then you could spend your shares for such things as labor in the remodel and landscaping - and your laborers could then spend the shares on food, laundry and day care (or any other services the corporation decided to offer.

This feels like it might be off topic - if so, we could continue elsewhere perhaps in the Self-help discussion.

Thnx David. Can you also please elaborate more how you engage a local community? I'm wondering what are some of the things you do beyond the 100 trees and dumpsters for neighbors? How do you engage the community? With what sense of ease does the community embrace it?

David Braden said:

David Frayne in Phoenix said:

Perhaps it could be a coop and they have to buy a share to participate, the fees being used to accomplish some group goal.

I have also thought of a coop as a starting point.

And no, I don't think you can make "money" in 3 months. I see it as lending your credit to arrange for the initial assets in exchange for shares in the corporation. Then you could spend your shares for such things as labor in the remodel and landscaping - and your laborers could then spend the shares on food, laundry and day care (or any other services the corporation decided to offer.

This is excellent thinking. The only thing I'd add is that there has to be a hook and a lot of education/promotion, especially if the participants are less sophisticated. The education/promotion brings them in and the hook reminds them why they should stay in and play. Free access to a barter-switch network or club might be a servicable hook.

Mark Grimes said:

Thnx David. Can you also please elaborate more how you engage a local community? I'm wondering what are some of the things you do beyond the 100 trees and dumpsters for neighbors? How do you engage the community? With what sense of ease does the community embrace it?

Good questions. With my lifelong interest in how people learn and grow, acknowledge and take responsibility for their faith-in-self, develop initiative, and lead rich, fulfilling lives, I have come to believe there are all kinds of services that could be offered in this area. If it was done well, I can also envision it radically increasing the value of community membership, property values, etc. Thoughts, David?

You guys are way ahead of me. There are some incredible groups out there, like Focus Hope in Detroit http://www.focushope.edu/ that do amazing things with the community -- we plan to use their model for community development in New Affinity.

One of the nonprofits I worked with in Compton was the Gateway Cities Partnership, which advertises meetings in the community and then gets everyone to air all their grievances (they get to gripe for 4 sessions, I think) and then come up with solutions for the remaining 8 sessions.

Then they publish a really professional looking report on the community's strengths and weaknesses and what the community wants, and the city tends to take it pretty seriously and some of it gets done. They did this for a bunch of cities in So Cal.

But my own take on this whole subject of community is very different than anything I've heard. Growing up in Orange County CA, I complained more than once about the lack of community feeling in my neighborhood. My dad used to reply, "When I want community, I act communal." I'm not sure if he got that from Gandhi or what (he refuses to go to Landmark). I understood his point to be that he didn't feel any need for community, felt he had plenty of it, and could get as much more as he wanted anytime.

What I am doing in these communities is nudging them over a particular tipping point that I think is a fun direction to go and which I have developed a catalytic algorithm for. I am not really sure if the community ever gets engaged in the way we were brought up in the 70s to think it was supposed to be, you know, with the villagers all getting together to raise barns and track down the neighbor's lost pig. I tend to see these neighborhoods more like Giligan's Island or Laverne & Shirley than like Little House on the Prairie or Happy Days.

The tipping point I focus on is the one that involves kids and teens and adults being exposed to many options for how to earn a living and how to create wealth, i.e. how to improve your living situation. My sense is that the main thing missing from "blighted" communities (including the most desperate refugee camps) is exposure to lots of ways to create wealth. So we put some of that back in, and it's highly contagious.

We are starting with easy cases, US cities that have minor problems, from a global perspective, because we want to inspire confidence in the investment world with a string of unmitigated successes, and even in "easy" places the process is a little like juggling 3 flaming torches 2 bowling balls and a sock. My intention is to get better and better at this until we (or others using our methodology) can safely waltz into a refugee camp in Darfur and begin a sustainable transformation.

The other thing missing in these places is visible role models doing certain kinds of cool stuff that creates wealth. That's how we engage the community. I'm not sure they always know they are engaged. They are, though (ask Ravi).

Yes, we hold street cleanup events. And we attend city hall meetings and buy raffle tickets and sponsor track runners for muscular distrophy and stuff like that which gets asked of us, since people often get the impression that we are rich and kind. And we support other groups like "Jesus Loves Compton" which did similar street cleanup events to ours (the guy who ran that was manager at a sporting goods store, so he would bring hundreds of basketballs and soccer balls to hand out to all the kids in the neighborhood -- this was a little weird, but what the heck).

But it isn't what we do, it's how we do it, that counts. What I'm saying to myself over and over and over whenever I even think about any of these neighborhoods is:

THIS IS AN AWESOME PLACE TO LIVE! WOW, THESE PEOPLE ARE LUCKY TO BE HERE! THEY ARE RICH BEYOND MEASURE JUST BY VIRTUE OF LIVING IN A PLACE LIKE THIS. LOOK AT ALL THESE COOL FEATURES OF THIS PLACE! AND NOW I'M HERE AND I'M GOING TO MAKE IT EVEN BETTER! CHECK THIS OUT! WEEEE! THIS IS FUN! I LOVE YOU ALL!

Extroverted community oriented types come out of the woodwork, once I make the streets safe and fun to walk on. That seems to work.

David Frayne in Phoenix said:

You guys are way ahead of me. There are some incredible groups out there, like Focus Hope in Detroit http://www.focushope.edu/ that do amazing things with the community -- we plan to use their model for community development in New Affinity.

WOW -- how did they ever manage to get a .EDU?? AFAIK .EDUs need to be accredited learning institutions [1] -- so that is why I am completely baffled

David Frayne in Phoenix said:

The tipping point I focus on is the one that involves kids and teens and adults being exposed to many options for how to earn a living and how to create wealth, i.e. how to improve your living situation. My sense is that the main thing missing from "blighted" communities (including the most desperate refugee camps) is exposure to lots of ways to create wealth. So we put some of that back in, and it's highly contagious.

Totally: inter-generational !!!

(BTW: my ideas with my .gen.in names are to brand them as "generation" names)

I think you should get in touch with Katherine Freund -- there might be a good collaboration in there somewhere.

insightful link nmw pos 1

I think focus hope has several accredited programs.

http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/edlite-minorityinst-list-tab.html

I will take a stab at question 2. How can a company be sustainable without sacrificing profits?

This is a bizarre question, when you think about it. Kind of like a burglar asking how someone could support their family without stealing.

Nearly all rich people really feel like they "must" do environmentally destructive things in order to survive. The poor do not destroy the environment. You have to be relatively rich to make a strip mine, or an oil well, or a petroleum refinery, or a fleet of airplanes, or hummers, or a giant dam.

No one "wants" to destroy the planet. We drive cars and use plastic and cut down trees and drop bombs because we "have no other choice".

That's a very strange belief, when you think about it. And pervasive.

If we drop the "have to" and simply look at how to create wealth sustainably, it's a different game, but just as winnable. Why don't we make the hole bigger on the golf course, or lower the basket in basketball or the net in tennis?

Because there's no need to.

Being sustainable and profitable is like getting the ball into the basket without stepping out of bounds or letting the clock run out, or double dribbling or breaking any of the other myriad rules (just think, all those rules were designed to make the game more fun!).

I think the first step in getting us to do this kind of thinking is to become aware of how incredibly wealthy we are. Even if we don't have any money at the moment. Donald Trump was $1 billion in the hole and had to walk in the rain to meet his creditors at midnight to restructure his debt. At that moment he may have felt poor. But he was very rich, even in that moment, when his net worth was lower than that of a thousand homeless people put together.

Have you ever spent a lot of time writing something and had the computer crash, losing the whole thing? Or have you built your dream house and had it burn down? Or spent hours driving to the airport, only to miss your flight? In these situations it feels on the surface like you lost everything. Like 100% of your effort just went down the drain.

But in reality it's not like that. Setbacks occur, but as in Donald Trump's case, or the case of Germany & Japan after WWII, current condition is a lousy indicator of future condition. What determines who succeeds?

Tony Robbins (in "Unlimited Power") says the secret is Action. The interesting thing about actions you haven't yet taken is that they are completely invisible and impossible to detect. Donald Trump's actions were what turned his situation from minus a billion to plus several billion, but no one could see those actions before he did them. Germany's and Japan's actions were what determined the outcomes. Not their wealth or poverty or piles of rubble.

In the Landmark Forum they ask this great question: If our current condition really has nothing to do with who we are or how we feel right now, why do we usually blame our feelings and way of being on our situation?

Their answer is basically that we seek to avoid responsibility, because it feels safer. We choose powerlessness because being powerful means stepping into the unknown and that's scary.

So my answer to the question, how can business be sustainable without sacrificing profits, starts with Be Powerful. Stand up for what you believe in and take responsibility for the way things are, and the way things are not.

A simple example of this is the resource of trees. We use lumber in repairing and remodeling homes. We are thus paying people to kill trees. It is a simple matter to correct for this. We simply plant more trees than we kill. But then it may seem like the cost of the job just went up. This is the complaint the auto industry makes when they talk about clean air laws or fuel efficiency standards -- those requirements increase our costs.

But wait, trees aren't a cost. They are an investment. We plant the trees in the neighborhoods where we invest. This increases the quality of life in the neighborhoods, causing our investment to be more valuable. Come to think of it, we would want to plant the trees anyway, even if we weren't using any lumber.

You can go through the same kind of logic for cleaner transportation, organic food, recycling, energy efficiency, shorter commutes, solar power, beautifying outdoor spaces, giving people a wider variety of career choices, reducing the punishments for crimes, increasing immigration quotas, and so on.

All of those things increase wealth. The trick is simply to cash in on part of the wealth that's created thereby, and voila, sustainable profits.

David Frayne in Phoenix said:

I think focus hope has several accredited programs.

http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/edlite-minorityinst-list-tab.html

wow -- duh (boy do I feel like a moronic klutz!): it's the very first link on http://www.focushope.edu/ ! But you know what? I think I tend to look at the visuals first and also go right to the "about" page -- and so I guess maybe that's why I felt lost.

Thanks for helping me to get over the hurdle -- and of course the American educational system needs many more opportunities for training artisans! Good thing that focus hope seems to be filling in (at least part) of a very big gap!

ps: I find it interesting that concepts such as artisan and vocation (e.g. avocation, vocational) seem quite separated in the "American psyche"

David Frayne in Phoenix said:

I will take a stab at question 2. How can a company be sustainable without sacrificing profits?

David, I don't understand this question. Sustainable companies ARE profitable. Otherwise, they wouldn't BE sustainable. Are you really asking, How can you sustain a company without profits?

But in reality it's not like that. Setbacks occur, but as in Donald Trump's case, or the case of Germany & Japan after WWII, current condition is a lousy indicator of future condition. What determines who succeeds?

Tony Robbins (in "Unlimited Power") says the secret is Action. The interesting thing about actions you haven't yet taken is that they are completely invisible and impossible to detect. Donald Trump's actions were what turned his situation from minus a billion to plus several billion, but no one could see those actions before he did them. Germany's and Japan's actions were what determined the outcomes. Not their wealth or poverty or piles of rubble.

In the Landmark Forum they ask this great question: If our current condition really has nothing to do with who we are or how we feel right now, why do we usually blame our feelings and way of being on our situation?

Wait a minute. I don't understand this, either. (And I went through est, too - years ago.) In the first place, our present condition is a function of our past experiences - as well as the memories, associations and assumptions derived from those experiences, and those experiences ARE who we are. Our present situation is interpreted through that filter. And, second, our future is a function of our present action. If you respond reactively, your future will be like your present and past; if you respond pro-actively, you can create a brand new life and self. I thought this take was fairly consistent with Landmark's. Help me out here.

Their answer is basically that we seek to avoid responsibility, because it feels safer. We choose powerlessness because being powerful means stepping into the unknown and that's scary.

I agree with this.

So my answer to the question, how can business be sustainable without sacrificing profits, starts with Be Powerful. Stand up for what you believe in and take responsibility for the way things are, and the way things are not.

Ah, but you can't simply DO this; you can't will change of this magnitude. This is where I separate from Robbins and Landmark and the like. You have to go deeper and understand yourself - your selves, actually. And, most important, you have to include rather than exclude. You have a part of you, an aspect of your psyche that is afraid to assume responsibility, and that part of you is preventing you from being powerful, you have to embrace it and get to know and understand it, not suppress it.

You can go through the same kind of logic for cleaner transportation, organic food, recycling, energy efficiency, shorter commutes, solar power, beautifying outdoor spaces, giving people a wider variety of career choices, reducing the punishments for crimes, increasing immigration quotas, and so on.

All of those things increase wealth. The trick is simply to cash in on part of the wealth that's created thereby, and voila, sustainable profits.

What are you saying, simply adopt an alternative perspective? If so, would that it were that simple. In my experience, you can't be pro-active and adopt an alternative way of viewing things until you go deep into your reactive nature and aspects. What's more, if you try to, if you attempt to will it, those reactive aspects or sub-selves will come back to haunt you. They'll trip you up sure as hell if you don't start by giving them their due.

Thoughts?

I think the "difference" has to do with a really not-well-understood area of economics, namely "inter-generational" transfers.

Quite simply: reaping money from an oil well or something like that is "cashing in" on non-renewable resources. So if you look at the world in 1700 vs. the world in 2000, the people in 2000 seemed to be "wealthier" -- but the natural resources in 2000 included less oil "reserves" and/or more pollution (and perhaps higher oceans and/or more hurricanes). So all in all: it was a transfer of wealth.