My Rat Race

As mentioned often in many Rich Dad books, the four quardrants in earning income are the E, S, B and I which are the Employee, Self-Employed/Specialist, Business Owners and Investors respectively. And the poor and middle class are always in the E and S quadrants while the rich always work their way up the B and I quadrants.

I am an IT professional, and has slowly reached in the B quadrant when I started doing business in 1997. I am not yet into big-time business but just augmenting my current income, thus I am not even that affluent yet. As an employee at a company I earn salary of less than $40,000/year and a business making about $7,000/year and suspected to grow to $10,000/year by the end of 2006, this is still a less than $50,000/year income.

If this continuous growth in building business my company is experiencing continues at it’s current rate, I see that in 2 to 3 more years, I will be earning the same income I am earning at present time at my job as an employee. Is that good? For me, no, it is bad, because it is too slow. And I still am looking for a faster way out this rat race.

I know there are many ways to earn more in real estate is the reason which brings me to the Learning Annex’ Real Estate Expo - April 8 and 9 at the LA Convention Center that had Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki as some of their notable speakers.

But do I have enough to invest in real estate right now, but before that time comes, I have invested in my financial knowledge on how to play the real estate game. As how Robert Kiyosaki mentioned this morning that the secret to monopoly is 4 green houses and 1 red building. Right now, I can’t do that and all I am doing now is passing Go and collecting $200. But at least everytime I pass Go, the rate is constantly increasing from $200.

My goal for now is to continue developing my business to generate more income to invest. Plans for 2006 are:

1. Register the business entity in the United States. (In progress, nearly done. A Nevada S-Corporation)
2. Create a good customer support system. (Technicalities in place, data of information still needs to be built.)
3. Create a good billing system. (Currently all done manually and very time consuming as the client base grows.)
4. Use a good project management, information management, collaboration system.
5. Increase current sales of my company.
6. Advertise in targetted niche print media.
7. As sales increase, to a point I can invest in Gas/Oil, I will invest in those.
8. Generted more income, and invest in real estate.

I may not have enough right now to invest in real estate, but as Robert Kiyosaki always recommends, invest in financial knowledge, I continuously increase my financial knowledge so when the time comes when I can invest in Gas/Oil and Real Estate, I know pretty much what to do.

The Seminar Speakers were:

• Donald Trump - Think Big
• Robert Kiyosaki - Rich Dad Poor Dad
• Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson - Laws of Success
• Suze Orman - Financial Powerhouse
• Russ Whitney - Land Development
• Kim Kiyosaki - Women and Investing
• Robert Shemin - Millionaire Investor
• Scott Scheel - Commercial Real Estate
• Robert Allen - Multiple Streams of Income
• Robert Bluhm - Tax Reduction
• Wayne Gray - Earn $5k - $10k a Month!
• James Smith - Buy & Flip Properties
• Bob Kittell - Beat Wall Street
• Marco Kozlowski - Flipping Luxury Homes
• Dr. Albert Lowry - Foreclosures
• Ken Mcelroy - ABC’s of Real Estate
• Ted Thomas - Tax Lein Properties
• Reggie Brooks - Abandoned Property
• Raymond Aaron - Automatic Prosperity
• Michael Corbett - NBC TV’s Extra
• David Lindahl - Apartment Buildings
• Patrick James - Beat the IRS
• Donna Bauer - Notes and Mortgages
• George Donohue - Negotiating
• Kris Kirschner - Secrets of Super Flipping
• Russell Whitney Jr. - Basics of Real Estate
• Chris Johnson - Free Money
• Marshall Sylver - Influence and Persuasion

All of their seminars were in break out sessions and some in the main hall. You had the choise to choose which sessions you want to attend.

Being the beginner investor I am, all I wanted to attend are the beginner topics so I can absorb and understand the lessons and when learned well, that is when I learn more advanced topics to make my foundation strong.

Although I have already heard Patrick James before, which made me meet Scott Estill and Stephanie Long, I still attended his seminar Tax Secrets of the Millionaires as a refresher and I did not want to attend the seminars that were at the same time. It was good, he is a good presentator and does a good job in presenting Scott Estill’s knowledge.

I then finished up listening to Earving ‘Magic’ Johnson who has multiple successful businesses. All his insights were very good.

I then decided to go to Robert Shemin’s Millionaire Real Estate Investor. Simply because he said beginners are welcome, so I assume what he talked about is something I would understand. And I guess I did but I can’t remember a thing. But one thing is he has helped many people, some are just students earn about $50,000 a year just with real estate. And all the lessons given to them are in several CD sets. The whole package cost about $3,499 and they gave a promo price of $995. Yes I bought it. They say if you but stuff and don’t use it, it will not work. True, and I know I will use it. As I am slowly using other educational materials like my book by Garrett Sutton, Esq. on Own Your Own Corporation and I now currently do. i also got the books from Patrick James which is also Scott Estill’s stuff and now I am currently their client having their practice as my tax advisors. I will start going through Robert Shemin’s training materials one by one.
I then attended Raymond Allen’s Automatic Prosperity. It was all about mentoring and he has been a mentor to many people that became successful in life. That includes Jack Canfield, author of the book series Chicken Book for the Soul. Robert Kiyosaki has praise him well also in many of his books. It is nice to know that at Raymond was actually a Nuclear Physicist but his life was messed up before. And through mentoring is where he got his life straight. Sometimes it is not just knowledge that makes you rich. There is a lot more to it. And yes, he is already my mentor as well. As I signed up for his 18-month program, the Monthly Mentor.

I was tired for the rest of the day and could not absorb new topics and called it a day and waited for the next day for the next seminars.

Sunday was really cool with Robert Kiyosaki as the first speaker. After reading Rich Dad Poor Dad and nearly finished with Retire Rich, Retire Young, many of the concepts discussed are things I already know since I read two of those books. But what is nice to know during his seminar was the current events, the inflation situation, the consumer product index, effect of China outsourcing, the fall of the dollar and the increase of Gas/Oil, Real Estate, Gold and Silver.

After Robert Kiyosaki’s presentation, I wandered around and decided to browse the Internet using the Los Angeles Convention Center’s Wifi that cost me $4.99/hour. I eventually ran out of batteries and I actually started this post that time, but stopped since I was falling a sleep. I went around for the booths, and decided to go back to the car since I was sleepy and might as well use the laptop car charger.

While using the laptop, many times, I fell a sleep. It was still 1:00pm and all other seminars are either too advanced or are repeated seminars I attended on Saturday. And Donald Trump was going to talk at 7:00pm. And I told myself, that was it. It was 1:30pm, and too much precious time is lost, I could be finishing work or sleeping. If I wait for Donald Trump, I would consume more dead time, go home late at around 9:00pm, drive two more hours going to San Deigo, arrive at around 11:00, tired and sleeping late and will wake up early for Monday’s work.

It was not worth it to me. Donald Trump had no celebrity effect on me as it goes with any celebrity and I do not value autographs. I just get the knowledge taught. And most of the seminars were good information, but was not complete and would give you some other way to learn more, like through more paid seminars, their books, audio books, ebooks, instructional videos, etc. So I was pretty sure, Donald Trump’s presentation would be kind of like that. Very informative, yet you will want more. So I just went home and decided I will buy Donald Trump’s book one day.

Own Your Own Corporation is also Rich Dad book by Rich Dad Advisor Garrett Sutton, Esq. which was the second Rich Dad book I read. I first saw Gary Sutton at Rich Dad’s Investor Workshop at the Los Angeles Convention Center last August 2005. And no matter how knowledgeable Robert Kiyosaki was, he still stressed out he does not know everything and that is why he has advisors. And everyone should do, to build up their strong team. Gary Sutton is a corporate lawyer and is very knowledgeable of the law that is used to the advantage of the rich. One of major tools in being rich that most millionaires do is owning a corporation, that mainly benefits in two ways. One is for asset protection and another is for tax benefits. The business entities that give you better protection are Corporations, Limited Liability Companies, and Limited Partnerships. The business entities that do not give you asset protection are general partnerships and sole proprietorships. When I heard about this at the investor workshop, a few months after that, I went on vacation to my home country to see my family. And my wonderful wife, saw me looking at books and it was December of 2005 then, and she decided to get two books for me as a Christmas gift.

I read the whole book Own Your Own Corporation, by Garrett Sutton, Esq, reading it everyday in the morning just before taking a shower preparing for work. It was very informative and has given me all the initial knowledge I needed to know to get started. In the book I have also learned about the differences in state laws and how advantageous some states can be in putting up corporations than other states. Like in Nevada which two main advantages, one is privacy protection and another is there are no state corporate taxes.

And as Robert Kiyosaki has mentioned many times in many of his books, is to invest in financial knowledge, I attended a short seminar by The Learning Annex entitled How to Incorporate Your Business without using a Lawyer or Accountant by Jerry L. Dixon, CPA. His seminar was informative and was procedural just give you all the steps you have to go through in setting up your own corporation. Being based in San Diego, he did explain all the laws of California and just did a minor story about setting up a Nevada Corporation. Mainly because he mentioned that if you have a Nevada corporation but does business in California, you will need a license to operate in California and after doing that, you will now be required to pay taxes in California, thus there is no use to put up a Nevada corporation if you do not live there. Although he did mention that it will work for mail-to-order businesses, internet web stores, and businesses that are operating in Nevada that you do not need to be in Nevada like a store franchise of McDonalds for example. His seminar was very informative that you will want to have him as your accountant, which I know is also part of hi purpose in teaching at the seminar.

That time, I was also getting in contact with Gary Sutton’s practice since I wanted his practice to handle all the legal matters with my business, and Jerry Dixon for all accounting matters. And that would be my team. Until I received an email from The Learning Annex being a member of their mailing list, on a free seminar called Tax Secrets of the Millionaires, that had Patrick James as the speaker. His seminar was one of the best so far and this is where I was able to get hold of the Tax Secrets of the Millionaires book and CD pack that if you purchase the 12 that he had brought on the day of the seminar, you will have a free seminar with the author of the book, Scott Estill. If you did not buy the product that night, you still can, but you do not get to attend the free seminar.

I really did not have much that day, but I went ahead and took one of the forms of the first 12, even if I did not have the money. I kept computing in my head, adding up all the remaining credits I have on various credit cards. Until a kind lady doctor who is in her 40’s asked me if I am going to sign up. As she did notice I was not writing on the form. I said I supposed to but I did not have enough money, she then asked if I was a Filipino and I said yes. And we then decided to split the payment, she will photocopy the book for me, and I will copy the CDs for her and we paid 50:50. As for the seminar, everyone can bring along one guest, so I still had a ticket to get to the seminar by Scott Estill.

Just after a few weeks, I then headed for the tax seminar by Scott Estill that was held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles in California and most of the people present in the seminar were pretty affluent people. Many had corporations and a lot of real estate properties, and I felt out-of-place being an employee with a small web business. Scott Estill really knows the tax laws very well being a former Internal Revenue Service (IRS) trial attorney for many years. When he left the IRS and decided to be a full-time tax attorney for his own practice, he was one of the sought after tax attorneys in the country. His book Tax This was named one of the top books about tax this 2006 by the Wall Street Journal.
During that time, I was about to close my deal with Gary Sutton’s practice to have them handle all legal matters and I seek accounting help from Scott Estill’s practice. But upon learning that Scott Estill is also a corporate lawyer and even if based in Colorado, they have some representation in Nevada that can handle Nevada corporations, they why not talk to one practice instead of two. So I had Scott Estill’s practice handle both legal and accounting matters.

Scott Estill’s practice is with a partner Stephanie Long where they call their pratice Estill & Long, LLC. and it was Stephanie Long that handled most of my paperwork along with their staff and after getting all of that done, after maybe 3 weeks I think, I received a call from their practice 2 days ago saying that all my paperwork is done and that my corporation is now registered with the state of Nevada and will mail out the paperwork the next day.

Now this is one major start of change in my life as a business entity. But I know there are a lot more work to do like, open my Nevada bank account. Buy stocks from myself, get a payroll company that I will pay them to handle payments to myself as I deduct my money from the corporation and pay it to myself, as the employee. I need to have two separate bank accounts and I have to clearly log down my business expense and personal expense. What property is mine, and what property is for the company. But right now, I am just excited having my business entity registered since I will start advertising in a popular local computer magazine, some of the services I offer.