Usually on Saturday's when I'm not traveling, I have to wake up at 6:00 a.m. to catch one of my favorite shows - High Net Worth. This show profiles entrepreneurs, and how they make their fortunes, and of course what they spend their money on. Mostly all of the entrepreneurs have made their money in real estate, whether it was luxury 100 room boutique hotels, time shares, you name it One Billionaire, who owns three of the larges time share companies, is building a 90,000 square foot house with 20 kitchens and 30 bathrooms. Another is launching a prototype hotel in space the idiosyncrasies befuddle me to no end. Like the guy building the largest house in America, yet still drives one of the first cars I used to own - a $12,000 used Lincoln Town Car. Why do they do what they do?



Because they can.

A buddy of mine, who's also a hard money lender and developer, just located a $50,000,000 (yes, million) pool of defaulted notes, then quick turned the mortgages to an investor for a cool couple of points.

Goldman Sachs mortgage department cashed in $2 Billion on the subprime fiasco . The three men responsible for the trade are expected to be paid between $5 and $15 million.

My students are regularly closing consecutive short sales dealsyou too can profit from the mortgage meltdown.

On the other side, there's tens of thousands losing their homes, countless others hanging on by the skin of their teeth. What's the difference between both sides? Well, I can tell ya, what's being said by one group versus the other. One side is complaining and whining and proclaiming the unfairness of the situation, all the while doing nothing to improve it.

A "stucked-ness" that just keeps them from becoming a successful entrepreneur. Hey, I get it. It's hard to remember your objective of draining the swamp when you're up to your elbows in alligators. I'm just about as unqualified as anybody when it comes to having the "stuff" our society requires to make money.

My parents were missionaries in Brazil, and I knew nothing about the United States until moving here at age seven (and no, I'm not a native Brazilian, my parents are from Tennessee). I never fit in at any schools, and historically made terrible grades - got kicked out of not one, but two colleges. And still, to this day, I am continually reminded that seven years ago, when people saw me launching my woeful speaking career I was undoubtedly the worst they had ever seen.

I can't spell worth a flip, don't know jack about computers, yet in the last 8 years managed to be responsible for the sale of just under $20 million in sales of products and profits relating to real estate, which over my career has launched more than a dozen successful students who now teach short sales, virally spreading my short sale techniques all over the country. Even permanently and continually changing how short sales are done in this country collectively negotiating over $1 Billion dollars in debt yet I have no formal training in financeor for that matter, the field I'm in!

It's important that you understand one thing: the result of your success will be that of decision, not qualification. Get yourself in the game in 2008the mortgage meltdown undoubtedly will have you standing on one side of the of the line in the sand.