The guy thought this amusing, so he decided to try it out. He yelled out “54″…but nothing happened…so he yelled out “23″ and again…silence. He turned to the man and asked “What’s going on? Why aren’t they laughing?”

The man said “Guess you just gotta know how to tell a joke”…

I have been thinking a lot about language lately.  Language is basically just a grouping of words and symbols with a universally accepted syntax and meaning. What I find fascinating is that we are assigning meaning and concepts to strings of characters that are getting smaller and smaller every day.  Before the advent of text messaging, who would have seen and understood what “LOL” and “OMG” meant? In the beginning it was Email…then Blogging…then Twitter introduced us to “Micro-blogging” and Slate jokes about “Nano-blogging” in their spoof of Twitter with service called Flutter.  Little by little language is being reduced so that the meaning of complex concepts can be conveyed in as few characters as possible.

The question is, are we loosing the richness of our language for the sake of expediency?   How it will effect the exchange of ideas and culture? When I write, I try to paint as vivid a picture with words as I can;  is this possible in 140 characters or less? In a way,  it kind of forces you to get creative with words and wordplay, but I wonder what the long term consequences will be.

Seriously… I can see a future where “pico-blogging” is all the rage…someone will enter a five character string of symbols and everyone on the planet will understand, and get the joke…if it was told right.

You bought a bunch of Real Estate investment books, then started going to seminars and buying courses (even some courses off of eBay) that pretty much collect dust on your bookcase…

Don’t get me wrong, learning as much as you can about a subject is a good thing, but there comes a time when you realize you are avoiding action; you know a lot of stuff, but you don’t know how to, or are afraid of actually applying that knowledge. “Paralysis of Analysis” sets in and you become a seminar groupie…

Been there…done that…

So what do you do?

You find yourself a mentor to kick your ass…How?

Here is how you take your first offical step as a Real Estate Investor…join your local REIA – Real Estate Investor Association. Here’s why:

1. You want to be a Real Estate Professional…Act Like One!  (Also known as “fake it until you make it”)…Becoming a member of a professional organization adds a lot of credibility, which you will need closing your first deal.
2. You have a network of investors who are all in pretty much the same boat as you are, each with varying degrees of experience – the opportunity to learn from them cannot be overstated.
3. deal that one investor in your network may reject, might fit your criteria perfectly. (Remember to pay them a referral fee if you close!)
4. There is a great chance that you will find that one person from your network, a mentor, someone you admire, who you want to emulate; someone to kick your ass when it needs to be kicked. Someone to bounce ideas off…someone to cheer you on…

I was fortunate enough to be a part of the Georgia Real Estate Investment Associations Mentorship Program when it existed; through it, I had the great fortune of meeting my mentor, Joyce Bone.

Had I not, I would still be attending seminars, buying courses that collect dust on my bookcase in my den.

In Part 2. I will discuss building the rest of your team…

Well, after a year it seems that although I have learned a lot, I have not moved as far as I have wanted, and I have not done a good job of documenting my progress. I feel that even after a year, I have not yet found my “voice”. I have decided to go back to the basics.

The first thing I want to do is improve the quality of the blog. I want to eventually have a community of readers who are in the same position that I am in; we are not satisfied with our jobs and want something better. Instead of working harder, we want to work smarter and on our own terms. Also, once we succeed, how do we keep the fire burning inside of us? How do we keep motivated? How do we hone our skills, stay creative? What tools will we use? What methods?

I am making the effort to improve the layout of the site. I am getting really familiar with Wordpress; in fact I have made several manual modifications to this sites default template (with which I am really happy!), and will likely make more. My target audience is Web Developers, Copywriters, and Internet Marketers, and I hope to have information relevant to each. I am going to create pages for each as well as continuing to keep the main page a a journal of my attempts at lifestyle design.

I have also started reading articles like this and this on how to be a better blogger. I want to be more effective in my writing. I want to communicate better.

Oh yeah…I am still trying to come up with a cool logo. Stay tuned…

Funny thing. The Seller and I first met on November 20, 2006, which was one year, one month, and one day ago.

So…the bank has accepted my counter offer for the short sale. They are getting some money back for the house without initiating foreclosure, they are forgiving the loan, so the owner is relieved, and I am getting a nice house in a decent neighborhood – win-win-win.

The downside is that it is putting a damper on my plans for starting a virtual business. All my energy is now focused on due diligence and lining up a team to get the house in good condition to rent (this in addition to working my full time job!) My original exit strategy was to flip it, but that was before the sub-prime mess. As I mentioned earlier, there is still the possibility of getting a management team to handle the rental, but it is not worth it for just one house; I will need to get a few more rentals for this to be feasible.

Still, I am actively looking for ways to outsource as much as possible.

The longterm goal is to build multiple streams of income to get me out of my job and free up my time; this is just one step toward that goal.

Oh…I forgot to mention that I am writing this post from work…on Sunday afternoon. I came in yesterday as well.

Such is my life.

Second, I apologize for the gap in postings. School has started in our county, and I have two daughters with active lives. I have also been working on a project (in my day-job) with a tight deadline. Still I have been keeping up with the 30 Day Challenge (ok…maybe a few days behind).

In the time since my last posting I have joined two affiliate programs to get my feet wet, Amazon, and Commission Junction. In fact, I have added an affiliate link below to the “The Four Hour Work Week” (ooops…did it again) mentioned in my first post. I don’t know how many of you out there reading this have been following the challenge so far, but one of the parts of the challenge is to find a popular keyword phrase that has little competition. I have found such a phrase and I am going to create an informational blog post on a Web 2.0 bloging host that has related links to Amazon merchandise. When I am finished I will post the link here along with my initial ranking (no, my link below doesn’t count).

I’m not going to go into details here (go to the 30 Day Challenge Site!) but the purpose of using the Wordtracker Ranking in conjunction with Google Trends is to come up with a killer phrase with little competition; then by using a trusted (by Google) blogging site to host an information blog, in a day (in some reported cases in hours) you get high Google rankings, like the coveted first page! People in the challenge have posted their remarkable results.

The reason for all this work is for me to understand affiliate marketing as a potential revenue stream. I don’t intend to rely solely on this, but I think it’s important to know. Eventually the Challenge will lead to finding and selling your own product, then marketing it using the techniques learned earlier on.

So basically, that’s where I’m at. My next deliverable is the content for my blog. As soon as the blog has been completed I will post the link.

There is something going on called the Thirty Day Challenge. The challenge is to make $10 online. Yeah, that seems petty, but it teaches you how to start your own Internet business, including important concepts like finding your niche, market research, and determining your product, all in easy to understand concepts illustrated by videos and podcasts. And, best of all it’s free. I am in catchup mode (It started on August 1st).

So I am going to augment my quest with this training, and see where it leads me.