Larry Allen of International Collectors Associates tells why Gold is Still a Good Value

Announcer: If you are an investor worried about government spending and inflation, you need to consider hedging with precious metals. The expert in the business is Larry Allen with International Collectors Associates.
Larry Allen: I was here when gold hit previous high in ’80 of $875. Gold currently is trading in the $1240 range so it kind of leads some people to say, “Well, we’ve never been this high. Those sheer numbers, that’s correct.
But if you really dissect it and you start thinking about, “What did that car cost me in 1980, or that house cost me?” It was a fourth or a third of what they cost today. So if you factor for inflation, it would not be unusual to see gold $2,000 – $3,000 even currently. Our projection is that we will see those type of numbers over the next couple of years.
Announcer: Call Larry Allen today at (866) 211-8971 and ask for their complimentary information package or log on to mygoldportfolio.com. That’s International Collectors Associates (866) 211-8971.
Richard: Larry heads up the Precious Metals Group in International Collectors Association. Larry, are you there?
Larry: I am. Hey Richard, how are you?
Richard: I’m excellent. What a great day this is here.
Larry: Well, good.
Richard: How’s the weather there?
Larry: We’re in Durango, Colorado – a little corner of Colorado – and it’s beautiful. In fact, many of your listeners probably end up skiing out here or coming our way.
Richard: So International Collectors Associates is a precious metals company that’s been in business over 30 years, right Larry?
Larry: That is correct. A gentleman named Don McAlvany started this firm in 1972. It’s still owned and still run by the same family. We are a precious metals firm. We handle the gold, silver, platinum, palladium; any of the precious metals. We do also collectible coins, gold and silver IRAs. We also have a program for offshore storage with Switzerland.
So, been in the industry a long time. I’ve been with Don personally since 1980, so pretty well-versed in the precious metals area.
Richard: That’s great. So you guys have got some real longevity there. You’re not one of those dealers that just popped up in the last five years because gold started skyrocketing.
Larry: Yeah. Richard, it seems like everybody and his brother is a gold dealer these days. But we’re one of the old stalwarts. We’ve seen it through a lot of market cycles. So yeah, we’re not going anywhere; planning on being here a long time as well.
Richard: That’s great. Can you tell us some more about the benefits of dealing with International Collectors Associates?
Larry: One of the things – or a number of things – that we’ve always done that, hopefully, separates us from just a coin dealer, if you will, is we have produced an economic, geopolitic type of newsletter for years, almost going back to the inception of the company.
Richard: The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor?
Larry: Exactly. And Don is renowned. He speaks all over, not only nationally, but abroad. And then we also do produce every year a DVD on those topics as well. That’s something that we do provide. We have a care package we can talk about maybe towards the end of it that any of your listeners can call for that have samples of these things.
But beyond that, we also have a podcast weekly with interviews with recognized financial figures as well as our feeling and our take on the market.
So we’re competitive on our pricing and we are an A+ rated firm with Better Business. We believe that we do a very excellent job on the service in providing whatever type of precious metals interest somebody has.
We feel that we bring a lot more to the table than just that because we do monitor it. We have a few strategies. There are opportunities between the different metals in what they call strategy trading or compounding ounces. So we do a lot of stuff rather than just sell metals, gold coins and that’s the end of it.
Richard: So you’ve got a real expert there – Don McAlvany.
Larry: Indeed. He’s been in this industry for prior – even to ’72 to the inception of the firm. He was the National Sales Manager for years prior to that with International Investors, the world’s largest gold mining share fund. So yeah, his background goes pretty deep in this area.
Richard: That is awesome. What a tremendous resource you represent.
Larry: Well, we would hope to think so and we’d sure enjoy coordinating and marrying up with your interests. Hopefully, we can provide some good things for your listeners as well.
Richard: Well, we are all concerned about inflation, the way the government is spending money.
Larry: In the 30 years, I’ve been doing this, gold and silver have always been kind of an inflation hedge. These days with where we’re going with this administration and fiscal policies, and then you look at the trouble that the euro is in with all these foreign currencies, today I’m seeing more and more investors and businesses park assets in gold and silver for protection of the decline of the value of their currency. So it’s kind of becoming a currency hedge as well.
Richard: That’s tremendous. So not only does it have intrinsic value, but it can help you hedge inflation.
Larry: Indeed. A lot of people will look at it from the speculative standpoint that we have some great appreciation over the next couple of years or beyond, and I believe we do. But also, I think it’s just one of those to help you sleep at night as you watch the erosion of your spending power of your dollar for sure.
Richard: And the euro. The euro was highly celebrated just a year ago, and now people are saying it might drop below the value of a dollar.
Larry: Exactly. You have very fiscally responsible Germany [5:31 inaudible] Italy, Spain, and Greece which did hit the wall, if you will. So I know that there’s got to be consternation within the group of countries the represent the EU. Kind of like one keeps a very tight checkbook and the other one likes to write them, if you will.
Richard: Yeah. One’s a little bit more socialistic than the other I think.
Larry: Yeah. That probably comes into the equation as well.
Richard: You bet. And now, you do also work with self-directed IRAs. Is that correct?
Larry: That is correct. You can put physical gold in your IRA in a qualified capacity, and it’s actually very easy to do.
Richard: Well Larry, tell us more about the Swiss storage programs because I think some of our listeners are international and they would be interested in that.
Larry: Sure. We, for years, had done some placements overseas in Switzerland. Probably three to four years ago we constructed an actual program because we wanted it easy for an investor. You can invest as little as $10,000. It is held in a secured depository in Zurich, Switzerland.
Richard: You mean not in an American bank, Larry? [laughs]
Larry: No. Well, true. No, we chose, maybe wisely, not to go that direction.
Richard: Well Larry, what else would you like to say to wrap it up?
Larry: Well, I would just encourage folks, if they’d like to get our care package of information, we’d be happy to provide it.
Richard: You bet. What number should they call, or how do they get in touch with you?
Larry: Our toll-free number here is (866) 211-8971. My name is Larry Allen. Website is www.mygoldportfolio.com. We do have a complimentary packet of information that we’d be happy to send to you.
Richard: And again, that number is 866…
Larry: 211-8971.
Richard: 211-8971.
Larry: Correct.
Richard: That is great. This is a direction that a lot of people need to take not, of course, with the majority of their assets, but we’re recommending that at least 10% be put into hedging. We don’t mean hedge funds [laughs] because we’ve seen what happened to those in the last five years.
Larry: Indeed.
Richard: Something that is a hard asset, that has intrinsic value like precious metals. So Larry, you’ve been of great assistance today. We really appreciate you coming on the show. Again, Larry Allen with International Collectors Associates, and you can reach him at (866) 211-8971

The New Millennial Leadership Program with Kat Rice on reaching the WE Generation

Patrick: Welcome to The New Millennial Leadership. This is Patrick Dougher. My guest today is Kat Rice. Kat is a social marketer par excellence. She was recognized in 2009 by Microsoft as one of the premier social marketers in her industry. She has had over seven years of being an SEO and master Internet marketer.
She and I connected about a year ago at a speakers meeting, and I was really stunned with her depth and her understanding of what you really need to do to have a presence and to build a marketplace in the social media.
The other thing I was really stunned with is how she is so cross-generational. She can speak geek, and she can speak Boomer, which is cool because so many of the group that I grew up with can barely spell “geek,” or “Microsoft,” or “Windows,” or any of those things. We are trying our best to keep up with the New Millennials that were born with a keyboard in their hand. Kat, I’m so thankful for you being on the show today.
Kat: Well, thanks so much for having me, Patrick.
Patrick: One of the things that I want to get into, I know you’ve got a book coming out, and you really have a clue when it comes to how to have a huge impact in the social media.
I know you’re big in the arena of elections and politics. I know you’re actually a consultant to some of the different parties and stuff like that. What’s your story? How did you get started in all of this?
Kat: It’s actually funny. I wanted to be a novelist. I wanted to write fiction novels, but I knew that I couldn’t make any money at that. I didn’t want to be a starving artist.
My parents were entrepreneurs, and they had a business mentor. I remember being 16, and going to see him in his office, and sitting down, and being like, “Well, what do I do? What business should I go into so that I can pay for my writing habit?”
He said, “The Internet’s where it’s at.” Then he asked me if I was a coder, and I said, “No. Well, I could do basic programming, but I wouldn’t call myself a hacker or anything like that.”
He said, “Well, you’re too old now.” I was 16 at the time. He said, “You’re too old now, so you better find something else to do online.”
So, I started researching when I was 17 and started my first company at 18 doing online marketing. It was great advice, though. I never hire programmers now unless they did it as kids.
Patrick: Really?
Kat: Yes.
Patrick: I’ve heard that from a couple of people. I know Mike Caning’s a big guy in that industry, and he trained himself as a child. I sit there, and I’m thinking, “Wow, that’s an interesting transition.”
But, as far as what you’re doing to create the success you’re having today, what would you say you’re doing the most significantly? What are you really bringing to the table now?
Kat: I think that it’s probably just persistent passion. There have been any number of uphill battles. My second company started in 2007, or maybe it was 2008. Anyhow, right about the time when the recession was hitting. It was so hard. It was so hard.
I was watching people who had way more experience drop out of the game, but I realized that was my moment to start shining. The fact that we made it through the dip is what kept us going. We didn’t give up. Anybody in my company, we all worked hard to make it through those crunch periods, and I think that that’s the biggest thing is the constant. If your passion is big enough, you’ll continue to be persistent.
Patrick: You really have tied together your passion and your profession, haven’t you?
Kat: Yes. I’m the same person online that I am offline. Some people are really frightened of that, but I try to be the same person everywhere, so it seeps into every area of my life.
Patrick: One of the things that we talked about last week, and I’m so thankful that we had the time to visit because you really flipped something inside of my head, and that was I want to be a benefit and a blessing to not just my children, but their whole generation. I think it’s really important as fathers, as people that are trying to have an impact and be a benefit to the nation. You want to always give.
I just noticed that a lot of your generation, so to speak – the New Millennials – had grown up in a certain way, a certain surrounding that was very groupish. Yet you said all the Millennials have tremendous leadership within them. They see themselves as leaders.
The more you said that, the more I went, “She is absolutely right.” As leaders, your generation – how would you want to contribute to them? What would you tell them to really shine in and to expand their own leadership, to grow their own leadership within themselves during this time period?
Kat: Well, we’re in a period that Generation Y, or Millennials, whatever you want to call them, are getting the short end of the stick. We’re really hurting with the job market. A lot of us were raised by really entrepreneurial parents or we watched our parents do corporate America and it didn’t work.
So, there’s a lot of antsiness that our parents are telling us to do one thing, which is go to school, get a good job. But a lot of people want to be entrepreneurs. They don’t want to do the ball-and-chain thing forever, because it’s just not the same. The go to school, get a good- ob thing doesn’t work because companies aren’t willing to keep you forever anymore, and we’re all aware of that.
So, a lot of people are doing the job-hop thing right now, where they’re trying to get enough experience to go out on their own. Then there are a lot of people who are starting companies right now. I would say my advice to my generation is just really stick with it.
Find something that you are really passionate about that you want to do every day and whatever it takes, find a way to do that every day because you’re not going to be happy if you don’t.
Patrick: I so agree. It’s find your purpose and your passion, make sure those are congruent, then find an invoiceable activity around that. You have, with the social media that you do. What are some of the services that you offer into the marketplace right now?
Kat: They call us a boutique online marketing store. In other words, we dabble in a little bit of everything. I have some really high-end designers who do logo and design work. We do websites. We set up blogs.
I also do online strategy where I’ll sit down and help somebody with their total online presence. We do the social media. We do training. So, if it has to do with the Internet, then we touch on it. We even do viral tracking and things like that.
Patrick: You also do a fair amount of speaking as well, don’t you?
Kat: I do. I love speaking. I think that this was my avenue to get there indirectly. I particularly like doing hands-on workshop-type stuff so that people feel like they walk away with something they can immediately use in their company.
Patrick: What do you think you do better than anybody else?
Kat: What do I do better than anyone else? It’s the ability to take someone else’s idea and magnify it. There are so many people out there who have, across the generation, really great ideas that they’re really passionate about, and they just don’t know how to tell other people about it. They feel stuck. They’ve got this big idea in their heart, but they can’t express it to anyone.
So, I am the ghostwriter, in essence, for their dream, whether that’s in the form of an online media campaign, whether that’s the form of a website, whether that’s generically just being this is the direction you should go with that. That’s how I see myself, as being really good at that.
Patrick: I completely agree. I see you as a universal translator, for the Trekkies out there, but with a megaphone with a real amplifier built in because you have the ability to take… You did it with my idea of the New Millennial Leadership Program. You said, “But you’re missing one key.” Then once that key is inserted, then it makes all the sense in the world, because I see leaders in this generation.
I see massive leaders that are going to have huge impact and that are going to be able to affect not just one country, but nations. Yet, they need to believe that they can. Even more so, they need direction. It would be helpful if they were able to look at some of the good stuff that in leadership that’s been passed down along the way, take those pearls and use them to amplify their own mission. What do you think?
Kat: I think my generation has a lot of really great ideas and a lot of big ideas, ideas that they think are much bigger than them. So, they either get stuck in two places. They either start announcing that idea to everyone with nothing to back it up. They don’t actually know what direction to take and they’re not putting a lot of action behind it. This is generic. Obviously, there are some people who’ve really shined.
Or they have this big idea, but they don’t tell anybody because they don’t know what the practical steps are to where they can get their message out. So, the problem here is that there are a lot of really great ideas and a lot of leadership meant to be had, but the building blocks to get to the point of being able to express that is the problem.
Patrick: What would you recommend that someone do to begin to put that plan together and move into that mission and purpose?
Kat: One of the first things to do is if there’s anybody who’s done anything even close is start talking to those people, whether they’re older, whether they’re the same age. Just start asking questions; every question you can think of, to get started. Then start physically making a plan on paper or on your laptop. But, start writing that stuff down.
Then the next big step is market research. I don’t mean that you hire a company to do market research. That’s very ‘90s. Now, you can do it through things like Twitter, or you can just Google to see who’s done research before and plant that research into your own idea. Those things can start at least giving you a map of where you need to go.
Patrick: The other thing that I’ve seen is that this generation really does understand the concept of find the people that want to hear what you have to say and go stand in the middle of them. They get it. They’re beginning to see how to do that.
The other kind of cliché, but it’s so powerful, and it’s a lot more fun to live this way, is go where you’re celebrated, not where you’re tolerated. So, you get into the group. You get into that. Whether it’s online or offline, you get into that group, that tribe, if you want to call it, that will celebrate your creativity, and your vision, and your passion, right?
Kat: Right. Eventually you’re going to have to step out of the happy comfort group and deal with the people who maybe are less excited about your group. But, you definitely need that backup, that support, if you’re ever going to get anywhere, because without it, the first wind that blows you too hard, you’ll break, and you need that support group behind you.
Patrick: That is so good. That is so good. How would you want somebody to get a hold of you?
Kat: Email is definitely the best way to get a hold of me. My email address is kat@veribatim.com. It’s just like “verbatim,” but with an extra “i” in it.
Patrick: Very good. Say that one more time.
Kat: It’s kat@veribatim.com.
Patrick: Very good. Of course, you’re all the social places too. They can find you on Facebook, I know because we’re friends on Facebook. And then Twitter and any other media that you want to make sure people connect to you on?
Kat: Veribatim is the key. If you look that up on Twitter, then I’m there. If you look that up on LinkedIn, I’m there. If you look it up on Facebook, I’m there. That’s also my website and where my blog is at, which I update at least once a week.
Patrick: That’s great. How did you come up with that name?
Kat: “Veri” is the Latin root for “truth.” Then we were playing on the word “verbatim.” We wanted to take what people’s concepts of their company are and make it verbatim onto a website. So what they had in their mind was truth in marketing directly to the consumer.
Patrick: That is so good. I know that a lot of people really want authenticity in marketing, don’t they?
Kat: Yes. It’s so important, especially if you’re marketing to my generation. Transparency is definitely key.
Patrick: Anything else that you would want to say to even my generation as far as marketing to your generation?
Kat: For your generation, I would say just don’t assume we’re all kids. It sounds really cliché because we want to be grown up, but a lot of us are getting older, and we’re making decisions. We can vote now; things like that. We’ve got a lot to bring to the table.
Don’t be scared of us. Also, don’t just assume we don’t know what we’re talking about. There’s a lot of energy that can be gained by the Baby Boomer generation by feeding off of Generation Y. What we need to have is a successful relationship, and sometimes it needs to be the older person who reaches down first.
Patrick: That’s absolutely right. I totally agree. One of the things that I see is I see tremendous, not just potential – there’s real leadership, real energy, real wisdom, just goodness and glory in the generation coming next.
The thing that I was so impressed with when I started studying the Millennials is that they didn’t accept a brand. They named themselves.
Kat: That’s exactly right.
Patrick: They weren’t the Gen Y, or Gen X, or Gen Whatever. They said, “No, we’re the Millennials.” Then even beyond that, instead of continuing the descent of, if you look at the Boomers – well, really, the Boomers; I hate to even admit this, but they’re the ones that embraced a whole bunch of noise. They were part of pulling, really, I have to say it this way, prayer out of schools. They began abortion. They endorsed it as far as allowing it, and legalizing it, and so many other things that really changed a whole lot in the way that our nation had been thinking. Let’s put it that way.
I know that we’ve run up a huge debt, which is just going to be a real nightmare for a lot of people. But, once we get through that eye of the needle, your generation is going to shine in a way that is going to be amazing because you guys literally stood up and said, “You know, we’re not going to be like you. We’re more inclined to wait to get sexually active. We’re more inclined to be a little bit more good to our word. We really don’t want the BS as far as who’s telling us what you promise. If you tell us something, you just do it.” That’s the best thing. Am I being consistent with what you know about your own? Is that what you’re hearing, too?
Kat: Yes. There is definitely a want to be better. That’s huge, especially from people in leadership positions, whether they’re corporations or politicians. Holding people to task, the desire for transparency, the desire for keeping companies and other people honest is really important. Of course, in exchange we try not to be hypocritical and do those things in our own lives.
But, I’ve got to say, everything positive that I see in my generation, we definitely learned some of it from people, Baby Boomers, whether they were our parents or other leaders that we said, “That. I want to be that.”
So, everything that’s good, I would say it comes from the Baby Boomers and then the other things, like the individuality, is stuff that we learned as a cohesive generation.
But, I think there’s a lot of hope. We are the future, but we’re really aware of that burden that’s on our shoulders, that there’s a lot of things that are wrong, and that we need to fix it before it gets any worse.
So, there’s a lot of responsibility that’s been thrust on my generation. They say by the time we’re 30, with immigration, Generation Y will be as big or bigger than the Baby Boomer generation, so it’s a huge group of people. I think that we get underscored a little bit by how large the Baby Boomer generation is.
There are a lot of things that are being thrust on all these kids’ shoulders, and I think we’re stepping up. So, what we need is just people to believe that we can. It’s this circular process that if you believe in us and we believe in ourselves, then we do things good, which makes people believe in us more. We need that positive reinforcement happening from the generations higher than us.
Patrick: I completely agree. I am so proud of your generation and what I believe it’s going to become. I’m going to hold that out there and just say I believe that you guys are going to do amazing things. I’m really thankful to be able to sew into it
Kat, thank you again. Let me make one more thing. People should get a hold of you via email, and that email again is?
Kat: kat@veribatim.com.
Patrick: And if they do connect with you, what should they expect?
Kat: In how long it takes me to get back?
Patrick: Yes, probably pretty quickly, I imagine. Actually, is there anything they might be able to request of you; maybe some keys to being better on social media? What should somebody ask for when they connect with you?
Kat: Yeah, if they have questions about social media or generic marketing questions, I can definitely answer those if they’re simple enough, or at least point you in the right direction. I love being able to help and educate people. It’s very, very important to be educated in technology in this current age, so I’m more than happy to do that.
Patrick: I appreciate that. Kat, thank you so very much. Again, this has been The New Millennial Leadership show. My name’s Patrick Dougher. Our website is DoerSuccess.com.
I’d love to visit with you on ways that we can change this generation and be a benefit, I should say, to this generation coming forward, and helping support them, and building them up to be the leaders that they are and that they’re becoming. Thanks again, Kat. We’ll talk to you next time.
Kat: Thanks so much.

When you watched The Secret or Study the Law of Attraction was there something left out?

Watch this YouTube video to see what you didn’t get on The Secret…

We will probably all end up using TheLotusCode.com…

New Millennial Leadership with Jim Fortin the NeuroPersuasion Expert

This is an interview with Jim Fortin a speaker and NeuroPersuassion specialist in the DFW area. I think you will enjoy and get a great deal of information from Jim. Listen and enjoy.

Patrick: And welcome to The New Millennium Leadership radio show. I am so excited about this show because what I’m going to be doing is interviewing leaders throughout America that are really out to change this generation.
I’m Patrick Dougher and I have a passion to raise up new millennial leaders in this generation that will stop living in the followership and begin to walk into the leadership of this generation.
I’m so thankful for my guest today. His name is Jim Fortin. Jim and I have known each other for a couple of years now. He’s one of the guys that when he came on the scene, for me in my life, I was blown away because here’s a guy who’s a neuro persuasion expert. He is a speaker and author.
He’s worked with some of the very brightest minds in the country and is one of the brightest minds in the country, in my opinion. I’ve had him other events that I’ve put together with Ron White, and Howard Berg and some of these other great guys; memory leader and the fastest reader in the world.
And I’m always amazed at what he brings to the table because Jim has a unique understanding of how to get past our logical brain and right into our emotional brain. Now, where would that be useful? Well, any kind of persuasion.
For a lot of us, we don’t realize that as we move forward, we need to get better at selling, but not in the way that is the historical view of mechanical selling. We need to use an almost ninja-style selling technique that is interactive, is relation-based, is coming straight from the heart, but is reaching into the heart of somebody else to help them make the best decisions that they could make for their life – not abusive, but a real usefulness of being a servant to lead other people into greater success in their life.
I know that’s the origin of the world salesman. I stick with it; that the origin of the word salesman is servant and we’re always out to serve each other. Jim, thanks for being on the show. I really appreciate you being here.
Jim: Hey Patrick, it’s a pleasure to be here today.
Patrick: You know, Jim, I’m always curious about your story. How did you get started in this? Tell me your story.
Jim: Okay, I would love to. And before we do that, I want to pack up here a second. The introduction – great introduction and I appreciate it. You talk about a new way to sell and a new way to get into the mind of the prospect and the client.
This was announced about three weeks ago. Did you know that Campbell Soup is changing their label for the first time in decades? Have you heard about this yet?
Patrick: Not yet, no. Go ahead.
Jim: Campbell did what’s called neural research in that they had a focus group – a large focus group – and they hooked them up to breathing monitors. They measured their pupil dilation when they were looking at soup can labels.
And what they discovered through massive amounts of very scientific research is that their old soup can label that they’ve had for many, many years – it was designed almost 100 years ago. The soup can label that they currently have is not affecting people emotionally and unconsciously enough to get them to buy to the degree that they want them to buy.
So, this year – actually, you can Google it and find it online – they are changing their soup can label. They’re actually taking the spoon out of the bowl, they’re updating the bowl, they’re moving the red – which actually sits behind the world ‘Campbells’ – they’re moving the red from the top of the can to the bottom of the can, which has been there for 100 years, and they’re putting steam over the bowl.
And what they know is, by doing this, they’re going to begin affecting their consumers in a significantly deeper way. As a matter of fact, the Vice President, I believe, of marketing at Campbell’s said, “We’re making these changes because we want to affect our consumers at a deeper level.” So, what he’s saying is they want to affect buyers at an unconscious level and unconsciously prompt them to buy.
Really interesting because Google is looking into this now, and Frito-Lay, and Microsoft and other companies are looking into it to discover ways that they can more pervasively unconsciously – not analytically left brain mind – but unconsciously affect their customers and their prospects to buy more.
So, I thought that was an interesting story that I didn’t know if you had heard it or not and I wanted to share that with you.
Patrick: No. It just goes to show you see this stuff and most of the rest of us just are affected by it.
Jim: Yeah, absolutely – and not even knowing. About my story, you asked. I’m a clinical hypnotherapist and I haven’t done hypnosis in years, meaning the individual hypnosis sessions. And back in 1998, when I lived in New York City, I had a guy come into my office for smoking cessation.
And were a couple of streets from Wall Street and I constantly saw smokers. That was my biggest clientele was smokers. They’re traders, or brokers, or worked at Wall Street firms.
And a guy came in. He stopped smoking, and he called me a few days later and said, “Jim, I stopped smoking.” He was a high net worth account manager at Goldman Sachs. And he says, “I’m in sales. What did you do to me? How did you just talk to me and get me to stop smoking?”
And I said, “Well, there’s different things that we use as a hypnotist and, mainly, it’s taking you in a trance and then using what we call conversational hypnosis which are language patterns, meaning I talk to you in a particular way and I lay unconscious suggestions for behavioral change.”
And he said, “Well, Jim, is it possible that you could teach me some of this stuff so that I could use it with my clients so that I could influence them to be more responsive, to act quicker, to be more respectful and to get them to do things that would help me facilitate the sales process?” And I said, “Well, Rob, absolutely.”
And really, Rob, when he said that, a light bulb went off in my head and I started thinking what if I could take all the tools that a hypnotist uses, all the things that a hypnotist uses to get people to be compliant, all the things that a hypnotist uses to drop suggestions, all the things that a hypnotist uses to get people to change their behavior – what if I could take these things, map them over into just everyday words keeping the integrity of the hypnotic language pattern, all the things that a hypnotist would use, all the tools, but mapping them over into mainstream use?
And that’s what I did many years ago and I started getting amazing results. When I would teach people how to use the skills, they would start using them in just everyday business interactions and they were saying, “Jim, I’m getting my clients to say yes a whole lot quicker or even to say no a whole lot quicker. I’m getting compliance. I’m getting people to follow me. I’m getting people to call me back.”
So, that’s basically my story in a nutshell is that I was a hypnotist and I took all these patterns that are used in clinical hypnotherapy and just mapped them over into the everyday world and applied them to the business situation.
Patrick: Now, with doing this, you’ve been able to speak in front of groups all over the country. What were some of the things that you’ve been sharing along the way?
Jim: Two or three things in particular relative to the program. First is – and research demonstrates this just like the Campbell’s label that I was just talking about – is that people first make their decisions unconsciously before they ever make the decision analytically.
Now, analytical is left brain. Analytical is what everyone’s been taught to sell; features and benefits. And I’ve heard many people in IT say, “We have a very technical sale with a lot of steps and a lot of information and it’s an information based sale.” Well, that may be true and that’s all left brain, yet that almost be processed unconsciously first. So, that’s one of the things.
Secondly, research demonstrates that we don’t know why we make decisions. Literally, as human beings, we do not know why we make decisions which means we do not know why we buy. We think we do, yet we don’t.
It’s because the left brain has to analyze and the right side of the brain, which is the seed of the unconscious, is actually the side of the brain that buys.
Doing hypnosis, taking it back to a very human thing, when I did weight loss sessions many years ago, women would say, “I overeat and I eat a lot because I’m bored, or I’m lonely, or I’m depressed,” or whatever it is. Well, that’s not true. They eat because they eat, because all people get bored, or lonely, or depressed, or whatever and they don’t eat.
So, what happens is people do things and then they have to analyze and rationalize their behavior. So, what makes my program different is this. Almost everyone goes out in the world and sells features and benefits and if they don’t sell features and benefits, they’re selling reasons.
And they’re talking to the left side of the brain, which is the linear side of the brain, which is 5% of mental function which does not the side of the brain that buys. So, basically, they’re selling to the wrong side of the brain and then wondering why they can’t sell more.
Go back to the Campbell Soup label. They knew that soup label, they now know that the old one appealed to the wrong side of the brain. They want to appeal to the right side of the brain which we now know is the side of the brain that makes all buying decisions.
Patrick: Wow. Well, I’ve always been taught. I used to teach sales training and stuff like that. And you always teach people buy emotionally, and then they rationalize their decision which is what it sounds like you’re saying.
One of the things I know about your program is that you really walk people through the rest of the story because there are so many things that go into that emotional or subconscious decision. It’s everything from the way you shake your hand all the way up. I know it might sound like basic sales training, but that’s not.
What you do is you create – well, you create a story from what I can understand. And then you create a way of reaching out. So, I’m really curious as to what really are you doing to create the success you’re having, Jim?
Jim: Okay. What I’m doing is I’ve taken three disciplines; neurolinguistics which is NLP, social science which has been done for 30 years, University of Research which has looked into what drives people to buy, what drives human behavior, then unconscious language patterns.
[11:36 inaudible] were created back in the 50s by Milton Erickson. And the thing is even though a person may know hypnosis or have hypnotic training, they don’t know how to take the pattern and apply it into business application.
So, what I’ve done – and you talk about taking people through steps – have taken all three of these disciplines, these modalities, I’ve combined them in different ways.
For example, people who study just social science; they never talk about neurolinguistics. People who talk about NLP; I’ve never really seen anybody take and merge that into the social sciences. And then people, for example, who do hypnosis probably also never look over at the social sciences and behavioral research to understand what six things unconsciously derive from the behavior.
So, I’ve taken these three disciplines and I’ve crafted them and created patterns and paradigms people can use so they can better understand step-by-step how to move people to action. I’ve taken all three of these disciplines and literally created a formula, meaning when you’re talking to someone, how are they communicating back with you unconsciously? And it’s very simple things.
And I want to say something here. It’s very simple in that is a person auditory, visual, or predominantly kinesthetic? Everybody runs a predominant system; auditory, visual, or kinesthetic.
And I’ll have some people that will say, “Jim, I had training in that years ago. I learned some of that from Tony Robbins – good stuff.” Yet, I watch them and they can’t demonstrate it. They talk about it, yet they can’t demonstrate it.
So, I’ve taken all this apart, broken it down step-by-step and then, in my training, I pull people into it and then walk them through every bit of it showing them how to use it any situation in life with any that persuade or any that influence someone to do something. And that’s what I hear more than anything else is that I’ve made it very easy for people to understand and use.
Patrick: Well, what kind of results have you been seeing, Jim, from others that have taken a class? I can vouch for you. I’ve taken a class. Years ago, I was a certified presenter with Zig Ziglar’s organization. I worked with Zig for about a year. It was amazing; great [13:50 inaudible], greatest salesman in the world.
And I know that Zig naturally does a lot of what you’re talking about just from his presence, the way that he operates in life. He really touches people.
But, when I saw what you were doing, I saw how I could open more doors than I ever thought possible just by using some of the tools you teach. I have not mastered your technique, but I sure use it a lot more than I ever thought possible and it has opened doors for me in massive ways. But, what have you heard from others?
Jim: First things first. Any time we do anything on the Internet these days, the FTC has changed the ruling the last couple of years about making claims, and testimonials, and this and that. First off, all of the testimonials on my website are all unpaid.
What I can say is this. I do not know what somebody will do with what I share with them. Some people could take it and never use it. Some people take it right away and they just go like gangbusters with it. So, I don’t know what a person will do with the material, yet I do know what the material will do for them when they use it.
Now, that being said, I’ve had people call me and say – I had somebody last week. He owns a landscaping company. I tried people from all different industries; national, national IT experts, and SEO and SEM experts, salespeople from large corporations and IBMers. So, I’ve got the entire gamut of selling professionals.
I had a guy last week call me and say, “I had eight appointments yesterday.” This was after the full-day training. He goes, “I had eight appointments booked. Of those eight, I closed seven. That’s my all-time one day closing ratio.”
I had another guy – he’s actually one of the testimonials that I’m using. His name is Brian Johnston. Brian said, “Your techniques are making me at least an additional $30,000 per quarter because it’s helping me move people through the sales process a whole lot quicker and getting them on board or getting them off board a whole lot quicker so they stop wasting my time.”
Now, I hear this a lot. I can’t tell you. I have pages and pages and stacks of people that have said, “I closed a $50,000 sale that I was about to lose because I wasn’t sure what to say. I went back to the office, I went through the training manual, I found a technique to use, I used it and the person went from we’re not sure to okay,” or, “I closed a $4,000 deal,” or, “I made $10,000,” or, “I cut down my selling cycle by 50%.”
These are things that are on my website. I’m hearing these things all the time. So, we’re getting significant results out there with people who apply the information. That’s for sure.
Patrick: Well, I know that’s a real key. Implementation is everything.
Jim: Sure.
Patrick: I know that when you’re talking about all these different people from the IT, to the IBMer, to basically almost the direct salesperson out there, who really is your ideal client?
Jim: That’s an interesting question. In business, you always want to know your target market. You’ve got to know who you’re selling to. You’ve got to know who you’re trying to reach.
The interesting thing about me is I’ve got a predominance in that I’m looking at the psyche of people that are sitting in my classrooms. First off, an intangible, my target market is people that are good at what they do and they want to be really good at what they do.
People that are already closing business may say, “I bet there are ways that I can become even a better closer,” because I teach people to close like, what I call, a velvet hammer; meaning you’re going to close that sale and a person doesn’t even know that it’s being closed.
If you want real demographics, I attract the 30 to 55-year-old age category, people that have had some sales training. My students will say, “Jim, I’ve been to Miller Heiman, Bosworth, Chandlers, spin selling, consultative selling, Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins and every other sales training program under the sun. Yours is different.”
Well, yes. Mine is different. All those programs are about why people buy. My program is about how people buy unconsciously. When you know how they buy, you can then influence why they buy.
I attract a very heavy dose of IT. In particular SEO, search engine optimization and search engine marketing, and I attract a large dose of people that want to learn how to write better sales letters, better web copy, and online conversion.
The thing is, Pat, they come from all industries; everything from a flooring company to Wall Street. I’ve seen it all.
Patrick: I believe. Until you had said something about copy; ad copy or anything like that, that was something that I was real curious about is how well it converts into, literally, ad copy to letters.
But, what’s real funny is where I use it most is I use it on Facebook and some of these others just out there creating a story.
Jim: Absolutely. You’ve got it right – creating a story and that the unconscious mind thinks in stories. I teach people how to create, move people to positive stories, negative stories, associative stories, disassociative stories online.
One of my students owns a goal setting software. He said, “I do Google pay-per-click and I just used some of the persuasion words in your program,” which were the actual persuasion words that I told people to put into their web copy and their sales letters. And he goes, “My click-through rate went from 1.3% to 2.9% overnight.” Basically, what he told me was he’s doubled his click-through rate and I hear that all the time – all the time.
I hear that a lot and I’ve got people in my class that do SEO/SEM. They take all the information out and the first thing they think is and they ask me to help them, “How can I apply this to online conversion?”
The biggest thing is that by Google Analytics, in Google Algorithms, websites when it comes to webpage ranking, people create web pages to be read by the bots; by the robots, by machines. And the websites go to the top of Google, but they don’t convert because people make them for machine consumption so they’ll go to the top of Google, yet it’s the human that’s not being persuaded because the website is not written in the right format to persuade the human to ahead and buy on the website.
So, even in that industry, there’s a multitrillion dollar disconnect between what a machine can read and the way the unconscious mind reads and many students will take the information right away and start applying it to online marketing.
Patrick: Right. Well, one of the things that I’ve seen is that there are some tools. You can use tools to get a certain page ranking, and then you can actually go back in and start to add new content that is completely in the genre and the way that you’re talking. So, it’s a little bit of a progression. It’s get seen, then get heard.
Jim: Sure.
Patrick: Rather than a lot of people that started in Internet marketing, they want instant Internet copy. They want it right now, done. It starts cranking out $100 bills per hour. It just doesn’t happen. You grow a tree; it takes some time.
Jim: Absolutely. I agree.
Patrick: Well, Jim, one of the things I want to make sure is that people know how to connect with you. So, what would you like people to do?
Jim: Go to my website, MindAuthority.com. I’ve got an e-book on there The 10 Biggest Persuasion Mistakes that Most Selling Professionals Make which literally covers ten foundational things that I see every day.
Now, I know there’s a listing here on the call. I said that I track really smart people. The first thing that a lot of people do is think, “I’m doing okay. I’m doing good with sales. I don’t need anything else.” Well, that is actually backwards thinking.
The number one thing that keeps people in any industry at any level from creating more sales is information, education, and application. Actually, that’s three things – information, education, and application.
Go to the website. Download the e-book, The 10 Biggest Persuasion Mistakes that Most People Make. There’s also Closing Lines there. Actually, I’m going to give away NeuroPersuasion, which is brain persuasion, Closing Lines – lines that people can use right away out in their sales situations to start closing more business.
And then they can look at the blog. There’s videos on there. I’m going to put about a dozen more up in the next three to four weeks. Watch the videos where I take apart part of the e-book and I show people, actually visually talk about and auditorily show people how to become significantly more influential and more persuasive in their everyday activities and in their selling situations.
Patrick: That’s really good. Now, I know when you go to MindAuthority.com, you’re going to see his upcoming events and I know this is done in 2010, but I expect this recording will be on the Internet for some time.
Jim: Certainly.
Patrick: So, go to MindAuthority. Check Jim’s upcoming events. You do half-day, full-day seminars?
Jim: Full-day. We’ve got seminars here in Dallas. I enjoy not traveling as much as I used to. So, right now, I’m doing them only in Dallas. Yet, the demand is – I’m getting calls from all over the country.
So, what I’m going to do probably in the next three or four months is every quarter, I’m going to do maybe one in Atlanta, one in New York, one in Chicago, and one in San Francisco or something. For now, they’re only in Dallas.
Patrick: That’s great. Well, I know that while you’re here, anybody in the DFW area should connect right away. If you’re within 1,000 miles of Jim, you should go to his class because it will probably put more than you can imagine back in your pocket in sales and growth in your business just because if you understand the way that people buy, then you’ll affect them in every area. You will persuade them to do the right thing by them in every area.
And that’s what we really want. I really want to bring people into training that will affect the rest of their lives, that will place them as a leader and authority in their field and in their profession so that they can [24:32 inaudible] in a way that is massive. So, Jim, I really want to say thank you. I appreciate you being on the call today.
Jim: Thank you, Pat. I really appreciate you inviting me on the call today. I know that people, when they go to the website, they’re going to get great information and they’ll really start thinking – and I hear this all the time – they’ll really start thinking about selling in a whole new way and will start getting much better results in their selling activities. So, again, I appreciate you letting me reach out and help your listeners.
Patrick: Thank you so much, Jim. Again, go to MindAuthority.com, download Jim’s book. Do the right thing for yourself and for your family to begin to change this generation. I know that if you do, you’ll be blessed, you’ll be changed and I guarantee you’re going to see massive results in your life. Again, go to MindAuthority.com.
This is Pat Dougher, New Millennium Leadership. I’m so thankful for you being here. We’ll talk to you all next time.
Jim: Thank you.

Kevin Wilke of NitroMarketing with his Local Business Money Machine continues to Have High Impact

Watch this interview I did with Kevin Wilke recently.

I have seen in my own life the effects of the Local Business Money Machine. It added several thousand Dollars to my income over the past year. It is also a great way to keep up with Technology on the internet and with internet marketing. I would hope that you will give Nitro a chance to teach you some powerful tools for either earning an income offering Internet marketing to local business owners or to use these ideas in your own business.

Ceramic Performance Works at Increasing Power and Lowering Emissions in a massive way. Watch this video to learn ways this engine treatment is changing the highways to the Nascar raceways.

After viewing go to cerbond.com
Remember to use account ID 10034 when you set up your new user account.

This was a training I did at a Friday meeting for Business Blitz for Compliments International. I highly recommend you joining this Meetup and learning some of the insider secrets for Internet Marketing.

Patrick Dougher Shares his opinion of David Schirmer’s Law of Abundance Seminar.

This was a great workshop that changed my life. If you get the chance to attend… Just Do It!

Register HERE for workshops and information.

Tax Talk with Jeff Pickering CPA, Brad Bolinger and Patrick Dougher on the Coming Tax Tsunami.

Patrick: Welcome to Tax Talk. This is Patrick Dougher. We got Jeff Pickering CPA and we’ve got Brad Bolinger of Bolinger and Hogue or bigtaxlaw.com.
We have got a great show for you today. I know that many of you want to get your tax questions answered and so we encourage you to call in at 214-787-1570.
Jeff Pickering CPA, Masters in Taxation, Brad Bolinger CPA and Estate Attorney. So, we’ve got some real rich value and wisdom sitting at the table here. 214 -787-1570 for your questions on today’s show and how to save you some money this year on taxes.
And I will tell you we’ve got some real concerns with higher taxation. Earlier, before the show started, Brad was mentioning that it looks like we may be on the road to 60% for the small business owner. Wouldn’t you agree?
Jeff: Yeah, that’s right. We’re comparing all the taxes that somebody has to deal with and 60%. But, if you live in New York, that’s more like 70%.
Patrick: Ouch. Well, I know we’ve got several deadlines we want to go to before we get too far into the show.
Jeff: Sure.
Patrick: What are some of the deadlines?
Jeff: Yeah, we’ve got our usual March 31st deadline to buy a Ford Fusion or Mercury Mariner hybrid and get the credit, April 15th, the big one; individuals, partnerships, trusts, your first estimated payment.
Extensions is a big one. Extensions are big. There was a recent poll done that says Dallas is number four in filing later in the US. So, we have a lot of people that file extensions, apparently, in Dallas.
Remember, you have to pay the tax because the extension is not an extension to pay. It’s just an extension to file. And if you don’t know how much that is, you just kind of have to guess and pay your tax with the extension.
Brad: Folks, that’s a good point right now I want to bring up. I’m Brad Bollinger and I want to thank Jeff for inviting me here today.
There are some golden opportunities here and if you miss them, the window is shutting, so you need to take advantage of these tax tips, folks. These are real and they will make a difference in your taxes.
I want to thank Jeff for inviting me to talk about estate tax planning. I cannot overemphasize the fact that you’ve got to plan now and you’ve got to put some things in place because we’ve got important deadlines coming. And once those deadlines are past, it’s going to be too late.
The famous Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius, his biggest quote was, “Life is more like wrestling than dancing,” and that it should stand ready and firm to meet onsets, however unexpected.
Folks, you’ve got to treat your tax planning like a wrestling match. You’ve got to put yourself in the right position and you’ve got to work at it because if you treat it like a dance, then come midnight, I think you’re going to end up owing a whole lot more taxes and missing out on golden opportunities. So, with that, Jeff, I’m looking forward to today’s topic.
Jeff: Great. Yeah, thanks Brad and by the way, for those of you who are interested to know what happened to Rex, we didn’t put him in a closet anywhere. He’s actually having fun in San Antonio. And Brad is the other half of Bolinger and Hogue and we’re glad to have him here.
So, we’ve got callers. We’re going to talk about the Obama thing, but let’s go. Let’s get somebody.
Brad: Very good. Okay. Rahm, you’re on the air.
Rahm: Yes, I got a 1031 exchange question. If I have [4:28 inaudible] property, let’s say, $200,000 and I want to exchange it, then I have to buy exactly $200,000 or if I buy, let’s say, $150,000 worth of property and then $50,000 might be profit on me or how does it work?
Jeff: Yeah, basically, the 1031 means you cannot touch the money. Otherwise, you get the tax consequences. And what it does is if you’ve got a $200,000 property, the gain is the part that gets rolled into the new property. By the way, your name is Rahm?
Rahm: Yes, Sir.
Jeff: Yeah. Were you a listener on our other radio show or did you just happen to find us?
Rahm: No, Sir. Yeah, I was listening to previous shows.
Jeff: Okay. Well, thanks for following us over here to KLIF.
Rahm: I’ve been listening since 9:00.
Jeff: Great. Glad to have you.
Rahm: So, in other words, if it’s a free and clear then how does it work? Do I have to buy $200,000 exactly or more?
Jeff: No. You’ve got $200,000 in a house, is what you’re saying. What’s the amount of gain you’re going to get on that $200,000 sale?
Rahm: Probably about 70.
Jeff: 70, okay. So, you’ve got to buy something at least 70.
Rahm: Okay, that’s what my question was.
Jeff: Yeah, if you bought something 70, then you would have a zero basis carryover.
Rahm: So, whatever my depreciation left on my house, I cannot go less than that. Otherwise, I’ll be paying the taxes now, right?
Jeff: Right. And Rahm, one thing you got to remember is that you have to go through a qualified intermediary.
Rahm: I understand.
Jeff: Okay.
Rahm: Thank you very much.
Jeff: You’re welcome. Thanks.
Patrick: Thank you so much, Rahm. Again, 214-787-1570 or 800- 583-1570 outside the VFW area, or if you have a Sprint phone, it’s just pound KLIF. 214 787-1570 to get tax questions answered from two extremely qualified tax experts. I’m really thankful that both Jeff and Brad are on the show. Both are CPA’s. Brad is an estate attorney as well.
One of the things to mention is these guys are local. If you look at Jeff Pickering’s office is at 6533 Preston Road, Suite 300. And his phone number, if somebody was to try to call him, they can call. There are people standing by. Is that correct, Jeff?
Jeff: Yes, there are people right now if you want to call the office at 972-378-5200. If you’re too shy to ask something on the air, then you can have an appointment or we can answer something off the air.
Patrick: It’s 972-378-5200. And Brad, you guys are up in Frisco.
Brad: We’re up in Frisco and I would just like to add, due to the volume of calls this week that we’ve had in the past on questions about taxes and estate planning, I have committed myself to this afternoon, taking phone calls one-on-one to anybody calling this afternoon. Again, my number is 972-309-0104. You will get me and I will talk to you one-on-one. You won’t get an in taker, but you will get me. I will be there.
If the lines are busy, please, I want to talk to you. Do not give up. Just keep calling. That means all my five lines are busy. We have been full the last couple weeks. If I’m working with someone else or on the phone right now when you call in, you’ll get a recording. If you get a recording, please give me your name and number and I will call you back today.
I have committed to do that with Jeff and you, Pat, and I want to do that to our audience. I’m looking forward to helping you, so take advantage of that.
Patrick: Very good. Well, one of the things that you want to make sure is that if you dial the 972-309-0104, that you find Brad’s extension. Listen for Brad’s extension and go to Brad’s extension so you get in his voicemail box if you end up going to that. Otherwise, 214-787-1570 or #KLIF on your Sprint wireless phone to get your tax answers to the questions you’re asking. We’re so thankful for your listening to us today. We’ll be right back.
[commercial]
Patrick: And welcome back to Tax Talk. This is Patrick Dougher, Jeff Pickering CPA, Brad Bolinger CPA and Attorney in the North Texas area.
If you’ve got questions how to lower taxes and to really do some estate planning, you need to call in and get some answers. It’s 214-787-1570 or #KLIF on your Sprint wireless phone.
I will tell you that you do have the opportunity to talk to Brad this afternoon, as well. Is that correct, Brad?
Brad: That’s correct, Pat, and I’m anxious to do so. We have lines holding right now, Pat, for people that need their questions answered. So, let’s get to them as quick as possible.
Patrick: Very good. Let’s go ahead. We’ve got Mark. You’ve got a question buying a new house.
Mark: I bought a new house in December and doing my taxes, the tax guy called me and said I need to get the previous five to eight years of the 1098 form in order to qualify for the tax credit.
Jeff: So, you bought a house…
Mark: I owned a house prior to that and got divorced.
Jeff: Okay. You owned a house prior to that and got a divorce, then you bought one and you’re going for the one that’s the five year period, like the additional credit for people are not considered first time homebuyers.
Caller: Right, the second homebuyer; the additional tax credit for the second homebuyer.
Jeff: Okay, so I understand that part. What is this business about the…
Caller: My tax guy says that I’ve got to show my last five consecutive years out of the last eight for my 1098.
Jeff: Yeah, so you wouldn’t have one if – oh, you mean because you’re considered a continuing buyer. The IRS is auditing 100% of first time homebuyer credits and continuing homebuyer credits. So, I would say that anything you can do to shore up that and make it easy for them to understand it, that would be helpful.
As you know, the IRS has on file already a copy of your 1098 because they have that attached to your social. But, anything that would save them the trouble of looking up or trying to search through a computer system would probably help.
Mark: Could I go through my mortgage company of my first house and say, “Hey, I need the last eight years,” and they could supply that?
Jeff: Yeah, I would try. Personally, I’ve never tried to get an old 1098, but they’re required to keep a copy. They’re not required to keep a copy forever, but they’re at least worth a try.
Mark: And he said another option was my insurance company for the insurance on the house. Do you know anything about that?
Jeff: His point is you have to prove that you were an owner, so insurance would help. Title records would help. If you go to the website of the appraisal district, then probably it will show that you were the owner, so that might help too.
Mark: Okay.
Patrick: Thank you so much, Mark.
Jeff: Thanks, Mark.
Patrick: One of the things that I also wanted to make sure we mention on the air is that, Brad, you have an estate asset protection seminar coming up on May 8th. Is that correct?
Brad: That’s correct, Pat. And we’re going to talk about protecting your assets from making mistakes, from the IRS, from overpaying your taxes and from just frivolous lawsuits or bona fide lawsuits. We’re excited about it.
We have spent over a year writing a report on the asset protection and we have had a peer review. Over half a dozen lawyers through the United States review the report. We’re happy to announce that it’s ready.
So, we’re going to start that off with a seminar the first of May. It’s going to be an all day conference and talk about how to protect your assets from creditors and from the IRS.
This new law that has just passed, there are so many new tax code changes that if you don’t plan for it – everybody’s going to be affected, but if you just put your head in the sand, you’re going to be affect much, much more.
There’s a new tax that people may not even realize. If you hire a new employee, it’s $3,000 extra tax if they come from a low income family. Well, that’s ridiculous. So, when you’re interviewing someone if you’re a small business man, why would you hire someone from a low income family if you’re going to be hit an additional $3,000?
There are so many laws like this that you need to pay attention. You need to take the advice of Marcus Aurelius and treat it like a wrestling match, especially this next year or two, and understand how the new laws will affect you.
Jeff is on top of the new laws as well as anybody I know. That’s why I’m passionate about it and excited working with Jeff because Jeff has always been a proponent of proper tax planning. Tax planning can save you.
My practice, my law firm, we just went through an audit Wednesday. We had an auditor at our office pouring through all of our records. So, I know from a business standpoint how people out there, how it is like to go through audits because I’ve been there. I’m glad to report that I keep everything squeaky clean and that’s the way I conduct my business, personally. It’s very important that people take action now, this year, because the tax man cometh.
Patrick: And he may be carrying a sickle when he does. 214-787-1570 to get your tax answers to the questions you have. If you want to sign up for the asset protection seminar on May 8th, I know you can contact Bolinger and Hogue at 972-309-0104. Make sure you leave all of your information, including a phone number, a couple of times so that they can follow up with you.
I know Brad’s going to be at his office this afternoon. Call and talk to him. He’s going to be answering your estate planning questions. And we’ve got a caller. We’ve got Frank on the line. Frank, you’ve got a question.
Frank: Hello?
Patrick: Go ahead, Frank. You’re on the air.
Frank: Yes. My name’s Frank and I was retired military. I spent 30 years in the military.
Jeff: Congratulations. Thank you, Sir, for serving our country.
Brad: We all thank you.
Frank: Oh, that’s alright. I loved it.
Jeff: Good.
Frank: But now, I put in for Social Security. They tax my military retirement, which I don’t really complain about because I started out as a Private and ended up a Senior CW4. I retired in 1994 after 30 years. But now, since I started doing Social Security, my taxes went up $2,000 a year. They took out my military stuff.
And I haven’t worked. I’ve got a bad back and stuff. I’m not on disability. I don’t believe in it. I think I could get on it, but I don’t believe we should pump the government for everything. So, I’ve got a bad back. Big deal.
But, it doesn’t seem right. They’re taxing me on my military retirement. I get Social Security. They tax me on that. I put in for Medicare Part B and they take a hundred and some dollars out of that.
I’ve never broken $50,000 a year, even now. But, even when I was in the military, I never made more than $50,000 and the way I read the forms and stuff, I’m filling it out myself, but I guess I’m going to owe $,2000 more than I did last year.
Jeff: Right.
Frank: But I read someplace with military that, usually, Social Security won’t bother your retirement, but it sure did mine.
Jeff: Well, your military benefits are increasing your income, your adjusted gross income and that’s causing your social security to be taxed
Brad: That law came around in 1996.
Frank: Oh, I thought it would be if you just went out and got another job after you’re 65.
Jeff: No. It’s all based on how much income you have.
Frank: Well, my taxable income is $50,000.
Jeff: Right. So, you’re taxed on your Social Security.
Frank: So, they just go by the regular tables because when I first came in the military years ago, even in Vietnam, I just got $110 a month in 1965 and ‘66. And I love the military. I didn’t stay in it for the money.
And they said, “Well, you’ll get a retirement. You get this stuff here and then when you get to be a certain age, you’ll get the military stuff and you’ll get the Social Security.”
Jeff: Yeah.
Frank: There was no such thing as overtime or anything else in the military. There still isn’t.
Patrick: Yeah. Hey, Frank, thank you so much for the call. I’m going to get Jeff to answer some other questions for you on. What are some little things in just a minute or so here, what is one or two things that somebody can do? Is it start a new business or is there anything like that?
Jeff: People are going to be trying to cope a lot of different ways with these new tax increases. One of them would be to start a new business; usually to invest in yourself in a business. Usually, most businesses will have two years of losses in general. So yeah, that’s a great way to do it. And long term investing is what we’re probably going to see.
Patrick: Yeah, I know that we were talking about that even before the show. And we’re going to have time for more questions, or answers to your questions. It’s 214-787-1570. We’ll be right back.
[commercial]
Patrick: Taxes, taxes, and more taxes. I’m convinced that the next few years, we are going to see a tsunami of tax increases. We’ve got Obama Care coming to the forefront. And I know, Jeff, you’ve got some concerns about Obama Care.
Jeff: Yeah, there are so many things. Just really briefly, before we get to our calls, President Obama signed this Obama Care Bill and it’s a ticking time bomb of tax increases scheduled to flow in. He’s definitely achieving his – this is definitely about the spread the wealth part of it, although he has made some broken promises about his promise not to tax people $200,00 –250,000 because there are seven new taxes that will affect people under $200,000, no matter how much income you have. Our Congress people have changed the language. It’s not a tax. It’s a voluntary contribution.
Patrick: Is it a voluntary mandatory contribution?
Jeff: It’s a mandatory voluntary contribution is what it is. Mandatory.
Brad: Well, thank God they got rid of the Medicare tax. Now, they just change it as unearned income Medicare contribution.
Jeff: That’s right.
Brad: No one’s taxed anymore. You just contribute on your own, I guess.
Patrick: I don’t know. To me, it sounds like putting a silencer on a flogger. It’s just, “Ow!” Just all kinds of taxes.
Well, we’ve got Joe on the line. If you’ve got a question that you need answered on taxes, it’s 214-787-1570. Joe, your question is about inheritance tax?
Joe: Yes, Sir. I had a family member pass away January 5th and I received a letter yesterday from the attorney handling with the trustee that they’re going to wait nine months, until the end of the year, to disperse any money. Do you know anything about what they’re doing in Congress about retro tax, like adding an additional tax or raising the tax?
Brad: Joe, that’s a really good question. Is it your mother who passed away?
Joe: No, my uncle.
Brad: Your uncle passed away. And I would, at this point, the attorneys that are handling that estate sound like they’re having good advice. It’s all in an upheaval right now for this year. There’s supposed to be no estate tax. However, there will be capital gains on any of the excess. Nine months, it may very well take nine months for them to file the return.
And what the letter seems to be saying to you is, “Listen. We’re going to take the maximum time we are allowed under law which is nine months to determine what the distributions to the beneficiaries will be.”
And to be quite frank, and I’ve got three of these on my desk right now, it is because the laws are in an upheaval in the estate tax. They very well may need the full nine months to determine what distributions, what inheritance you will receive because they’ve got to calculate the tax and they’ve to make sure there’s money enough to pay the tax. So, that is quite reasonable, especially this year.
Now, I will say this. What I do in my practice frequently is if I know there’s an inheritance, and I know there’s going to be tax and I know that there’s going to be ample amount of money, I will make small distributions to the beneficiaries. You know, pay out 5 –10%, but I always am concerned enough to make sure that the distributions that the trustee makes out, there will be plenty to pay the estate tax.
And so, nine months I know seems like a long time, but in this year, believe me, it’s not. And I’m sorry for your loss of your uncle. But, they must keep you informed by law and that’s what they’re doing.
Joe: Okay. Well, thank you much. Have a good day.
Patrick: Thanks again, Joe. Again, 214-787-1570. Now, I know that, Brad, you’ve got an asset protection seminar. Just to really emphasize that on May 8th, you’re going to be giving out tools that might have saved this family some real taxes. Wouldn’t that be correct?
Brad: That’s correct. Already this year, I know we’re working on a family just this week where the tools we implemented is saving the family $1.3 million dollars in taxes and I know they’re happy. The bad news is they still owe more money in taxes, but they owe a lot less than if they had not done any planning.
Patrick: It’s a key element, isn’t it?
Brad: That’s correct.
Patrick: And I know this year, it’s really important. Just a quick note. Bolinger and Hogue is out there in Frisco so they’re local guys just like Jeff Pickering is in Plano. (14-309-0104. You can talk to Brad this afternoon. And then, 972-378-5200. People are standing by at your office too, Jeff, right?
Jeff: Definitely, they are. And let’s mention our cross streets because we might be neighbors.
Patrick: Very good. Brad, you guys are out at 2595 Dallas Parkway in Frisco.
Brad: Just the next street north of 121 Gaylord. You just take that exit. We’re right there on the southwest corner there.
Patrick: And Jeff, you’re off of Preston Road at 6533 Preston Road.
Jeff: Right, between Spring Creek and Tennyson.
Patrick: Very good. Well, I will tell you, you need to call in to get your tax questions answered. It’s 214-787-1570. Jeff, Masters in Taxation with a CPA and Brad is a CPA and a tax attorney in the North Texas area at bigtexlaw.com.
Jeff: Let’s hit our extensions one more time, or our deadlines, because we’re deadline driven, so we’ve got our deadlines. March 31st, you’ve got to buy your Ford Fusion or Mercury Mariner hybrid to get the credit.
April 15th, individuals, partnerships, trusts, your first estimated payment, extensions, property tax renditions. This is your deadline to claim a refund from 2006 taxes. So, April 15th is a hard deadline for that.
Mark-to-market elections, Haiti and Chile contributions, you can actually contribute if you’re stuck for a tax deduction. You can actually contribute now and that will make an effect on your 2009 tax return.
Additionally, April 30th is the homebuyer credit binding contract date. So, you’ve got to have your contract. You’ve got to have your escrow down in order to take advantage of the homebuyer credit April 30th and then close by June 30th.
Patrick: Very good. 214-787-1570 to get your tax questions answered. It’s 214-787-1570 or 800-583-1570 if you’re outside the VFW area, or #KLIF on your Sprint wireless phone.
One of the things that I know was discussed off air and I think it’s really important. With the new Obama Care and the new taxes that are coming, there are some key strategies that someone could begin to employ that increase long term investing and possibly, starting certain types. What type of business should somebody open?
Jeff: Well, first of all, we should always open one to make money; the profitable ones. And we’re going to do a show on that. We’re going to do an annual show and it’s based on a poll of what businesses are doing well and we’ll talk about what business to open on a later show.
Patrick: Very good. But, I know there’s like S Corps and C Corps.
Jeff: Oh, okay, so the form of business, yeah. So, before you start, you’ve got to make sure that you get the right form because we do wind up cleaning other people’s messes. Especially, if you go to the online $99 thing, you may be wasting your money and causing yourself some headaches.
Brad: And folks, that’s very huge to start your business up right because the first year, many times, oftentimes, you will have a loss because you’ve put a lot of money in and it will take, on average, up to 18 months to get something profitable, get a good business profitable. And so, you need to take advantage of those losses.
If you don’t set up the right entity, the right form, Partnership or S Corp, what will happen is you’re going to max it out at $3,000 of loss. Well, you may very well have more than $3,000. What if you put in $50,000?
Well, you want to have the ability to be able to get a refund on prior years’ tax returns that you’ve paid. And if you don’t set your company up right entity-wise, that’s going to be greatly restricted.
So, I encourage anybody who’s going to set up a company, a legitimate business, to speak with a professional such as Jeff or I, so from the get go, you’re taking advantage of every tax opportunity out there.
Jeff: Great.
Patrick: Very good. Well, one of the things that I want to do is encourage you to call in 214-787-1570. We’ve got some folks lining up on the call. Get your tax questions answered.
If you can’t get them on the air, get them answered from Jeff Pickering CPA, pickeringcpa.com. It’s 972-378-5200. There are folks that are standing by there, as well as Bolinger and Hogue is 972-309-0104.
Rare opportunity, you can catch Brad this afternoon to get your estate tax questions answered. We will be right back.
[commercial]
Patrick: Welcome back. And really, you do need to get some answers to tax questions. I know that many of you are trying to save yourself money right now. You’re trying to save as much taxes as possible.
But, one of the keys that Brad Bolinger of Bolinger and Hogue said a little earlier in the show is planning for taxes needs to happen early and often. It needs to happen now. So, I know Brad will be available at his office, which is 972-309-0104, after the show. You can also call Jeff. Right now, there are people standing by at Jeff’s office at 972-378-5200 in his Plano office.
Also, if you’ve got any questions that you want to try to get in before we get off the air, it’s 214-787-1570. Derek, you are on the show. You’ve got a question about business taxes?
Derek: Yes, gentlemen. I heard earlier one of you d that there’s going to be new $3,000 tax for business owners that hire low income employees. Is that going to apply to part-time employees or just full-time employees?
Jeff: Yeah, most of the stuff I’ve seen on this Act is basically geared toward full timers. And most of what I’ve seen is it’s defined as 30 hours a week or more. So, it’s huge and we’re pouring through all the pages, the thousands of pages right now. But, I’ll tell you for sure where that provision stands and the definition of what is covered on our next show.
Derek: That seems quite counterproductive to job growth to create that and I don’t know what that’s going to do for businesses that have high turnover rate. Is there some type of tenure that they have to be there a certain amount of time before you’re hit with that tax or is it just the hiring in general?
Jeff: It looks like it’s a hiring in general. But, there are many things in this law that are just like that, that are counterintuitive and counterproductive. Tax on medical advices. That’s what we need. We need more expensive pacemakers, you know? [laughs]
Derek: I hear you.
Patrick: Thanks so much, Derek.
Derek: Thanks, gentlemen.
Patrick: Yes, very good. Well, Jack, I know that, Jack, you have a question on business owner new tax law, as well?
Jack: Yeah, I had the same question as the last caller, as a matter of fact. I was just trying to find out. I’m a small employer and all of our employees, typically, come from very low income households and that would be quite devastating to us if we had that because, again, we, like the same caller have a lot of turnover.
Jeff: That’s awful.
Brad: It stopped me. I was on the verge of hiring one employee and when I read that on Wednesday, it has stopped me. I’m delaying right now. We will get back with you next week and we will explain more the definitions.
Jack: When is the earliest that this will go into effect?
Brad: Well, part of the planning is going will go into effect in July, and then most of it will start kicking in January 1st of 2011. A lot of it’s delayed until 2014. We will have – I know, up to 50% of it will be delayed up until 2014. But, we will have the specifics next week if you’ll tune in.
But, the tax for new prescription drugs, that’s starting immediately, like July 1st. So, there are all kinds of new taxes. As we read more and as we understand it, we will inform you on this show. We will give you the definitions on employees and the $3,000. Hopefully, folks, we can get that changed. Everybody out there should just be in a hue and a cry on this part of the bill.
Patrick: I would figure that a lot of people would be real concerned about that right now. Thanks, Jack. I want to go to Steve. Steve, you have a long-term care as an independent company. Go ahead.
Steve: Limited liability corporation.
Jeff: LLC. Okay, Steve.
Steve: Yeah. What I was wonder was, I was reading the 1040 book and I cannot find it in the newest one, but it said in one little paragraph that you can have an LLC which is basically your business can be an LLC and you can pay your taxes for your own 1040 or you can take the option of having the LLC make out its own tax papers and its own business entity.
If you go the way of having it be its own business entity, does that necessarily mean that you would pay such things as FICA and Social Security tax?
Jeff: Not necessarily, Steve. You can have a couple of entities that will limit the amount of FICA that you pay. The most traditional vehicle is the S Corporation, but an LLC with other partners, active and passive partners, may achieve the same thing.
Steve: If you just said, “Okay, I want it to be its own business entity and I’m the only one who owns the LLC?”
Jeff: Okay. As a single member LLC, then you’re going to be limited to, basically, for flow through, you’re going to be limited to an S Corporation. So, you would want to make an S election on your single member LLC to taxed as an S Corporation.
Steve: Oh, okay. So, it would be an LLC, but it would also be known as an S Corp.
Jeff: Yeah, it’s like you have two identities. To the outside world, you’re an LLC. To the IRS, you’re an S Corporation.
Steve: And I would pay into Social Security and Medicare?
Jeff: There are ways to limit the amount of Social Security and Medicare you pay. It’s with planning.
Steve: I know it sounds strange, Sir, but actually, I don’t mind paying into it because I would like to go ahead and let it build up.
Jeff: You know, for some people, that’s actually a strategy, especially if you’ve got a wife that hasn’t worked and they haven’t had their quarters paid in. That’s one of the things that we do is we say, “Okay. We got this money. How about some to the wife?”
Steve: Okay, before you go off the air, if you don’t mind giving your phone number, I’ll get it off the radio. Thank you very much.
Jeff: Surely.
Patrick: Thank you very much, Steve. In fact, that’s the one thing I wanted to do is if you’ve got questions, we’re running out of time for the show, you need to call 972-378-5200 to talk to Jeff Pickering CPA. You can also visit his website at pickeringcpa.com. And they’re up in the Plano area, office 6533 Preston Road, Suite 300. So, they’re local and they’re here to help you.
Also, Brad Bolinger of Bolinger and Hogue. They’re at 2595 Dallas Parkway in Frisco. They’re just north of the 121 toll way. And you want to get to Brad at 972-309-0104.
Jeff: We’ve got to head off the air really quickly and I know we’ve got a board of callers. So, callers, if you would call early in the next show next week, we’ll hit your questions early. So, write them down and try to get them to us early in the show. We’d love to answer your calls.
Patrick: Very good. I know, Brad, one other thing is you’ve got your asset protection seminar. I want to make sure you tell a little bit about, what are you guys going to be covering in that thing?
Brad: Well, several topics. One of them will be entity formation; when you first start out a business, how to make sure that you maximize the tax benefits and at the same time, give you proper asset protection. If you’re a sole member LLC, there are traps you can fall into, if you’re a single member, that you need to avoid. And we’ll definitely go through that at the seminar conference that we’re offering. We’re also going to talk about several strategies that you can adopt one or half a dozen. We’ll give you strategies outright.
Patrick: Very good. We’re off the air. We’ll talk to you again next week.

David Schirmer on Learning From Leaders Hosted by Patrick Dougher talking about the Law of Abundance. David is speaking for Free at 254 E. Arapaho Rd. in Richardson from 9am – 5pm this Saturday March 27th.

Learn More about David’s Free Workshop here.

Patrick: Welcome to Learning from Leaders. This is your host Patrick Dougher. I have a great show for you today. I’ve brought a good friend of mine and a mentor that I’ve known for the last several years, on the show because, well, I wanted to share him with you. I wanted to show you a person that I’ve found to be not just a great mentor and teacher, but someone who actually has had a great deal of international renown with a movie that he was in a few years ago called The Secret.
Then, we met a few months later at a mastermind meeting, a meeting in Baltimore, and I was really stunned at how wise this guy is and what he brought to the table. We became fast friends and we’ve kept up with each other through Facebook and some other things because David Schirmer lives in Australia. He’s a good friend of mine and I’m so thankful that you’re doing the show. Welcome to the show, David.
David: Well, thank you. Glad to be here.
Patrick: Well, David, I know a lot of people want to know your story. You were with The Secret, but there’s so much more to you. So, tell me more.
David: I guess our story goes right back to – we lived in Far North Queensland. I grew up on a cattle station and then got married and was on the family farm for a number of years. But, I started to really question about the whole success philosophy, then started the manufacturing business and that went really good for a short time. Then, like sometimes in business, the wheels fall off.
All of a sudden we found ourselves massively in debt. We couldn’t pay our rent. We were about to be evicted from our home. We hadn’t paid the registration on our vehicle and were driving around in an unregistered vehicle. I was on unemployment benefits and without a job. So, we all of a sudden found ourselves in the situation that then perpetuated. It got worse, and worse, and worse.
That really puzzled me, because I’d seen people that I didn’t think were smart as what I was in school, and so on. And yet, here I was massively in debt and not knowing how to actually create an income to feed our family.
I exposed where the journey started, it really started for us. So, I started asking the question, “How come? How come some people create success and others wander through life and barely make it to death and never really achieve much at all?”
So, really, from that, I started to study. The first book I think I read was Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. That challenged me in a lot of areas. But, I remember going to a seminar and I was challenged by a statement that was given by George Bernard Shaw. The statement was, “It is a sin to be poor.”
Patrick: Wow.
David: That one statement really challenged me because I thought, well, I was brought up as a Christian and I was sort of taught it’s okay, it’s even sometimes right to just to be broke. So, I started to really question that whole concept about prosperity and abundance. That was the start of the journey.
So, as I did that, I had a thirst to learn more. I was also studying the stock market. I still didn’t have a constant income. And really, it was an evolvement of me, I guess. It was a process. But, we went from massively in debt, unemployed, couldn’t speak in public, we had four children at the time and in a very short time, we made over a million dollars in a year. And that was the primary reason why I was invited to be on The Secret was my story.
Patrick: So, something must have changed pretty radically for you to go from, in a sense, broke and unemployed – your words, to a million dollars in a year. What was the transition there?
David: I had read books and gone to seminars where it said, “All you have to do is write down your goals, your affirmations, and read them over and over again every day and your life will change.” I did that for about four years and nothing happened. Things got worse. So, I learned that that wasn’t actually the key to success.
I remember listening to a cassette tape by someone and something must have dropped. The penny must have dropped. All of a sudden, I realized what I was focusing on and what I wasn’t focusing on and the critical thing was – the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle, if you like – is how the mind works is why we actually have the results in our life that we have.
I’ve shared with people now for years on how the mind works, and the subconscious and results and so on. And I’ve had people even recently – I ran a seminar in New York and a person said, “I’ve been studying the mind for years and I thought how the mind worked until I actually listened to you and learned.”
For me, it was a real experience. It wasn’t from reading books or attending seminars. It was a real life experience where I was challenged. I was overwhelmed with bills coming in the mail, so much so I would just put them in the bin, and then I got the realization that my entire day was consumed by focusing on all the money I didn’t have and the bills in the mail.
That’s where that part in The Secret comes from, “I get more checks than bills,” because I realized, at that point, I had to focus on prosperity and abundance, regardless of my situation, no matter how terrible it was and how little power I thought I had to change it. I had to focus on abundance and prosperity. I had to focus on the check coming in the mail not the poverty that I was in because I learned, in that time, that by focusing on all the bills I had and being overwhelmed with that, all I was doing is creating the situation worse.
Patrick: Ow. So, once that began to change, what were some of the activities that you began to do to really restructure?
David: I always say to people, I would check how much money I didn’t have every day. So, I would go down to the ATM, before the Internet was available, and I would check how much money I didn’t have. Most people spend so much time thinking about money because they haven’t got it. And I say to people, “Imagine how much free time you’d have if you didn’t have to think about money.”
Well, one of the activities I did is the very next day, the postman came because I would dread when the postman would come, because they would just deliver more bills and I knew what it said in them. So, the next day the postman came, I actually got hold of the bills, opened them up for the first time in a long time, and I got a big, red texter and I wrote “paid in full” on the bill and I stuck it on the refrigerator. Got another one, wrote “paid in full” and I stuck it up on the wall, wrote “paid in full”, stuck it up in the bedroom – everywhere. We wallpapered our house with bills with “paid in full”.
Now, the truth is they weren’t paid. The creditors probably would have rather them to be paid, but I knew – I didn’t understand how the subconscious mind works as much as I do now, but I knew that something was happening and I was reprogramming the subconscious mind. I also got a bank statement and I wrote on the bottom of the bank statement exactly how much I wanted it to be.
Patrick: That’s good. One of the things that I want to do is make sure you that you come back for part two of Learning from Leaders. This is your host Patrick Dougher. We’ll be right back.
[break]
Patrick: Welcome back to Learning from Leaders. This is the second part. I’m Patrick Dougher. My guest today is David Schirmer. You might recognize his name from a little movie that came out a couple of years ago called The Secret. He was the Australian that got checks in the mail and car parts, if you can remember that story.
Well, when I met David and developed an awesome friendship with him, it had been probably eight months after The Secret came out. I saw David, we had dinner and I said, “David, I get it. I get The Secret. I understand. But, what’s the next level, because I’m not seeing what I want in my life.” And he goes, “Well, what do you want?” in a very Australian accent that I can’t impersonate.
I told him a number. And he goes, “Why so little?” I’m like, “Huh? I’m sorry, you totally caught me off guard.” And he goes, “Really, what if I told you that it would take the same amount of energy to go from where you’re at to where you dream to be as where you want to be? Would you be interested?”
Well, if a person as successful as David Schirmer asks that of you, I hope you’d say, “Show me the money,” which is what I did and I handed him the typical napkin because we were at dinner and he gave me this amazing answer. I’m thankful he’s my guest today. David, thank you for being on the show.
David: Thank you.
Patrick: I want to know more. I want to know. You said you started changing the way that you thought. You started changing your focus and started marking “paid in full” – papered your house with it. I think a lot of us can relate to being over debt and under employed, maybe, at some point in our life. What was the next step?
David: Well, part of the process was I realized that we can never outperform our self-image, the image we hold of ourselves. It doesn’t matter who you are, we all have a self image and really it’s another name for the programming in our subconscious mind. Now, most of us don’t understand what the programming is. We don’t understand how much it controls our outcome.
Literally, every decision we make, every day, about relationships, about money, about health, about everything in our life, we make those automatically based on the programming in our subconscious mind. Much of that programming – we actually received that in the first nine to twelve years of our life. So, we’re making decisions based on what we learned way back then.
Patrick: So, it’s like driving down the highway looking at the mirror?
David: Well, yeah, but it’s also not even knowing what we’re basing the decision on. But, we’re just making it automatically. It’s probably more like driving to work every day. You go the same way. You don’t know why you go that way, you just think it’s the quickest until, maybe one day, you discover there’s a shorter way or you want to go somewhere else and you end up at work.
It’s just a habit of what we doing, of what we do. So, every decision is actually habitual. For example, the way people look at money, the way they make a decision when they buy something, the way they choose their career, their house, their car, their partner; everything else. Much of that is habitual. So, if that’s the cause of it, then why don’t we address the cause?
So, I started to look at that and thought, “Well, okay, I’m habitually acting with money. I’m repelling it.” And most people do. Most people are actually not attracting wealth and prosperity, they’re repelling it. When we talk more about the lower vibration zone, we get to understand how that happens.
But, for the purpose of today, it’s literally that the only way we can change our circumstances or our results in our life is we have to change the cause of them. And the cause of them is not the things around us. The cause of them is not other people doing stuff to us or events and so on. The cause of it is actually the way we think.
More importantly, the cause of it is the programming or the images we hold in our subconscious mind. If a person holds an image of $40,000 a year, they cannot exceed that no matter how hard they try. They could get to $45,000 maybe, but they can’t get to $400,000. Now, that means if we want to change our results dramatically, we have to change the programming in our subconscious mind.
Now, I didn’t understand that, but one of the exercises I did is I created a future budget, which means I created a budget of how I wanted to live; hat sort of car I want to drive, not what I had. What sort of houses did I want to live in? What sort of traveling did I want to do? Now, that did a couple of things. One is I came out with a figure that just totally blew me away because, up until this point, I was living on less than $5,000 a year. That was my income. And I was trying to support a family and all with that. My wife earned some income as well, but we were on the poverty line.
So, that was my paradigm or my subconscious belief of what I thought I was worth. So, I did this budget and it came out at something like $43,600 per month,.
Patrick: Sweet!
David: I just about fell off my chair when I added it up. But, the thing is, something happened while I was doing that. See, to get to that figure, I had to go out and find out how much the house cost. I had to go out and find out what sort of car I wanted; how much that cost. I had to go out and find out all sorts of things about how I wanted to live my life, not how I was living my life because most of us are living life just looking at our present results and keeping on doing it.
So, I started to look at how I wanted to live it and that was where the change started to happen. If a person can get specific about the things they want in their life, they can change their life. But, most people don’t ever actually really decide what they want in their life. Now, I just experienced so much pain that I decided I was going to change. That’s what I did.
Now, as I said to you very early on in our friendship, I said that the subconscious mind has no concept of time or quantity. Paul said, in the Bible, that we have to renew our mind to get ourselves away from the worldly way of thinking. So, that’s what it was talking about; renewing the mind or the subconscious mind. Proverbs says, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”
So, we will only be what we think in our heart. Now, back then they referred to the heart as the subconscious mind.
Patrick: Oh, I didn’t know that.
David: Yeah, it is, because when you look at the Bible, the Bible breaks up – we are a spiritual being with an intellect with a physical body. Well, we have a soul and the soul is a mind, will, and emotion. Well, the emotion part of us is the heart, which is the subconscious mind – just another name for it. So, we have to change the cause. We have to change the image in our subconscious mind. That’s the part most people don’t understand nor do they understand how to change it.
Patrick: Wow. Well, I hope that you guys are really getting a lot out of this because in today’s show, David is literally showing you how to rewire what’s upstairs. It’s to break through the negative tapes and the things that are keeping you back from being where you want to be. So often, people look at their lives and they think, “I’m just not worthy of that.”
And I really would encourage you to give yourself a chance. Believe in yourself because what we’re talking about here is rewiring what’s here, rewiring what’s in our heart and really opening yourself up to the belief that you can do whatever you want to do, that you can become what you’re supposed to become, what’s a God-given right for you to be everything you’re supposed to be. With that, we’ll be right back.
[break]
Patrick: Welcome back to Learning from Leaders. I’m your host Patrick Dougher. My guest today is David Schirmer. He’s the Australian from The Secret. You guys remember that a few years ago. He got checks in the mail and car parts. I’ve seen that happen too. But, I’m so thankful for him being on the show today.
And one of the things we’ve been talking about is how to rewire your mind, how to tap into your subconscious and begin to program it to expect the right stuff. One of the things that I’m a real big believer in is that a lot of us, a lot of people, just don’t believe that they’re worthy of success or great success. They just wear this unworthiness cloth like that’s what they were meant to do.
And I would just challenge you. In fact, David, let me tell a quick story. Here’s the thing, folks, if you were to go back to the Garden of Eden and you were to see yourself from the view point of the angels and God walked up to this mud pie and He breathed into the mud pie and all of a sudden it started to change shape ,and form and the Spirit filled it and it was amazing. And you’re watching and you’re thinking, “Wow! He’s going to create a man! Whatever that is.” Right?
Then, you see him get done and He sits back and He goes, “Check that out!” And you look down and you gasp because He’s cloned Himself. The Creator created a creator. He literally made something that was just like Him.
Fast forward to today. I believe the angels still walk among us. They see us… You know what they do? They see His glory in you and they bow in reverence of His glory in you.
We sit there and go, “Oh, this glory of God thing? Hey, I only put this on when I don’t care what I look like.” And we just discredit, dismiss, and dismantle our authority. My challenge is that you would literally wake up tomorrow and say, “God, help me to co-create something magnificent in my life, and in my family’s, and in this nation.”
I challenge you to that this time because I want you to begin to free yourself to believe that you can be anything. David, thanks for being on the show. Thanks for enduring my story too.
David: Thank you.
Patrick: I want to get in to kind of the next step. Once people have begun to see themselves the right way, what do they do next?
David: I break down success or creation if you like – like you said, we are co-creators. How do we co-create? And I think it’s a very simple five step process. Most people are trying to make life complicated. One of my fortes is the stock market and I say to people, “Stop trying to make it so complicated. It’s not complicated. It’s very simple.”
And it’s the same with success. The first thing we’ve got to do is we’ve got to have a vision. Most people do not have clarity of vision. Now, there’s no sense in going on to step two, three, four, or five without a very clear vision. And I mean a very clear vision. People often limit their vision. It’s like when you said to me how much you wanted and I said, “Why so small?”
It’s because I understand that our subconscious mind, connected with the universe, connected with God is so powerful that we have scarcely tapped into it yet. God said, “Let there be light,” and light filled the entire Earth and the universe. And it’s still continuing to this day. Scientists even say that the universe is expanding at the speed of light today.
So, every second there’s a planet being created or a star being created that’s larger than the size of the sun. And from when he said, “Let there be light,” many thousands of years ago. So, that’s amazing.
And we have the same co-creative ability. The first thing is get a vision. It’s not to say, “Boy, it’s dark down there. That’s a dark place,” and complain about it and talk about what you don’t want it to be, but just let there be light.
If you want abundance and prosperity, what is it? How much do you want? And speak it out. That’s the first thing is to actually get a vision. We talk about the purpose of the imagination in our seminars and so on. That’s the first step. The next step is actually to decide to have a purpose or purpose to do, which means to cut off all other possibilities.
Then, you’ve got to believe, then you’ve got to act. A lot of people watched The Secret and they – I get emails from people saying, “I’ve watched The Secret 50 times and nothing has happened.” Well, that’s because you’re sitting at the kitchen table humming and contemplating your navel expecting the money to drop out the ceiling. You’ve actually got to act. You’ve got to do something.
The Bible says, “Faith without works is dead.” You’ve got to actually do something then, of course, gratitude. And again, the Bible says, “Praise. Praise God for everything. Rejoice in today because today is the day the Lord has made.” Even in our challenges, we have to rejoice because it’s through the rejoicing we actually see the opportunity.
So, it’s very easy to actually create success. But, most people do not understand that process. And I guess that’s the key is knowing what the process is and how to actually go through that process to, first of all, create change in the subconscious mind. Many people are trying to apply willpower to change their life and willpower will never give a lasting result.
There’s a vast difference between the will and willpower. That means the purpose of the will is to focus on how we want our life regardless of our circumstances. Jesus said, “When you pray, pray believing that it is already yours and it will be.” And there’s so much power in that. It’s not that we have to look at, “I want this,” or “I want that.” No. We have to actually pretend or believe that it already is ours and if we already believe it is ours, it will be. And that’s the power of it.
Patrick: I know that Paul Cho talks about being pregnant with the vision; that it’s actually in the Spirit and in order to bring it into reality, there’s a nurturing that has to happen. Well, I know that you actually have even some things, free downloads that somebody could get?
David: My three most favorite books in the whole world – first of all is the Bible; everything’s in there, there’s every bit of personal development in there. The next is the Think and Grow Rich book by Napoleon Hill. And the third is The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles. Now, I have actually run, many times, a seminar created on that book, The Science of Getting Rich.
I recorded it and have made that available – the whole two day seminar – made it available free online and people can just go to www.signpoststofreedom.com and they can just sign up and the download. They get a 20 minute clip or so about every two or three days, so they can work through over a 40 day odd period and go through that whole seminar. But actually, you get really into some of that information I was talking about.
Patrick: Very good. Well, I would encourage you guys to go to www.signpoststofreedom.com and really connect to David. I have been so blessed to have his friendship for the last several years now. I’ve been really thankful that when we get together, we always exchange what’s going on. We will connect via Skype, we’ll connect at Facebook and I would encourage you to connect to his fan page on Facebook.
The idea is that he’s got so much to give. He has so much wisdom and he was, in a sense, blessed enough to get on something that was just a conglomeration of a bunch of different people sharing their ideas. But, that gave him the opportunity to be in 20 or 30 million households to share a truth that could change their life, to introduce himself and what he’s saying that could open the doors for you to become everything you want to be.
And right now, I know that a large portion of the world and even in America that, man, people are in pain. So, I would encourage you to connect to David. What is that again?
David: www.signpoststofreedom.com
Patrick: Very good. It’s on the screen. It’s been a great show. I’m so thankful for David and our friendship and I really encourage you to connect to him because he has the wisdom that can really carry you through to the next level.
I really just encourage you to come back to this YouTube channel or other channels that it’s on out there on the Internet, and get to know some of the other things that we’re doing at www.patrickdougher.com because we’ve got a lot to help you get where you want to go. Thanks so much. This is Pat Dougher. This has been Learning from Leaders.

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