The Bush Brothers

Brothers, Michael and David Bush, have talked for years about entering into business together.  They’ve talked real estate.  They’ve talked franchises.  They’ve talked about things that cannot be repeated.  In fact, they talk nearly every day about what inspires them.  The problem for at least some of these two (:-)) was that talk was cheap.  Action must ensue so the talk doesn’t get tiresome.

In order to appreciate the “talk” and the way things have gone for years, read through the following string of letters.

December 5, 2005 - a day when the first snow of this winter was already falling heavily:

Did I miss the call for first snow dates this year?  I choose December 5, 2005.
David

December 6, 2005 - David’s Dad Responds:

I think we didn’t do it this year.  But, no matter, because I would have picked 12/5 before you anyway!  Since we missed it, I guess we could bet on the next one.

“Gee.  Thanks, Dad.”  Truly, this was meant in fun as most all of these conversations are.  Our family has enjoyed lifetimes of banter on most every topic and this was no exception.  However, on this day, the proverbial moon and the stars must have aligned because David marched on, inspired by his dad’s proclamation that he’d have won if only there was a game going on to begin with.

December 6, 2005 - Immediately after Dad proclaims “woulda [of shoulda coulda woulda?]” victory, David writes to Michael:

This is symbolic and revealing to me.  Dad says that he would have picked yesterday before me for snow, but he didn’t. I tried to sieze an opportunity and he only says he “would have.” Well, in other worlds, I do what he just did but I see my opportunistic spirit is alive and must only need a little help to break outside of my family and into the real world.  Make sense?  I’ve learned to be like Dad was in this example but I seek to break the mold.

FYI, we’re in the process of refinancing to 30yr fixed with some cash out to take care of several things that we’ll otherwise always say we’ll do “someday” (driveway, basement, deck, accountant, small jump-start on emergency fund, etc.).  It’s going to hurt for a few months but clears up a lot of uncertainty about our future and we’re poised to gain small incomes from Carol’s Crunch Care, my 3.1% COLA, my step increase in May, other opportunities(?).

December 7, 2005 - Michael responds to David in his usual well-written way:

Sorry that I didn’t respond yesterday.  I’ve been a little busy the past few days.  BTW - St. Mikulas is Santa Claus in Hungary, but Baby Jesus brings the gifts on Christmas (which is celebrated on the 24th in Hungary)…

I understand what you mean about being like Dad in some regards.  I see him as our “Poor Dad”.  He did a great job raising us to think like him in many regards.  I do understand what you mean about needing only a small nudge to break away from your learned thought process.  I think that it’s more than a nudge.  It’s a nudge to think differently for a moment in time.  It’s a change in life to make it permanent.  I don’t think that you can keep the same friends, have the same discussions with family, work at the same place, prioritize your activities in the same order, etc…  I think that one can make moderate changes in his/her life and achieve moderate successes.  In the end, I think that one needs to be with people they want to be like in order to be like those people.  Without learning the behaviors/thoughts of mentors/guides, it’s a brutal journey of trial-and-error, criticisms, and possibly self-doubt.  Teri and I both experienced something similar to this last couple of statements above while we were in Hawaii.  The prices of housing is pretty high.  It’s common place to see homes that are at a “relative” socioeconomic stratum as our Oriole Way houses go for $1M.  At first, it was shocking.  Then depressing.  Then we wondered how other people did it.  How do the blue collar folks afford their lower level, piddly $600K homes?  We learned how they do it.  We thought about how we could do it.  It was all a perception change because our perception was relative to what’s viewed as the norm (our norm).  By the time we left Hawaii, we saw a few really great deals for only $850K.  We laughed together as we discussed how $850K seemed so doable there.  Once we realized what had happened to our minds (they had been stretched with new thoughts!), we took a look at what we could afford here for $850K - $1M.  It all sounded so ridiculous to be in a “piddly” $400K home.  You can get a Studio apt in a run down frame building built in the 70s for that kind of money in Hawaii.  I’ve never realized that so clearly as I do now.  Rich Dad hated to hear people say “I can’t afford that” rather than “How can I afford that”…

The point of my story is that things are relative. Relative to what’s perceived as normal.  If you work with or hang out with people who think that it’s hard to make a living, carry consumer credit card debt, live only a few paydays away from bankruptcy, etc…  That’s your norm.  Even if you don’t carry the CC debt and have 1 year of money socked away, you think that you’re doing good because you’re better than what you perceive as the “norm”.  However, if you work with and hang out with people who have perpetual passive income to “fall back on” and possibly carry millions of dollars in income generating debt, your norm is quite different and so is the way your measure your own performance.  What’s your norm? This is a rhetorical question, but you might take a few minutes to think about what’s normal and what constitutes achievement.  I suspect that you have a hard time seeing a $1M home as typical, average and normal.  I didn’t even think about $1M+ homes a couple of months ago.  Before I made $50K /yr, I couldn’t have imagined $60K.  Before I made $70K / yr, I couldn’t have imagined $80K, etc…  It’s not a cost of living thing.  My personal income has gone from $50K in 1998 (a good income then) to $100K now (even better income).  I’ve gone from a 2 bedroom duplex (my first purchased home) to a 3/2 rambler to another house, ….  Now, after owning 6 homes, I’m in a 4/2.5 home that seems only average or normal.  The duplexes and 3/2 ramblers are still out there, but they were normal to me a long time ago.  When I didn’t have a college education and didn’t have friends who had a college education either.  One might think that this is normal as I may have used these years to accumulate wealth, but this is not the case.  Even today, most of the people I work with/for fail to accumulate wealth.  They live within their perceived constraints of having a paycheck.  Their paycheck limits what they can afford.  Their “norm” is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Their incremental enhancements in confidence will grow what they believe they can do and their paychecks will grow larger with time (i.e. becoming a supervisor).  But still, it’s normal to have a mortgage, car payments, big house, TVs in every room, and nice vacations. 

Lastly and probably most significantly, it’s normal to have a paycheck be your single or largest source of income.

Job ==> Paycheck
Not enough income ==> Debt
No job ==> No income

I may have gotten off track a little, but you may still get my point.  My point was the significance of relevance.  What we perceive as normal must change.  What we perceive as an achievement must also change to strive for something that is greater than what we’d like to see as normal.  It’s cultivation of mind that removes our self-imposed limitations.  It changes what’s normal.

On a slightly different subject, I’ll give you some positive feedback.  Reinforcement that you’re heading in the right direction.  In Robert’s book about Investing, he talks about the way smart people think.  When it comes to investing or growing a business, the smart people create value.  They do not find value.  The savvy folks do not look for “steal of a deal” and buy for resale (maybe some do).  They create synergies, see opportunities that others do not, think beyond what is considered normal!  How’d you like to have a bunch of friends who think like that?  Anyway - Your idea about Craigslist and selling items is a decent.  Even I have done that (with FreeCycle).  However, your idea about joining cheap or free items with auction house sales is a good one.  But your idea to take something of little use and market it with a history (story) to create value on something that would otherwise be junk, is most excellent. You’re creating value here.

Velcro. Wallet. Both are interesting. Velcro wallets? All the craze for some time. You getting it?

I’m not saying that simply adding a story to junk makes a lot of money or constitutes a business.  What I am saying is that thought process is something that you should cultivate.  You are skimming the surface of something that could differentiate you from “normal people”.  Or it could make you “normal” amongst the people who you’d like to be like!

We’ll talk when you have some time…

Love,

Michael

He’s good, isn’t he?

December 7, 2005 - Later that day, the challenge was made in this email from David to Michael:

All over the board but you can read it over…  First, thanks for the feedback. It is encouraging. Here’s some for you: as I read your lengthy, [omitted to protect the writer]-sponsored email, I felt like I was reading a note from Kiyosaki, himself. You’re extremely good at articulating your thoughts in writing and obviously, they’re good ones

I have a proposal for you - a challenge, really.  Temporarily, after your approval and a “kickoff” meeting where we discuss what each of us plan to do, let’s decide not to “talk when you have some time.”  See? Talking is cheap but something to talk about is priceless.  Let’s not talk at all about money or lifestyle in the context of self-improvement.  That IS our norm.  Do you want to transform - take it up a notch?  Here’s the thing:  We’re both pretty well educated in how we got to where we are, and how others did or did not.  Still, we’ve done little other than reading to ‘advance’ our norms.  We both have similar ideals, different ideas and different desired norms.  And yes, this is another “I will if you will” but my concept is simple and we’ll not be so worried about the potential for competition with others - just between us.

So we realize we both carry the inaction gene.  I’m offering a treatment.  Like alcoholics, we’ll always have the inaction gene but we can treat it with stimulation.  Let’s do something for ourselves.

I’ve always thought that I wanted to be in business with you.  Not that I wouldn’t enjoy it, but Carleton Sheets once said that the only reason to partner is because you need something that they have and vice versa.  Many times I’ve reflected on that and raised an eyebrow about my desire to be a partner with you.  All of the sudden, I think I see that partnering has been my (our?) focus, not succeeding.  ”And what’s been our biggest obstacle?” - constraints stemming from different lifestyles and different desires, thanks for asking  I realize that the best thing we have already is not the talk of partnering, it’s the thinking.  It’s the creativity and synergy that ebbs and flows between us.  That’s what we’re good at together and that’s what we’ve never capitalized on.  Ironically, I think we can capitalize on it by not partnering (in the immediate term) but instead, challenging each other.  If you watch Grey’s Anatomy, you must have seen where George goes hunting with his dad and brothers.  Remember when they talk about the cars, over and over and debate the same things, over and over?  We’re a little more ‘advanced’ than they are but the way we’re so sure of what’s a good idea and what’s not a good idea is sort of comical.  We don’t need to work together at a business.  We need to support each other in our business.  We’re already partners.  The partnership we have is intangible and considered by me as unbreakable.  Our partnership cultivates open minds but does not specialize in taking action.  I hypothesize that alone, we’re more nimble in the “taking action” department and I think we should spin off two new entities for “taking action” and see where it takes us. Our partnership can be viewed as successful and enviable, as is.

All that said, here’s my challenge:Let’s agree on a period of time - I’m thinking 3 months from your acceptance, during which we seek to generate income for the purpose of satisfying our own immediate, intermediate, and long-term goals.  Yours will be different than mine because I’m looking for more income now and passive income for the future.  You’ll probably focus more heavily on the passive income immediately since you’re not hurting for money right now.

Rules:
- Partner with anyone or noone, use resources you have already or those that you generate by borrowing, earning, etc. - the point of this exercise is to improve our position, financially (and maybe to write a book)*
- All activities must be reasonably (not necessarily) sustainable and not “one time” to win the challenge.
- All activities must be ethical
- Sign a contract to participate and agree to Journal entries at least 3 times weekly with whatever you want to write about (”no activities”, successes, failures, boredom, each other, etc. are all allowable for entries)

After the challenge period ends, we collaborate on a letter to many admired authors or moguls (Kiyosaki - rich dad, Robert G. Allen - One Minute Millionaire, David Bach - finish rich, others?) and some poor dads, and other family members - especially your successful in-laws, and ask them to critique our efforts.  After three months waiting for feedback (and we can even tell our letter recipients how long we will wait for a response), we decide who won.

The prize? a trophy-like bottle of dirt. (I’ll entertain an alternative)

Make no mistake, this is a real challenge.  Barring that, what do you think of these ideas?  Ideas that popped into my head just from this email:  1) My Letter to Robert Kiyosaki book that documents the creation of this game and becomes part of the Rich Dad series - 2) a game that starts with one person like you or me sending out prefabbed invitations to participate in this game to friends, family, co-workers at investment firms [certainly people that should practice what they preach but don’t], and others.

I’m making you a no-lose offer to be my partner by not necessarily being my partner.  If you want to change, you can’t reject this offer.  You can only decide when to accept it.  One dollar earned can be a success by measurable standards and if you don’t play this game, what will get you started?

I was thinking about proposing that we start on January 1 but I’ll be no less busy.  I’ll still be working on my basement, being a dad and husband, going to the dentist, dr., etc.  There’s no time like the present to step out and do something different.  Finally, as you’re well aware, if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.  How about it?

Love,

David