Here's my story
(a
completely objective and totally unbiased version)
You are here, most likely, because you are
debating on whether or not you should pay me for my help. The amount of money that
we're talking about is probably substantial, and it may include providing
ownership of some of your assets as well.
So I better make this good, right?
Because this is actually another chance for me to 'sell'
you on how much I can help you, and provide a carefully scripted
representation of what I've done for others and how I can do the same for you.
But I don't think I'm going to do that.
As I'm writing this, I'm realizing how often I'm using the
work "I" and I don't think I've ever used it this much because nearly all of
my communication is focused on the other party in the conversation - you.
So this is definitely a departure from the norm.
Alight, so what's your story Azam?
I've made two versions - one is short and sweet and the
other... well... it isn't. I made the second version because so
many people over the years
have asked questions about me, so this page should clear this up and serve
as a good reference in the future.
The Short Version
We (MoonMover and my Team) buy, sell and fix real estate
and companies around the Americas, Asia, the Middle East and parts of the UK.
I started by door knocking and cold calling and got some lucky breaks through
connections I met. Over the last 13 years we've been tweaking, testing
and improving our approach and models. There isn't a company or property
in the world that we won't turn into more money for you. To acquire deals with
us and buy right alongside me you can apply here:
www.AssetSecrets.com. If you
want work with our Team directly you can apply for a position here:
www.WorkWithAzam.com. To sell
your business, or grow it and then sell, or if you just need help getting it
to $50-$100M, you can apply for that here:
www.MeoMethod.com.
Azam Meo. That's the short version.
The (Very) Long Version
I remember once selling notebooks, pencils and stationary
door to door - I would walk through neighborhoods and get excited when I saw a
garage door open or kids playing in a yard because that meant somebody was
home.
A target.
All I needed was somebody to open the door, or smile at me
as they walked by or even just wave back after I waved - any of this was
opportunity enough to approach them and try to sell something.
I needed money.
And they needed whatever I was selling.
But only one of us aware of these necessities.
My goal at this time was to make enough money to make a
mortgage payment, pay for groceries - or any other monthly expense. I
didn't know the exact amount that was needed, I just knew it was more than what
I had.
I was in junior high.
I didn't know much about the details, but I knew that I
would have to move overseas if we didn't make our monthly payments, and - at
the time - I dreaded going overseas.
I'd love to tell you that I hated leaving because I would
have to leave all of my friends behind - or that my absence from school
would've caused an entire collapse in the social structure, but that would far
from the truth.
I never had many (okay... maybe any) friends and
truthfully my departures usually went unnoticed.
The real reasons I never wanted to leave America
were much simpler, and things that almost everybody in America thanklessly
takes for granted. I'm talking about electricity, chocolate, running
water, sunshine, etc.
If you've never left America - then you have NO IDEA
what a real life can be.
So why did I have to fight so hard to stay in America?
There's a simple reason for that too; my father was
very direct and honest with us. He had the stomach of a financial
daredevil - he actually quit his job, refinanced our house and started a new
business - all in the same day.
I never once heard the words "Plan B" come out of his
mouth.
So... we had to move a lot.
Sometimes we could afford to stay in the States, and
sometimes not.
When we had to leave I never had any idea where we
would go - from Eastern Europe (NOT Western Europe, the east side is
like Moulin Rouge, without the cool soundtrack) the Middle East, India, Old
India (Pakistan) - etc.
At one point I spoke over five languages, not from
taking foreign language classes but just from living in so many different
places.
When I was in fourth grade, in that one school year I
attended six schools in four countries. My teachers couldn't believe it,
I was like a permanent foreign exchange student.
So I've been around, and I remember hating it.
This may explain why I rarely travel today.
I'm terrified of flying and I have gone months without even leaving the house,
so much so that neighbors have come to my house and checked to see if I'm
still alive. There have been many times where a car of mine
won't start without jumper cables, not because it is old but because it hadn't
been driven in so long.
I'm not always this much of a hermit, and I know some
people will say this is unhealthy - but I don't do it on purpose or out of any
kind of phobia (it used to be a phobia) it is just that I'm not that person
that 'needs to get out'.
The exact opposite effect happened to my brother
and sister, by the way. I don't think I would recognize them if they
weren't vacationing, traveling or planning to.
Nearly everybody points to our childhood for creating this
mentality in us, and I have to say, the stuff that happens to you when you are
little really makes a difference - it really does.
Anyway - when we would leave I had no clue where we would
be going, usually it was to stay with a friend or family member, but I have over 100
cousins on nearly every continent so that really didn't narrow it down.
All I would hope for is running water, Western food and no mad dogs in the
streets (no I'm not joking!) and if those criteria were met then I would consider our relocation one that put
us in 'upper class'.
The criteria was almost never met.
From dodging runaway cows and taxis on the way to school,
walking three miles for a single Snickers that, once bitten, turned out to be
infested with spider eggs - to physically pulling shrapnel out of my brother's
back and living in a community of tents surrounding a single cooler - when it
comes to a 'humble beginning' I understand that more than many.
But not nearly as much as others.
And this is really my point.
Do you love "America"?
I know many clients and students are from outside of
America, but nearly all of you are in some variation of 'America'; the Western
world.
And, for most of you, you've lived that life for as long
as you know. We would have to go back generations for anybody in
your family to have any idea what a real life - outside of the American
luxuries - can be.
This is an important aspect about my story because when I
would see a child my age starving, or a family fighting for scraps from a
table or an elderly worker spending 14 hours a day in a 100+ degree weather
doing the kind of work that is outlawed here - I would wonder...
What's the difference?
I see that life and I feel bad for them, or sorrowful that
people are living like this and Id want to help - but for them that is just
life. They didn't have the opportunity that I did, and they still
don't.
And I would ask myself why - why do I have an
incredible opportunity and that privilege of seeing how great life can be in a
place like America, and they never even got the chance.
It seems so unfair, right?
Just the fact that you reading/watching my stuff right now
means that you are well ahead of most of the world, but what did you
personally do/say/accomplish to deserve - I mean really deserve - this?
No reasonable, even half-logical person would argue they
deserve what they've been given.
Even if you don't live in America per se, and I know you
may not, you still have to admit to - and be grateful for - the fact that
you don't deserve the luxuries you have. None of us do.
What I realized is that I won what Bill Gates calls 'The
Sperm Lottery' and the only real difference between me and the less
fortunate people I've come across - is pure chance. Plain and simple.
It has nothing do with intelligence, ambition, background, qualifications,
etc.
Like I said, understanding this - not just saying it, but
actually seeing and living it - is a big part of my story.
In fact, knowing how ungrateful we are changes
everything
It is the reason that, to this day, I have never, not once,
gone on vacation, called in sick, taken 'time off' - or even a single FULL
DAY off, worked less than 80 hours a week - or anything else that involves the
'laid back' lifestyle that we see and read about. People sometimes think
I'm crazy for being like this, and I assure you my lifestyle isn't what most
people dream about, but I don't feel like I have a real choice.
That's just me, I guess.
But this realization really changed how I saw the world.
Every time my family would have to move overseas I would
dream - and I mean actually dream - of coming back to America. I
knew it took money and time to make it happen so me and my brother would
always ask my father what we could do to help.
We would sell clothes, donkeys, repair televisions,
English lessons, camel rides - anything we could think of. And although
none of these activities made us rich, or even helped that much, it felt good
to know that we were at least getting a little closer. Maybe not
much, but a little.
When our finances bounced back we would move back to
America... until the next fallout or financial problem. And that's the
way it was growing up for me.
I want to take a second and point something out - this may
sound like me complaining or whining -
I'M NOT - I'm so incredibly
grateful to have lived this way and I honestly lose sleep trying to figure
out how to teach these lessons to my kids without actually have to re-live it.
It all happened for a reason, like everything else does.
And I'm extremely thankful. I should also point out
that my father was a very astute businessman, it wasn't the businesses
failures that caused the financial uncertainty it was the risks he took
- all or nothing - and his confidence to make it all back. We would
often have family meetings about what to do about a certain situation, and we
always told him what he taught us; you only live once, so shoot for the
Moon.
Anytime I ever talked to him about doing anything,
whatever it was, he always told me to never half-ass anything and that I could be the
best in the world at whatever I wanted - just hold nothing back and shoot for the Moon.
That ability to move the Moon, or make miracles happen, is
where I came up with the name for our company - MoonMover.
So thanks Dad, you've always been my hero.
I just wanted to make those distinctions about my
gratitude and my father, since he has become a larger part of this writing
than I initially thought.
Alright, well one of the times when were back in America I
came home from school and found my mother crying on the couch and my dad
sitting next to her staring at his palm.
This was bad.
He was never quite or solemn like this.
That afternoon I found out what a foreclosure was, and
later I would go on a 'field trip' to bankruptcy court and learn all about
that too. But right now it was about the foreclosure.
The first thought that went through my mind when I knew
were going to move wasn't necessarily what country or type of 'house' we were
going to, but for the first time I thought about how I would miss somebody...
a girl.
Quick note about the girl - she was much cooler
than me and I was sure she was 'out of my league', but she was nice to me for
some reason. The last day I saw her she gave me a picture of her dog,
which I never understood because it hated me. About 20 years later I ran
into her and admitted my crush. She called me a liar because she left a
note for me in the picture frame of that dog. That night I went home and
dug up the picture, because I still had it
(see, I thought of you too!) and checked it out... the note was there. It said
she wanted to keep in touch, she liked me, etc. basically everything I had wanted
to hear. I won't use your name in case you're reading this, and if you
are - sorry.
So anyway we had to leave.
I found out how much money we had to come up with and did
everything I thought of to make it happen, I sold door-to-door, cold called,
tried selling my teachers MLMs - in fact I wasn't 'allowed' to get detention
anymore because I kept nagging them to buy water filers, soap, cookies,
detergents - and whatever else I could make money selling.
It wasn't enough.
We left.
After a few months we were back in America.
And every time we would get back, I would get better and
better and raising money to stay Stateside, but it was never enough.
I fought tooth and nail to stay in America,
and it never worked, but then finally...
As a teenager I was getting good, really good.
I was finally getting old enough where people started
taking me more seriously, and I was closing better, running dialog better and
making more money. It wasn't a fortune, but I felt like I was
getting there.
Fast forward a little...
I was to a point where I could pick just about
neighborhood and walk up to random houses and close 30-50% of them on
insurance, newspaper subscriptions, fences, movies - or just about anything I
was selling.
I got enough confidence to start approaching businesses,
and this was tougher because a lot of those people loved eating
salesmen for lunch. They would routinely promote 'No Soliciting' signs
and use them as armor when approached. So you hardly had their attention
from the start, then they would throw legality at you and end up calling the
cops if you kept pushing.
But if you actually closed a sale, it could mean 'big
money' because they would buy in bulk. I sold all sorts of stuff like
phone systems, cables... and knives. Selling knives leads us to pivotal
day in my story. One day I walked into a Chinese restaurant and made my way to
the kitchen to start my pitch.
I delivered it (maybe later I'll tell you what it was, but
for now just know that I sold a lot of knives) and as I was leaving a well
dressed gentlemen who had been watching me the whole time, started towards me. I noticed
that he had a $20,000 Tag Heuer watch on his wrist - he was rich.
He was about to change my life.
This is exactly how the conversation went:
Rich guy: "You know what you're problem is..."
Notice no question mark, it wasn't really a question and he planned on
finishing the sentence even I acted disinterested.
I wasn't.
Me: "What?" Mildly irritated/threatened/scared.
Rich guy: "You're okay, maybe even good, but you think
you're great... you know what the difference is?"
I was waiting for him to tell me.
Rich guy: "You're going on talent not skill, and skill
will beat your talent every single time. If you think you're good enough
to learn skill, call me at 7:57 tomorrow."
He then said his number, I asked for his card or
for him to repeat the number, and he said something else important:
Rich guy: "If I have to do that then I'm talking to the
wrong person."
If you've gone through any of my training you'll recognize
those dialog patterns and the positioning, it is brilliant, and yes, it is
skill - which means it is learned and not inherent.
That was how I started working in a boiler room for the
financial industry. If you don't know what a boiler room is then imagine
a guy that demonstrates every negative stereotype about a dirty,
ruthlessly unethical salesman. Envision a morally bankrupt scoundrel who
will do or say anything to get your money.
Get that picture clear.
Got it?
Good.
We made that guy look like Mother Theresa.
Yeah, it was bad - really bad. I'm not proud of what
I did there, or the money I made. In fact my biggest critics point to
that time in my life when they want to paint me in a not-so-flattering light.
And it works, there's no excuse for what we did.
To make matters worse, each group is given a call sign,
our was DareDevil and we were the 'best' (worst) in the nation during my time.
I started as a grunt and eventually led that team with a partner, Geoff. The
money was good, and as much as I hate to say it, I actually thought - and was
trained to believe - that the old wives' tales are true and the only
way to get rich was screwing people over.
I didn't care, nobody did. In fact, one of the head
trainers started each session with the following advice:
"Everybody you talk to has got your money in
their pocket, your only two goals are to get the money from their pocket
into your pocket - without going to jail!"
I've since learned that is something of a cliché, but it
was the first time I ever heard of it and I was
stupid enough to believe it.
So if it was so bad why did I stay?
Well three main reasons - one, my family didn't always
understand me - especially when I didn't want to go to medical school - and I
didn't have many friends, but at 'work' it really was like a family...
something like the Sopranos, and the camaraderie felt good. Second, I
was learning a lot about training and how important it was, I
used and still use those training lessons with my team now. The theories
are amazing, not the execution or how it is used, but the training model is
phenomenal. Kind of like learning to use a gun well, but using it to
protect and not for a public school shooting. The confidence
building exercises alone were incredible. And lastly, unfortunately this
is probably the biggest reason; the money was good.
Damn good, in fact for the first time I realized...
I wouldn't have to leave again
I could chose to, but I wouldn't be forced to because of a
financial mess, actually that realization wasn't completely sunk in until
after my first 'consulting' job where I met Margaret's people (she is still a
client and I talk a lot about her - she was/is rich) and saw how flustered they
got from a single person hanging up on them.
When I got out in the 'real world' and saw how weak
minded, insecure and awkward nearly everybody is when it comes to dialog and
'sales' - I got chills and thought that this is what Mike Tyson (he was big at
the time) must've felt like before a fight; they don't stand a chance.
It was then that I really saw how easy it would be to stay in the States.
Sometimes I came/come off the wrong way to some people, I was
called arrogant and cocky. And maybe I was too cocky. But I've
never agreed with the arrogant accusation because I never believed - and never
have - that I'm intrinsically, inherently or in any other way, better
than anybody.
I wasn't better - if I performed better, it was because I was trained better.
Like I said I came to understand this better as I started
working with sales teams, and people outside the bubble of die hard, cast in
iron cold callers.
I just mentioned my first 'client', she saw my work on the
phone and asked me to come in and work with her team. She said she would
pay me $5,000, and I couldn't believe. I came in, observed her phone
people, and made immediate changes. We tweaked their dialog and
engagement rules and as her testimonial for me says this put over
$3,000,000 in her pocket in the first 90 days alone.
You would think I would have been smart enough to realize
that I could do this - work with companies I mean - and make good money with
it. However, it took me years to figure out that I was onto something.
For the time being I was still running the group in
financial industry, I eventually left there mainly because I had a feeling
that there was a better way to make money and that I didn't have to be so
dubious about it. I made out alright, but as I started meeting more rich
people I started thinking that there must be a better way.
When I left I had a few other things going. For
example I used to have a paper route and I grew the subscription base by
knocking on doors, that model grew to where we weren't just delivering papers
to houses, but ads to grocery stores, paper to factories, etc. That
small paper route turned into the largest periodical distribution company in
the Midwest. It was great project for me and my dad to work on together.
So when I left I had some other things I could focus, but
I really wanted to hit the day trading, and I finally felt like I had enough
money to do it. The story behind learning this skill is pretty
interesting... when I was in military school and rented out a motel to higher
ranking students, they started doing drugs (not just smoking pot, I'm
talking about the heavy stuff!) and filming fornications fests - I
eventually got
busted. But the sheriff agreed not to tell my parents if I reported to
him daily with tasks. His assignments and our arrangement was how I
learned day trading. But I wrongfully thought I needed a bunch of money
to make this happen so my profits were trivial at best.
But years later, after I left the boiler room stuff, I did have money.
So I started ramping up my trading. What I later discovered is that for
an addictive, adrenaline-hungry son of a risk taker and compulsive
person like me, day trading is like putting a raging alcoholic behind a bar.
So although things were great for a while, I knew that the
only way I would be able to 'get rich' and hit the really big money is
if I started taking much larger (and dumber) risks. So I needed more to
gamble. It was this time that I also got into real estate, I started as
an agent and met another great mentor - Joe Crump - and although we
were 'top producers' and doing very well as far as realtors are concerned, it
just wasn't enough. That was another lesson I learned; brokering
real estate is not the best way to get rich, and nobody has ever done
it. That fact alone doesn't mean anything, but it gives you an idea of
how misguided too many people become as they start careers as agents.
So I decided I should dump money into actually
investing in real estate, and not as a traditional real estate agent.
But my impatience was too much and waiting for 20-30 years to make any real
money in real estate (I didn't know any better at the time) felt like watching
paint dry. So I started high-leverage acquisitions and then I refinanced
the hell out of everything I could to finance my day trading.
The bills, monthly payments, risks, greed and stupidity
avalanched by the hour. Some days I felt I was killing it, and on others
I felt like the false sense of control was slipping away. I was exposing
my entire portfolio over 80% every day, and too often 100-200% or more.
If you don't know what that means it is how much of your money is at risk,
the typical range is 5%, and 10% is considered risky.
You can guess how all this ended. When it all came
crashing down I lost over $80k in one day, and that was about the best day of
the entire week. It was tough and...
I lost it... I Was Broke
It was worse than being broke, I had to sell and refinance
houses just to cover my positions. I kept thinking I would dig myself
out of it, but I just kept digging deeper. The distribution company, the
real estate - everything I was doing - was so over leveraged and dependent on
my trading my business that I was in a hole.
Any money that I managed to scrape together wasn't enough
and my ego kept telling me that I can't quit trading on a bad note -
that I was a genius and I had to figure it out. One thing I'm not
mentioning is when this happened, it was around the time of the dot-com
bust. I even remember a time blaming the economy, the market and Clinton
for the problems I was having. Because I was the genius who made
the money, it wasn't because the market was so hot that any moron that
could point to a single stock chart could make money - NO! That's
not it, it was me, all me... except when it failed - now that was
everybody else's fault.
Sound familiar?
Sounds stupid I know. But you want to know how much
we've learned? Here's a quick history lesson; the exact same
thing happened in 2008-2009, with the masses blaming everybody else for their
own incompetence... just like I did about 10 years earlier.
How quickly we forget.
So anyway, I was broke and I wasn't sure what I was going
to do. My first business client, Margaret, had referred me business over
the years - but it wasn't that much and I was too busy feeling sorry for
myself to do anything significant with it.
So while ignoring that opportunity I did a half-assed job
of one thing I knew how to do really well - picking up the phone. I went
through several phone positions, and I made some money but usually I would end
up leaving because it wasn't enough and the compensation plans were weak.
This is another lesson by the way, not to brag, but in every sales job I
had I would instantly become the top performer - and I would hustle my tail
off to do so - sometimes this required finding the current best performer and
picking their brain so I could add their secrets to my arsenal. Two
interesting things happened - one was that almost nobody ever asked me
how I did it and two, the companies rarely paid me much more than the worst
performers. So they hardly gave me any incentive, other than my ego, to
produce for them. Those are two important lessons that I teach now;
always ask questions and show your people how to get rich by making you money.
But at this time I was acting as ambitious as a rock.
I was pissed, hateful and moping daily. When I first started making
money I developed a few habits - the expensive kind - and I eventually quit,
but after this lull I slowly started up again. These habits were
terrible and I'm not proud of them, but I'm just being honest.
Everything changed after a phone call from Margaret.
Remember, she was my first 'consulting' client and she
wanted to know if I was available. I didn't want her to know how
'available' I was, but we set something up within a few days and I started
working with her team again.
It was a small job and I was done quickly, but she did
something for me that changed my life. I think she somehow knew my
situation and without hurting my feelings (ego) she didn't ask for
confirmation but she assumed that I needed help.
She was right.
So she did me a huge favor and scheduled a
breakfast at her home for some of her clients, she was in the 'money business'
and helped companies go public and/or raise money from investors - so she had
a boatload of business contacts. She invited over 100 to this informal
breakfast and introduced me to everybody as "the smartest hire they'll ever
make".
That was I how I started working with companies.
That one breakfast hounded me with business and it is why,
to this day, I've never had a business card, a website or single document
promoting my business consulting. It was nearly all word of mouth.
One of Margaret's main companies was a funding company, so if a business
wanted to raise $10M for example, they would go to her. Sometimes she
would get the money from investors and sometimes she would tell them they have
to fit 'X' criteria first. I was often called in to help them hit the
numbers needed to raise money.
So a company would have sales of $1M for example, and we'd
have to get it to $3M or something like that. I was typically there for phone and
sales training, and I worked with hundreds or thousand of companies during
this time. Sometimes I would come in for a few days, sometimes longer.
I would usually get about $5k and sometimes more.
Eventually I noticed some interesting patterns, like no
matter what I helped put in place with a company, without regular meetings and
accountability everybody would revert back to the 'old' way of doing things.
I also came to learn that it wasn't just phone sales, but overall discipline
and willpower that most businesses lacked. So I started expanding my
training beyond phone sales, to follow ups, meeting policies, etc.
This is why I always use the term I developed -
Policize - to describe how a company should be run; with policies and
protocol. This is also where the RAD Model came from; repetition,
accountability and discipline. Mainly what I learned is that no company,
business or industry is very different from any other - at least when it comes
to growing it and make the owners more money.
Almost nobody knows how to run a business and nearly all
of the managers and owners I worked with were working like slaves because they
didn't have the right Policies and measurement devices in place.
So my work evolved into more of a business transformation
versus just being 'the phone guy'. It was strange giving advice to
people who were 'rich' and had much more money than me, but the changes we put
in place worked. In fact every company that I worked with (that followed
my training) at least doubled or tripled the amount of money they made - and
we always hit the revenue targets they needed to in order to raise the
capital.
Another pattern I noticed was that the owners of the
companies I worked with would make millions of dollars above and beyond
their already optimistic targets - they would do this after I put my stuff in place for them - and I was getting $5k.
So my prices went up. First 10k, then 20k and
eventually $50k-$100k and a slice of ownership in the company. Strangely,
almost nobody objected, which told me that I should keep raising the ante -
and I did. That may sound crazy - the fact that these people would pay
me whatever I wanted - especially since some of these people are the richest
in the world, so they know what they're doing. The big lesson I learned
here is that people will pay you whatever you want - and as long as you give/make
them a lot more.
So things picked up after that. I am so thankful for
Margaret, and I don't know what would've happened if she wasn't around.
I was working with dozens of companies a month, from fertilizer companies,
chip manufacturers and trucking companies to tree transplant groups, IPOs
pitchmen and real estate companies. It was great, the people were
thankful and paid me with no problems.
Sometimes I would sell my interest in the company, or just
hold on to it. This is also the time that I worked with real estate
investors, and that eventually became my Mentor Program. But that
money was pennies compared to what was happening on the other fronts.
I could see the billionaire mark on the horizon.
Then...
'It' happened (again)
I am after all, my father's son.
All the real estate I had paid off, all the debt I had
climbed out of, all the interests I had - everything - was liquidated
and poured into one business I was working with. It was an
environmental-type of company and I knew this was going to be huge.
You know the feeling, right? This has to be
it.
To my defense it did grow substantially, not without me
pouring money into it, but it was growing - and growing fast. I was
hustling hard to make that happen. I was in touch with the largest groups in
the world and eventually they started fighting each other to buy the company.
The offers on the table were between $70-$100 million
dollars - I could hardly believe it and and I was nearly convinced that
this would catapult me to the stratosphere. But then, something
unforeseen happened.
The FBI and CIA
raided my house.
This was after 9/11 and nothing came of the actual raid
(kind of like barking up the up wrong tree) - but the 24/7 news coverage
caused some drama. I was in Indiana at the time... yeah, Indiana. The
main company I was working with was in a small town, and we had the image of
the giant Wal-Mart putting locals out of business. So the local
newspapers ran with the story, most of them jumped at the chance to
make a big business look bad.
I've heard, but never saw, that they even printed flyers
about the raid and calling me a terrorist. I know they did that, but I
don't know if it was on flyers. People began congregating around our
warehouses. They weren't violent, and when I would talk to them they
would leave - but it didn't help business or our image.
One of the other owners asked if I would stop coming in,
and I totally understood his situation, but it was obvious things were headed
downhill.
The offers were withdrawn.
Our loans were being called.
The proverbial sh** hit the fan.
That news story was the best thing that could happen for
our 'competitors' and they often called me to gloat about it.
Truthfully, I deserve it, because even I blamed the media coverage
about it - but it was MY FAULT! I knew how to grow a company, I
knew how to turn that business into an Empire and I knew how to get the 'big
boys' to pay upwards of $100,000,000 for it - but like a chickensh** coward I
gave in to the nervousness of some of my partners and the 'public'; I started
worrying about how it would look.
I blinked.
I gave in to the fear.
Instead of doing what had to be done - and what I knew
how to do - I folded.
I was also teaching high school Econ. at the time, and was
asked to resign, not because of what actually happened (nothing!) but the
coverage and controversy the media coverage caused. Even to this day
people recognize me from it.
So...
I lost it... and was broke (yet again)
Actually I did have some money, just not access to
it. The first time I lost hundreds of thousands, this time it was
millions. And no $100M sale either.
On a side note, what I later realized after being
told/taught repeatedly is that a situation like the Feds raiding your house
can be turned into a real positive thing - the way celebrities, billionaires
and rock stars do - it took me some time to figure this out, but I have to say
it does work and I'm very thankful for the situation and the 'street
cred'.
The challenges now were bigger because I had much more
debt and obligations, so I needed money fast. I didn't want to day trade
again, so it was back to using the phone.
This time I got back in real estate - but in a different
way - with no money, credit or time for dilly-dally I had to leave my house
and come back that day with more money than when I left. What I
ended up developing was a model that I still use and teach right now, and
although I've made many improvements over the years, me, my clients and
students have used this all over the world with very stable results.
If you're hungry and need money, it is a great model,
but... if you're lazy and master of delegating blame, then it sucks... and so
do you, at least at making fast money. My living expenses and other
costs were about $25,000 a month - so I needed that just to keep payments
current and food in the fridge. When I started doing this, investors
would ask to tag-along with me, and I was happy to help. They knew my
situation so they understood that what they were seeing was exactly how
to go from zero to just about a thousand dollars a day.
They got to learn, and I had good (usually) company.
Remember I had started working with real estate investors
years before this happened, but often it was helping them get loans, find
deals, etc. and I only worked with 2-3 people at first - but then one person
told another, who told another, who told another...
My group got pretty big, but now I had a killer
model to teach - make money TODAY. I was living it at this time
because I needed it. There was no second choice. So I was training
people individually more and more at this time - this training was to become
my 'Mentor Program'.
On a side note about my Mentor Program - I didn't have a
name for it when I started and I would really bend over backwards (I still
do!) for the people I was working with, and that passion really spread like
wildfire. After calling it a 'Mentor Program' and setting up an official
page, I was flooded. So I started charging to get more serious people,
but they just kept coming. I was even set to shoot an infomercial and
everything - BUT - the group started becoming more work than joyous to
deal with. At one point I had over 150 people in the program, and almost
none of them were doing anything with my material - some didn't even talk to
me after we got started. Getting them to do anything was like asking
them to swallow razors, and it was irritating as hell.
So I never aired the infomercial and I ended my
Mentor Program - I wasn't going to sit back and allow people to denigrate the
concepts because I wanted the term 'Meo Method' trained to actually mean
something. However some of the students who were serious were BEGGING
me to keep it going and not punish everybody for the actions of a few
'victims' (by the way, you get to hear these requests in Alliance Project
Briefing) who were too thankless and lazy to accomplish anything.
So I gave in, but I really clamped down on the
numbers allowed in the group, instead of 150+, it went to less than 100, then
under 50, then under 30 and so on... I don't care if there is only person in
that group as long as they are serious and won't be a negative drain.
I've even done Events for that group with less 20 people - and we had a blast.
My point is that things really changed and I realized that I wasn't going to get
rich or make any significant money (compared to other interests) if I did it
the right way, my way - and I'm okay with taking a financial hit to help out
people who need/want/appreciate it. It is strange though, because to
this day people get offended by - or sometimes don't believe until it is late
- the high level of qualifying I do before accepting students into that group.
Alright so that was a quick departure from the timeline,
back to the I-need-fast-cash-or-I'm-on-the-street part of my story.
The real estate model we developed was working, and it was enough
to keep the crazy payments under some kind of control. So that got the immediate finances under control, but I
still felt a sulking feeling that I wasn't headed in the right direction.
I was making money but I wanted more. That's when Greg Wicke (one of the
many friend/clients I met through Margaret) asked me to work with his daughter
and teach her to trade the way I used. I told him I would do it but I
felt like he was asking me to put his daughter on heroin.
So he suggested that I teach her the day trading first and
then the real estate - he wanted to pay me a two lump sums for each - and have
her pick which she wanted to do. I agreed.
This is how met Sam.
I only spent a few days with her and she was trading on
her own, another few days and she was doing real estate deals daily.
She was a machine and I was impressed. I explained to her that
technically our arrangement was over and the she could go off on her own and I
would have no hard feelings since her father paid me... or we could work
together. I gave her the choice and on the inside I was really hoping
she'd want to work together because I had a great time teaching her. But
it was her choice. If you know anything about my Team (she still works with me)
you know what she picked.
This really changed my attitude because it wasn't since I
met Turner (at the Chinese restaurant) that I ever worked with a Team - that was
the only place where going to 'work' was more fun than being anywhere else.
Nobody was there because we had to be - we were there because we
wanted to, we got to be.
A family is born...
So over the next few years I started building a team, more
like a family. We put in a severe training program that filtered out
nearly everybody so we were left with a few serious people that we would
love to be around and grow with. This is where Tricia, Stephanie,
Sunny, Tina, Max and the rest of the group came into place.
Then instead of just working with or charging any business
owner to work with their company, I started hand picking projects that the
team could help us with. They are my accountability and help me
(sometimes unsuccessfully!) from taking crazy risks. They also help with
the hiring of standard employees and the training to give them the opportunity
to work with our team. Many people don't want all the
responsibility/work that comes with being on the team, and that's fine with us
because they can still work on different projects within the company.
Today our company, MoonMover, has over 40 employees in a
few different countries and we are actively involved in about 30 of our
different business interests. These industries and business interests
range from real estate in America and abroad, movie production and consumer
research to cell phone manufacturing, OEM devices and social influence and
experimental studies.
How we can work together -
So that brings my story current as of now.
You know certain people have a psychological need to help
others, if they don't have this feeling they can become physically/mentally
sick - and yes I know how silly that sounds to the jaded ear - but it has been
well documented.
As you go through my story you'll notice a recurring theme
of completely random strangers, who were doing much better than me,
taking their time and energy to help me. I never have and still don't
deserve any of it, I'm at least smart enough to know and admit that.
This is also why I genuinely want to give back and help others, we do charity
work but I rarely mention it because I think in many instances it can cheapen or
even handicap those efforts - but even with the general business developing we
do, I see that as a form of giving back as well. It is why I taught high
school kids and later formed an entrepreneur group for them, why I taught and
worked with struggling traders, real estate investors, business owners, etc.
So here a few ways we can work together:
www.AssetSecrets.com - if you have money and want to do deals with us,
check this out. You will have access to my Teams' deals and you'll be
able to acquire killer deals (the best on the planet) across America and
abroad. These are the same deals that I'm involved with.
From real estate, IPOs and business financing to Subways, VC and short term
hard money lending - it is all here. If you have assets/money then you are
crazy not to at least look into how we can start acquiring assets together, so
you want to apply to become an Acquiring Party (AP). That page will walk
you through everything.
www.WorkWithAzam.com - if you want to become a part of our team and
learn how to build your Empire, this is how we can work together through my
Student Alliance Project. I train you, teach you everything I know, and
we split the profits. This also involves my Mentor Program (www.33Weeks.com)
that came from working with people in real estate, it is now me working with
startups and one-man armies (usually one-man, but sometimes larger groups) and
getting you to your first 20k, 30k or $100k+ month. I really love this
group because I know exactly what it is like to not be where you want - so I
really over deliver and spill the beans to this group by teaching everything I
know to get their Empire going. I use that training to train potential
applicants.
www.MeoMethod.com
- don't want to learn but want it done for you? Then this is for you,
this will cost you an arm and a leg and we take ownership of your company,
there currently is a long waiting list, but if you have a serious
project that you think will prioritize our attention - I'd love to hear about
it.
I'm sure there is some stuff I'm leaving out, I used to do
magic shows, worked at Burger King, did some day trader training (I even wrote
a book about it) and was pretty seriously involved in a dog training company
that we sold... and I didn't really explain much about the social influence
program, I'll save that for later, but it is some really interesting stuff and
I've become really passionate about it.
Alright, I think that just about does it -
One last thing
As I said I didn't, don't and won't deserve the help I've
been given so, if you get a chance, I'd suggest helping a complete stranger
and then making a point to help those you come across. Most people don't
have the opportunities you have, so helping them get 'there' (whatever that
means to them) can make you a Godsend.
This page is terrifically long and I'm sure we'll just
refer people to this from now as questions come up. Honestly I'm
surprised so many people have asked about the personal details that I've gone
through above - it may not be what you want to hear but that's the truth - and
I've never used word "I" so much or imagined this page would be as long as it
is but hey...
You asked for it!
Please let me know what you think.
Thanks and God Bless!
The End (finally!)
