Jesus; Interest Rates 6-2-05

When I thought I would be a Loan Officer (things change):


Ladies and Gentlemen,

Finals are over and school has been out for over a week. I've been working with my friend, Sam on the peninsula. We sell Tempurpedic beds and OSIM massage chairs, as well as some other luxury therapeutic products. It's fun when people come in and have no idea what they want and I get to tell them all the facts as well as to direct them around the store. Some people have a plan and others just want to go shopping! Either way, it is fun to service people by showing them all the options and letting them decide for themselves what they want. It is easy to tell the facts to people and build rapport, but it is a challenge to close the deal. That's when the grit comes in.

I went into a local book store in Berkeley on two of my days off and I sat down in the business section under sales/marketing to find some material on the subject of sales. I spent a total of about 8 hours in those two days where I swallowed up two books and took notes using 3 x 5 notecards on the main ideas. To be sure, that is not considered a crime unless you have an extremely strict standard on the infringement of intellectual property rights. Ha ha ha. There were several interesting books and I bought one called "Getting Past No," by William Ury. He runs the program on Negotiation at Harvard Law school. Perhaps some of you have heard of him. In fact, Jon I'm pretty sure you are familiar with his work because I recognize that some of his topics are similar to what we learned in your IEOR 171 class.

I'm not even out of the Prologue yet, but the book says that the world is getting smaller and more integrated; we must cooperate in order to succeed/proceed. Negotiation is involved in every aspect of life from salesmanship to personal matters. The route we must take to finding solutions are both indirect and 'middle-of-the-road,' or value-based choices that can satisfy the interests of both parties. I'll give a rundown after I finish it, but I have been taking my sweet time reading it because there is so much good stuff. I read then re-read and go over it again.

I'm reading another book that is taking awhile called "The Purpose Driven Life." My Mom bought it for me and I'm glad she did. It is filled with every good thing you could imagine and there are so many treasures in there I've stopped counting. The book is about living a righteous life with Christ and it has been inspirational at least. At best, it is motivational. Speaking of motivation, Jesus was my source of calm during a period of great pressure and uncertainty. The finals season was rough this semester. I had taken 25 units (20 at Berkeley and 5 at the community college) in order to get myself through school in time to get into mortgage before interest rates start going up.

When I meet up with stress, I like to face it head-on like a champion, but sometimes the pressure is insurmountable. In that case, it's necessary to dive down then resurface. That sounds easy enough, but if the current is strong enough to keep me under for too long, then I'll drown! The weight of my workload was more than I could have handled on my own. This semester and especially during finals season, I became a close friend of Jesus! He gave me peace of mind to maintain and follow-through. When I was so tired that I could not read one more word or write any more lines or crunch any more numbers or memorize any more ideas, I got down on my knees and asked him to give me wings like an eagle so that I could soar. I ran but did not get tired, I walked, but did not falter. I begged him to pull me through to the other side and I promised I would lift him up.

Now I am fulfilling my promise. One of the reasons I have not written a word in the last two or three weeks has been because I was shy to bring this up. It is hard to talk about Christ the Lord because so much badmouthing goes on about him. Christians follow 'the way' to do what is right and to succeed on grounds of morality and virtue. There is only one way and that is through Him. It is hard to talk about the Lord because so many people have so many negative things to say about Him, but it is all hype from the impatient, intransigent, shiftless, and faithless. I know it sounds hypocritical that I should criticize unbelievers since I have been critical of their criticism. Ha ha ha. Yes I am a hypocrite. Please. Test me.

On that note, the new President of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank has just announced that we may be in the 8th inning of the tightening cycle ball game. For those of you who are not familiar with the game of baseball, there are nine innings before the game is over and there have been eight rounds of interest rate increases up to this point. When I heard this on public broadcast radio Wednesday night when I was driving home for work, I let out a loud yell that sounded like "Yahoo!" That means low interest rates, given steady rates of inflation, should continue indefinitely. In turn, Real Estate will continue to burn hot as home values soar with high levels of available credit. If I play my cards right, I will be able to take this opportunity and turn it into a manufacturing center of money creation --> savings.

I will live on the bare minimum as I sell every single damn thing and save almost all that I earn. This way, I save when the money flows and lend when the money is tight. I constantly make money whether the supply is short or long. My plan is to save for two years (if Real Estate makes a run that long) and start investing as the market drops. With faith in the US economy, I will be patient as prices plummet due to such factors as less available credit, lower productivity and less output, lower business and consumer confidence, et cetera. When the prices start falling, that's when the headwork begins. The computer lab is closing and I don't have much more time to talk about this, but basically, it's analyzation of the market based on precedence and potential. Fun stuff.

Enjoy yourselves. Hope the weather is great wherever you are. Let me know!