The 4 Hour Work Week - Thumbnail Review

   Ferriss is known for his application of both the Pareto principle and Parkinson's Law to business and personal life. He has also taken the position that technology such as email, instant messaging and internet-enabled PDAs complicate life rather than simplify it. His teachings fit under the umbrella of what he calls "lifestyle design", in which he promotes "mini-retirements" as an alternative to the "deferred-life" career path where one would work a 9 to 5 job until retirement in one's 60s. This involves breaking what he calls "outdated assumptions" and finding ways to be more effective so that work takes up less time.

   On his blog and later in his subsequent books, Ferriss applied this approach to areas other than business. His book on fitness, for example, claims to provide the exercise and diet advice that produces the greatest results with the least amount of effort or time. Ferriss uses the analogy of the "minimum effective dose" to describe this technique. A good example of the idea of Minimal Effective dose can be found if you look up the band “Axis of Awesome”. They could show you how to learn to play 47 well known tunes on the guitar – by only learning 4 cords!

   Another thing Ferriss talks about is how you need to realise that if you “lose everything”, you actually haven’t lost that much. He said that he considered what would happen if the first incarnation of his company had went bust. He wrote that he would have to downsize to a wee flat, he’d sell of his baubles and would get a job in a bar. This would tide him over until he could get back on his feet. This is a good point, well made. The unfortunate thing he doesn’t mention is that most people in Scotland are tied up in such a web of debt that they would be declared bankrupt within a few months of non-payments and therefore would have a doubly hard climb back up the hill of success. From my point of view you need to minimise your direct debit commitments. Recently my wife stopped working full time. Due to this I needed to take over her commitments and I was literally astounded by her level of DD’s (...... not her 38DD’s!). She had council tax, TV License, AA, Weight Watchers, Optical Express, Sky, Mobile Phone, the lot. Every month when her wages came in at least £350 would immediately be siphoned off for these guys. She even had one of those bank accounts you have to pay for, my God. How can you live freely when you have such a millstone around your neck. My advice to youngsters entering the world of work is to trim your direct debit commitments down to an absolute minimum. Sky? Watch via your laptop for free. TV License? Watch on your laptop and you’ll never get caught (and I’m saying that as an Ex TV Detective). Weight Watchers? Take up gardening and eat less junk food. Mobile Phone? Go PAYG; Phone the people you want to speak to but hang up before they answer. They’ll call back to see what you want. Bank Account? Never, ever pay for a Bank Account. You are already paying for it via the terrible interest rate you receive on your savings.

Jungle Fever - More Cash rolling in......

Dear uncommonadvice@googlemail.com,

We initiated a transfer to your current account (ending in 771) in the amount of £24.31 on 18/12/2012

Various Updates 17.12.12

• If you like Progressive betting then keep an eye on Man Utd. They are just about the last Pro team in the UK to have a draw this season. By this time last year every team had drawn. Man U play Swansea on Sunday 23rd Dec with the draw available at 4.1.
• I'll personally be sticking with my own system. I'll be coming up for 100 winners in a row soon all being well.
• I'm currently up to about 35,000 words on my book but I'm probably not even halfway yet. I'm breaking my own rule of quantity over quality. I could probably have done 3 books in this time. On the other hand though I just needed to get this one out of my system. My brain races as I type.
• I've put my name down for a couple of Part Time jobs. One with a Stocktaking firm and the other with my old chums at TV licensing.
• Amazon is absolutely flying at the moment. Have sold 8 books in the last couple of days.

More Easy Betfair Cash Today.........

Betting Profit & Loss

Ross Taylor 15-Dec-2012 17:03 Football: £14.61 | Tote: | Total P&L: £14.61

Mystery Shop

   First Mystery Shop assignment of the year completed today. Hopefully I'll get many more next year. Nice and easy - didn't even have to wear my camera tie.

Get me Beltrami!

  

   That statement might not mean much to you but it was an oft-reported phrase in the Scottish press during the late 80s and early 90s when trial after trial of (alleged) Scottish Gangsters was won by Joe Beltrami, solicitor.

   There is a world of mystery surrounding Solicitors. Nowadays when we visit the Doctor we are often quick to second guess them or check the information they have given us when we get home to our laptops. This air of doubt doesn’t really surround solicitors yet. They are still proudly esconsed in their Ivory Towers for a good while yet.

   What does this have to do with the world of Business opportunities you may well ask? Don’t worry I am not going to advocate that you get down to the local Uni enrolling office and sign your life away for the next 7 years. Instead I am going to put a “system”-spin on things. You couldn’t go out tomorrow and call yourself a lawyer. To do so would be fraudulent and to be plain, you’d get caught with your pants down pretty quickly when you had to go in front of a judge and defend someone. However, you could legally trade as a will writer, conveyancer, debt buster, Estate Agent (a function of solicitors offices in Scotland) and Letting Agent. All of this could be done under the signage of “Legal Matters” and of course, the office could be dressed up to look as much like a legal office as others.

   Let’s break it down:

Will writer – From a distance learning college website: “Unlike many legal activities, will-writing can be carried out by anyone who wishes to set up a will-writing business. However we would recommend that all will writers are trained to a high level of competence, and our distance learning courses will equip you to give a better level of service to your clients. You should be aware that, unlike will-writing, the winding up of an estate after death is a reserved activity which can only be conducted by legal professionals working within organisations regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority or other regulatory body.

   We recommend that you start with the CILEx Level 3 Certificate in Law and Practice (Elderly Client Practice). This is a five-unit qualification set at approximately ‘A’ Level in standard and a pass in any of the units leads to Affiliate Membership of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx).

The units that you will study are:
• CILEx Level 3 Unit 1 Introduction to Law and Practice £195
• CiLEx Level 3 Unit 8 Law of Wills and Succession £330
• CILEx Level 3 Unit 15 The Practice of Law for the Elderly Client £330
• CILEx Level 3 Unit 16 Client Care Skills £330
• CILEx Level 3 Unit 17 Legal Research Skills £330.

   You can buy all these courses together as a bundled package for £1200 or you can start with the first three for £770 and then enrol on the skills courses at a later date. Atlernatively each of the courses can be purchased individually at the fee shown above. A pass in CILEx Level 3 Unit 8 will exempt you from the membership exams of the Institute of Professional Willwriters, subject to payment of a membership fee.

   We also offer CILEx Level 3 Unit 14 Probate Practice for £330 , which would be relevant if you are working in a firm regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and wish to carry out administration of estates. This could be studied as an alternative to The Practice of Law for the Elderly Client with the other units listed above, and these five courses studied together would lead to the award of an CILEx Level 3 Certificate in Law and Practice (Probate Practice).

Conveyancing – www.doyourownconveyancing.co.uk gives pretty much all the information and links you need in order to complete the conveyancing process. The plan here would be to submerge yourself in the process the next time you are moving house. Conveyancing is one of those things which is completely shrouded in mystery, however when you lift the curtain you’ll find that it isn’t that difficult after all. From my own experience in Financial Services I know that Solicitors use the conveyancing process as a method of gaining Cross-sales. The most common one is the selling of insurance to cover yourself against Chancel Liability Insurance.

Debt Buster – In both Scotland and England there has been a large increase in Debt busting firms over the last few years. Using legal methods these teams basically arrange IVAs for people in the financial myre. The service is usually pushed as free at the point of source, but of course the fee for the work is added into the IVA mix so the firm is getting paid handsomely in the end. The business has the spin-off that having a lot of cash poor people crossing the doorstep means access to “desperate sellers” or in other words people who might be willing to sell their house on the cheap.

Estate Agency – anyone can legally call themselves an Estate Agent. From my own experience in the Industry I can tell you strongly that it is the most “fur coat and no knickers” industry in the UK. Have a smart office, a sharp suit and nice photos in the window and no-one will think twice. There is very little legal details to worry about outside of the wording of your contract. As a startup there are a few things you should do:

1)      Look for houses that have been on the market for ages and then approach them to go “multi”. This means have more than one Agent working for them, but they only have to pay the agent who makes the sale. This won’t do much for your business (the house have been on the market for ages and hence are not sellers) but it will get you some photos to put in the window.

2)      Get a great camera. Pictures and details are everything.

3)      Don’t bother with a section in the local paper – no-one does that nowadays.

4)      Get great signage. Just look in the yellow pages. Go for signs that either illiminous or very brightly coloured. Tests have shown that Blue Type on a Yellow Background work best.

5)      Work to 1.25% at the beginning and be willing to go down to 1% for anyone that is going to haggle.

6)      Don’t bother with Rightmove at the start. Once it becomes inavoidable look out for deals where you can get Rightmove on the cheap.

   You will have to shell out for the camera and boards up front but these costs would be cleared by the first sales. Even with these very, very basic points I think you could sell 2 properties a year bringing in c. £5000.

Letting Agents – once again, there are very little barriers to entry in the Letting Agents game. One online short course coupled with a few weeks in practice and you could be as good as someone who has been doing it for years. From my POV I would use my own properties as the starting point for an Agency. Imagine you have 5 properties lying empty at the same time. You would advertise these in the window in order to get the ball rolling. Anyone interested in taking these properties would be dealing with the company rather than you as an individual. In light of this the Letting Agency could then charge you and thereby lessen the overall tax liability. Don’t forget to place in the contract that Gas and Electricity must be taken via Utility Warehouse or whatever organisation you are getting a kickback from.

My take on Gambling Systems

   The first rule of Gambling Systems is never buy a Gambling System. Trust me, I’ve spent hundreds, if not thousands, on systems and they have all been absolute tosh. The vast majority take the form of progressive Staking plans hidden amongst some over elaborate story. For example:

   “For 28 years I worked as the stable hand for Martin Pipe. Over that time I heard the whispers and was part of all the major coups. Now I am giving you my secrets as I can no longer get a bet at my local shops. When David Pipe sends out two horses in one race back the one with longer odds. If that doesn’t win then wait until the next time this occurs and double your bet. Statistics show you will go no longer than X races without a win”.

Progressive betting doesn’t work. The Martingale system doesn’t work.

ASIDE: A martingale is any of a class of betting strategies that originated from and were popular in 18th century France. The simplest of these strategies was designed for a game in which the gambler wins his stake if a coin comes up heads and loses it if the coin comes up tails. The strategy had the gambler double his bet after every loss, so that the first win would recover all previous losses plus win a profit equal to the original stake. The martingale strategy has been applied to roulette as well, as the probability of hitting either red or black is close to 50%.

   Since a gambler with infinite wealth will, almost surely, eventually flip heads, the martingale betting strategy was seen as a sure thing by those who advocated it. Of course, none of the gamblers in fact possessed infinite wealth, and the exponential growth of the bets would eventually bankrupt "unlucky" gamblers who chose to use the martingale. It is therefore a good example of a Taleb distribution – the gambler usually wins a small net reward, thus appearing to have a sound strategy. However, the gambler's expected value does indeed remain zero because the small probability that he will suffer a catastrophic loss exactly balances with his expected gain. The likelihood of catastrophic loss may not even be very small. The bet size rises exponentially. This, combined with the fact that strings of consecutive losses actually occur more often than common intuition suggests, can bankrupt a gambler quickly.

Casino betting limits eliminate the effectiveness of using the martingale strategy.

   So why have I mentioned something that doesn’t make money? You are not getting it are you? I am looking at this from the sellers point of view – not the mark’s point of view. Take a quick look at Ebay. Type “Betting System” into Ebay and select Completed Listings (200 to a page). You will see that Tens of Thousands has been spent on Betting Systems in the last couple of months. Do it yourself and see. Do you believe that the guys selling these systems are all ex-Jockeys who are in the know? The truth of the matter is that these are being sold by Internet Marketers. Guys in their bedroom, wearing a dressing gown, hunched over a laptop – guys just like us.

   To make money from this simply take a system (google to get free ones). Paper trade for a few weeks. Take the one showing the best profit and wrap it up within a story. For example say that your Grandad was an Equerry for the Queen Mother. He left you the system in his will or something like that. List on Ebay showing your results clearly.

   I would treat this business as a “cold shower”. In quickly and out quickly. Go for 5 x £5 profit sales on a certain system and then mothball it. I reckon you could do this 4 times a year and thereby make £100pa.