Tyler Jorgenson

One Entrepreneur's Journey To Find Greatness

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What Are You Reading?

I’m currently reading a few books, and have finally finished a couple. When I read a novel I usually finish it within a day or two of starting. Fiction books are a quick read as I can analyze the text and enjoy the character development while continuing to read. My downfall is on non-fiction books. I really enjoy reading self-help type books. It started about 5 or 6 years ago when a good friend told me to read Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. That one was an easy read, but it got me started on a different type of reading. Now I read with a notebook and pen in hand. I don’t want to miss one ounce of life enriching wisdom that the author is trying to impart, so I squeeze it like a thirsty man squeezes an orange and suck out the last drop. Here are some of the books being juiced now (I like that… juice your books):

1. Sharing The Wealth – Alex Spanos (owner of The Chargers)
2. The 5 Lessons a Millionaire Taught Me About Life and Money – Richard Paul Evans (Gift from My Sister)
3. How To Master the Art of Selling – Tom Hopkins
4. The Richest Man Who Ever Lived: King Solomon’s Secrets to Success, Wealth, and Happiness – Steven K. Scott

So that’s my current list. I also read I Am Legend recently and give it a 2 out of 4 stars. It’s much shorter than anticipated.

What’s on your reading list right now? What books do you recommend I read this year? What books are a ‘must read’ in your opinion?

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A good quote to start your week

I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.
Thomas Jefferson

I have long been a believer that we create much of our own destiny. There are certainly times when we are lucky without any exceptional effort on our parts, but Jefferson learned that if you want to create a lifetime of fortunate circumstances you must work hard. I would only add that one must also work smart, although I feel that concept is becoming a bit cliche.

Jefferson is on the $2.00 bill, the nickel and the 2007 $1 coin. I think it is worth noting that the early $2.00 bill had Battleship on the reverse. How much luck would a battleship have if it’s crew did not work hard? The $2.00 bill currently has a depiction of the signing of the declaration of independence, another example of a bit of ‘luck’ that came about by the blood, sweat and tears of some great men.
This wasn’t intended to turn into a history lesson, and I may lose a few readers because of it, but I think it is important to show that Jefferson had a sure foot to stand on when he made this quote.

Now, enjoy your week. Work hard, and create some luck.

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What Motivates You?


Pain or Pleasure?

A friend of mine has a great post about motivation. His friend is building a mansion in Santa Barbara as a speculative investment and is considering moving in rather than selling, even though the market is hot enough to sell, so that the mansion will motivate him to achieve greater goals. Deyl asked: Do you think there is anything wrong with a material thing like a house being a motivator to work hard and smart? He has received some great responses so far.

What I find interesting about choice is that all of our choices in life come down to our desire to gain pleasure and our need to avoid pain. Think about it. From the very simple decisions in our lives to the most complex those two factors are at the root of our the choice we make.

Example

Ask a woman why she spends hour(s) every morning applying makeup and doing her hair. The answers are likely to be either because doing so makes her feel pretty (pleasure) or because not doing so may garnish some ridicule (pain).

You can go through any choice and break it down to these two factors. When the light turns red you stop to avoid pain. Even if you are certain no cars are coming you don’t want the pain of having to pay for a ticket and the serious agony of sitting in traffic school. If you give to charity, what is your motivating factor? Is it because you want the pleasure of helping somebody? Do you not want the pain of higher taxes and want the pleasure of a nice write off?

Understanding these two principals is helping me understand what drives me and what influence the decisions I make. I am currently in the middle of a few real estate deals that are generating a bit of stress, but the idea of the payout and the pleasure it will bring motivates me to make the deals work.

Just because we are driven by pleasure and pain doesn’t make us bad people. If the things that we associate pleasure to are being able to contribute back to society then that’s a good thing. If you get pleasure from knowing that you are providing for your family, creating employment, promoting commerce, etc then building a nice house for you and your (6) kids is a great thing. Especially if it’s going to motivate you to take on more ventures that are likely to continue the cycle even more. So, Deyls’ friend, build on and love your home. Enjoy the pleasure that comes from the sense of accomplishment and knowing that you are living in something that you envisioned from a bare lot and a bunch of sticks.

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Limitations

So often in life we create our own limitations. Interestingly enough our limits are self imposed or conditioned by others who feel inadequate. When we are born we are nearly fearless (the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises are with us from birth) but we learn to fear failure through being teased or ridiculed. I got this little glimpse into my 1 year old daughters limitless perpective on life and loved it. She’s just doing what she sees her 3 year old sister do… so why couldn’t she be able to do the same? Look around you and see if there is somebody that has attained goals you would like to attain and ask yourself if you believe that you can achieve the same levels of success. Too often we don’t give ourselves enough credit, or have enough faith in our own ability to achieve greatness. Raise the bar.

-Posted From My Treo –

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With the Right Mindset, You Can Overcome Any Problem

I hijacked todays post from a Trump email. I think it speaks for itself:

With the Right Mindset, You Can Overcome Any Problem

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Don’t dwell so much on a problem that you’ve exhausted yourself before you can even entertain a solution. It just doesn’t make sense. It takes brainpower and energy to think positively and creatively — and to see creatively and positively. Going negative is the easy way, the lazy way. Use your brainpower to focus on positives and solutions and your own mindset will create your own luck.

Shakespeare put it this way, in a famous quote from Julius Caesar:

“The fault is not in our stars, dear Brutus, but in ourselves.”

That’s a clear message. We are responsible for ourselves. We are responsible for our own luck. What an empowering thought! If you see responsibility as a bum deal, then you are not seeing it for what it really is — a great opportunity.

Let’s say you’re facing some big challenge today. I can tell you right now you’ve got a lot of company. What will separate you from the complaining crowd will be how you choose to look at your situation. If you believe you are in control of it — and you are — you will know exactly who to look for when you need help: yourself. You could be your greatest discovery yet for success, luck, power, and happiness.

When I encountered enormous financial challenges back in the 1990s, I was mature enough to assume responsibility and know that the problem was mine. I knew it wouldn’t do any good to blame other people. That would be a waste of time, and that’s one kind of loss I don’t like. Time is something that cannot be replaced. If you find yourself slipping into the blaming others mode, get out of it quickly.

Give luck the chance it needs to play itself out in your life. No one can do it for you. As soon as you discover that luck is yours to create, you’ll be thinking and seeing things in a whole new way. So work hard, have fun – and good luck!

Today’s article is adapted from Donald J. Trump’s newest book, Trump: Never Give Up: How I Turned My Challenges into Success, published by John Wiley & Sons.

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Ben Affleck and Matt Damon – Hypnosis


I am a big fan of eliminating vices out of our lives. It was great to see articles pop up about Ben Affleck telling Oprah that he had finally quit smoking. An interesting part of all of this is that both he and Matt Damon used hypnosis to help them quit. Affleck mentions that the “guy just sat there and told me nicotine is poison.” Hypnosis allows us to change our neuro associations more rapidly, and so under hypnosis Ben was able to make the changes to his mental perspectives on smoking. What vice in your life could you cut out simply by thinking of it as a painful and negative experience and associating greater pleasure to abstaining? If you’d like more information on how to make changes rapidly, let me know and I’ll post more on the topics of NLP and Hypnosis.

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A Tribute

I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and this week the leader of my church passed away. Glen Beck says much of how I feel, his video is below.

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The Garth Brooks Experience

My lovely wife and I went to the Garth Brooks concert in Los Angeles last night with a couple of our good friends. There was a period in my adolescence that I only listened to Garth and so I own all of his albums and know all of his songs, even the Christmas and obscure ones. Being at his concert was a pretty amazing experience. I haven’t been to many concerts so I am sure I am describing phenomena that are common to stars but I was amazed by the amount of energy that flowed through the Staples Center and directed at Mr. Brooks. We had seats that I really think were underrated. We were in the up stage left corner (any drama geeks reading this know where that is, for the rest of you we were in the back right corner). This location allowed an excellent vantage point to see a lot of what the performers got to see. I was a little overwhelmed when I looked out at the crowd that was cheering so energetically for Garth. To think that one person could generate that much positive attention is impressive. I’m not much of a singer, but I would love to be in front of a crowd like that with people cheering for me. I don’t know why they would but the experience seems worth striving for. The greatest thing for me was to see how genuine Garth appeared to be. I imagine that many performers get to a point where they begin to expect praise from large throngs of fans, but to Mr. Brooks it was as though he was utterly surprised and appreciative every time the crowd went wild for him. In his last of 2 encores he brought up a concession stand worker that had snuck backstage to meet him and had asked him what it was like to be in front of all those people. He brought Alva up and had her stand center stage and experience the view from his perspective. After singing ‘my song’ The River he had her come back to center stage and asked the entire audience to take out their cameras and take their picture. I had seen this amazing display earlier in the night when Garth and Trisha Yearwood were singing and got close to each other. The entire venue went aglow with bursting flash bulbs. Amazing!

After the concert the traffic in our parking structure was at a stand still so I looked up nearby restaurants on google maps on my phone. The closest place was Kiki’s, just a couple blocks away. We headed over by foot in the drizzling rain. When we got close to the corner I spied Kiki’s, a quaint little taco stand that although it had an ‘A’ in the window was most certainly closed. Blasted google maps! We walked back and drove to Clearwood’s Northwood Inn where we threw some peanut shells on the ground.

I hope to one day be able to have the sort of influence upon people that Garth Brooks has. I don’t mean that I want to be a music star, as if that was an option anyway. I feel richly blessed in my life and want to help people live a life full of passion. I want to inspire people. To have people that need a little kick in the pants, a little motivation, some reframing or a new perspective come to me and I want to lead them on a journey to greater personal strength. What Garth did, in taking a little time out to share his experience with Alva the concession worker, was amazing. In those few moments Alva’s entire life may have shifted course. I may be hallucinating this but I see a girl that had poor self esteem that now has something she can hang on to as a reminder that she is of infinite value. I see a girl who will now take charge of the life that she may have been drifting through. How can I make this sort of impact in the lives of people I am lucky enough to be a part of?

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Time For Lunch

I got an email early yesterday morning from my friend Deyl inviting me to lunch. I’ve posted links to Deyl’s blog before but the background is that Deyl and I went to Elementary, Middle and the first part of High School together. I moved from San Diego to Wrightwood just before our Sophomore year. It was great to reconnect with Deyl and even though we didn’t have hours to chat since we both had meetings we had to get to I really enjoyed talking through a couple of deals. Deyl and his wife Paige have a great outlook on life and are both going to be household names within a matter of years.

As I was waiting outside the Cheesecake Factory at Bella Terra I overheard a couple of businessmen discussing a new product they were promoting. Since I try not to be shy about opportunity I introduced myself and we shared a brief, but rich, dialog. They invited me to help them with their product and we exchanged contact information. I don’t know if anything will come of the interaction, but I was pleased that I didn’t allow a silly fear of introducing myself get in the way of a potential opportunity.

I made it back to Chino a little late for my two o’clock meeting but not too late for it to be saved. I met with one of my new licensees and we went through some business strategies for how he can make good money even in the current market. There is a lot of opportunity out there and we are only limited by our own lack of vision.

A few business calls and emails later I was on my way home to my beautiful wife and kids. My twins turned 1 year old today… Happy Birthday!

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The Bolsheviks!

My wife bought the movie ‘Annie’ for our daughter yesterday. Of course that means it was the first thing on the TV this morning. ‘Annie’ is a classic. I think just about everybody knows at least one of the songs (It’s a hard knock life!). At one point when Annie is at Daddy Warbucks house the dog, Sandy, catches a would be assassin. Annie is stunned that somebody would try and kill Daddy Warbucks and the following dialog ensues:

Annie: Who would want to kill Mr. Warbucks?
Grace: The Bolsheviks, dear. He’s living proof that the American system really works and the Bolsheviks don’t want anyone to know about that.
Annie: The Bolsheviks? Leapin’ lizards!

I had a couple of thoughts after watching this part of the movie.

1. The Bolsheviks aren’t much of a threat to successful Americans these days. Instead we are crippled from our own limitations. It seems that the term ‘The American Dream’ doesn’t have as much luster as it used to. It seems to me that people used to dream bigger. Too many of the generation X’ers and the current generation Y’ers are of the belief that others should provide opportunity for them. Nobody is out there waiting for us to graduate college so they can hand us a $100,000 a year salary. Don’t get me wrong, high paying jobs do exist. I just feel that too many people are waiting for opportunity to find them.

2. The American system really works. This is really an extension of the first thought. There are people making it big today. That could be you. It’s not a matter of rolling the dice, random chance, luck, etc. Go out and create your own opportunity, create your own destiny, live your dreams!

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