Enlightened Wealth Institute

I've decided now would be a good time to get rich. With that in mind, I accepted an invitation to a free, three-day workshop put on by Robert Allen's Enlightened Wealth Institute last weekend in San Jose.

Our primary instructor was Gary Harris. Don Dockum, James Johnson, and Nick Lamagna were the other instructors, each of whom made presentations during the course of the seminar. Tony Rosenbum, reality TV star (Boot Camp) and owner of Motova8, Inc., provided the motivational talks, as well as training in "offensive" (versus defensive) credit strategies. Don, JJ, Nick, and Tony all were available one-on one before class (they were there an hour early), during breaks and lunch, and after class. I've no complaints about them. They all were very open and candid in their assessments and advice. They didn't beat up on me to get me to sign any contracts.

You will find a number of complaints about Robert Allen's various training programs, from people who shelled out big money to attend them, at Ripoff Report. None have been rebutted. Several were so badly written it made my head hurt too much to try to read them. Most of the ones I did read boiled down to, "I didn't read my contract with them." If reading your contracts is a low-priority activity for you, what in the name of all that's holy makes you think you've any business trying to be a real estate investor? You would be better off going to Las Vegas and putting all your money on either red or black. One well-written and apparently valid complaint was from a student who believed he did not get the training he was promised: according to him, two of the three days were spent driving around looking at property. Several of the other complaints alleged failure to perform the promised after-workshop mentoring.

Gary reiterated, a number of times during the seminar, that trying to put the techniques into practice on your own is a guarantee of failure. This is part of the upsell for the expensive Mastery workshops ($35,000 for the Platinum package) but it also is sound advice. They give you just enough information at the free seminar to whet your appetite -- and to be dangerous. I've been a licensed real estate salesman in the past. I've also completed my first year of law school, which includes Contract law. The potential hazards of the deals they described were very obvious to me. There are elements of risk in any investment: the idea is to know what the risks are, and to have a strategy -- preferably multiple strategies -- in place to mitigate them.

One of the problems with various "wealth building" schemes is that, by the time they reach mass circulation, the market is saturated. This is when the snake-oil peddlers strike because, by that time, everyone has heard of the big money to be made on eBay, or with Google, or by using your digital camera to create stock photographs, etc., and they readily lap up whatever the mountebank is peddling. The same applies here: although there is still money to be made, the insanely cheap deals available at the start of the real estate bust have already been lapped up. You'll have to work both harder and smarter to find them. N.B.: I think there is still plenty of bottom to be found in the residential RE market, so I fully expect to see Round 2 sooner rather than later. Commercial RE is headed for a big crash too, though few people are talking about that right now.

So, did I waste my three days? Not at all. I got some new information, met and exchanged contact information with some neat people, and, most important, got thinking outside the box of my daily routine again. I received what I believe to be sound advice from the instructors about improving my particular financial situation. Implementation begins today. Good or bad, I'll post my progress reports here.