T. Harv Eker

So we were in LA for a while and it was absolutly fabulous. We went to the Millionaire Mind Intensive weekend inspired by T. Harv Eker's book Secrets of the Millionaire Mind. Of course as I suspected Harv was not there. It was somewhat interesting. The weekend was spent with half of the time devoted to some actual learning and the other half to them selling more weekend getaways for $$$$ of dollars more. Overall I liked it. We went away with a few new ideas, we spent $20 and $20 only the whole weekend on all of Harv's propaganda. We bought a hypnosis CD that is supposed to subliminally get us to create multiple streams of passive income. We haven't listened to it yet. I was very disappointed in the fact that the seminars ran until who knows how late. We left the first night at the dinner break at 7:00 pm and we were not about to come back at 8:00 for another 3 hours of learning (selling). We were there for a fun weekend and weren't about to sepnd the whole 3 days in the convention center. The second day we left at the 4:00 15 minute break and then on Sunday we didn't show up at all. We had learned all we needed too. I think it was when we were all listening to a visualization CD in the convention center hall and we were supposed to envision our happy spot and how we could change our lives to be able to go there when ever we wanted..... that Carl and I realized that we are already in our happy spots all the time. We had both transported ourselves to our own back yard and were walking thru the tall grass and wildflowers, with a warm breeze and our magnificent mountain view. If we already have what we always wanted, why are we here with all of these unhappy floundering people with no goals in life. We know more or less what we want and we always work towards our goals. We got a little inspiration over the weekend, but we are already on our way without T. Harv Eker.
We spent the rest of the weekend eating great food at Roscoe's, Morton's, the Farmers Market at 3rd and Fairfax, walking around, catching movies, we walked the pier in Santa Monica and we even had a celebrity siting. We saw Kevin Pollack waiting outside Houston's Restaurant on 2nd St in Santa Monica Sunday night. Overall a good weekend and a welcome getaway from the kids.

Developer?

Wow I haven't written in a while and it really showed in the blog I tried to post yesterday. It was so bad and all over the place. I need to re-focus. I've been distracted from my work on the book by some actual projects and I"ve been catching up on my reading…. Books and the 3 magazines a day I’m getting in the mail. It never seems to end. I am constantly surrounded by a huge mass of information and the problem of finding the time to absorb it all. I am turing over corners on all the new and beautiful stuff that I want to try and remember. I'm looking for other women architects and trying to see what they are doing to make a change in housing. Somedays it seems like there is so little that I can do in the 5 hours a day I have while the kids are at school and others I am so productive it makes my head spin. I am amazed at myself and what I can get accomplished. I"ve got 3 businesses under investigation and 3 current businesses to run and 3 kids. I am getting it all done. This is a good day. Carl is around and he is helping out with housework lately since my last tirade about how he can't even take the garbage out while I do everything else. Sometimes he gets it and other times I have to remind him. That's just life and the way things work between males and females.
I"ve been reading so much lately and I’m not sure if it is really helping. I've read instances where reading and learning keeps you from realizing something new since you are always focused on the ideas and theories of others. But sometimes when I read history it gives me an insight to what has worked in the past and what has been a bad idea. And it turns me on to new ways of thinking about how a house works and what it says about it's owners and how it can make a person feel. It's an amazing science if you could call it that. I want to learn all I can about how people work and live in their homes. What makes them look for more and what makes them settle down? Is it all about money and setteling for whatever can be afforded? Is it really location location location? I know it's got to be a delicate balance between all 3. Can a developer ever really get it right? Shouldn't most architects be developers? I would love to be and hope to be someday when the everyday pressures of having 3 small children and the multiple pick up and drop of times and lunches and learning to read and count are not at the forefront of my mind. I think we are uniquely qualified to juggle the needs of the client and the site. What we are not qualified for in my opinion are the budget issues associated with becoming developers. We see the beauty and the function of things and are hard pressed to deny either of those for the sake of costs. The things we see as necessary for the function of a home are often lost in the budget when a developer is in control of the project. We live with it and hope to push thru our ideas into the next project.
But wouldn't it be really great if more architects took the leap and crossed over into the dark side of developing land. Infill seems like the best place to start

I just finished reading a great book about the evolution of the family home. It's The American Family Home by Clifford Edward Clark. I've been reading a lot of books on this subject lately and this one really opened my eyes to a lot of things. Mostly I've been reading books with more of a feminist slant, but this book, written by a man, was much more middle of the road. I apreciated his outlook on the woman of the house and her role in the family and that he didn't blame men for the dire state of housing.

I am most definitely not a feminist. I love my work, but I know that genetically I am better suited to taking care of my family and home than my husband is. Sure he can be shown what to do, but it is not something that comes naturally to him. He is a great dad, but he wouldn't start the laundry if it was biting his ankles.

The more I read and the more I learn about the history of home the clearer my vision becomes on what my book needs to address. People have been studying for years how to create a better house and I don't think it's something we will ever see a perfect solution to. Money will always be an issue when creating a perfect house for everyone. But as a woman I must add my 2 cents to the creation of a new 21st century home. I am just as qualified as anyone else to design for the betterment of the American Family.

Opportunity

I am getting so busy lately. Last week, after months of nothing, I get 4 phone calls for new projects. It must be that T.Harv Eker book and all of my positive cash flow thinking. So now I"ve got 4 projects, my book, my existing businesses and we've just started ramping up the search for a new business so I've got all of these prospects and financials to go thru. I'm creating my own busyness, but I've got to to get things moving. Nothing is just going to plop down into my lap. There is just sooo much I want to accomplish in this short life and there are so many fascinating things I've yet to explore. What would it be like to run a carwash, make tortillas, sell and manufacture chocolate, or own a laundrymat. It's all so interesting. Sure the money has to be good, but it also has to be fun and be a growth opportunity. Do I want to take 1 thing big, or do we want a lot of little operations going on and running us thin? There are just so many options and anything we start to undertake needs to be able to operate without us and give us more money and more time. Eventually we will hire a business manager who can lock and unlock all the doors and manage all of the employees and then we'll have even more time. Until then we will do most of the work.

New Form of Housing

I'm still not doing well with the photos. I never seem to remeber to take any, let alone anything worthy of sharing with the world.
The book is moving along slowly, but I think that's pretty normal. There just seems to be so much information to digest. I think I can honestly say that this has not been done in years and there has yet to be a solution to the best designed house for a wife and mother and gainfully employed woman. Can I do it? I'm not sure, but I would sure like to offer my take on the solution. There are so many things that I see are wrong with typical housing, but I look at it from an upper middle class point of view. I would like to see a nanny/au pare suite, private bedrooms for all the kids and private bathroom for the seperate sexes of kids. That's not always an option for most families. So my view is obviously skewwed. I'm not sure I'm qualified to offer a solution for lower income families, but I would assume we all have the same issues with housework, privacy, and comfort. Some things are universal. I'm going to give it a shot and I think I'm going to ask some big names in architecture to try and offer their solutions. I would prefer women, but any man could offer a solution if he has demonstrated the ability to be sensitive to the way a house is run. How great would that be if Dolores Hayden would create her own well researched design for the ultimate family home? That would be amazing. I've just got to work up the courage to ask her.

Wanted: Your business to buy

Holy Crap! People are actually starting to read this thing. I had no idea I was writing for anyone other than myself. I mean I know it's posted in the most public of places, but I'm just a little tiny stop in the huge internet. I guess I have a message.
I've been slacking the past few days....too many family obligations and I got a little sidetracked from my book proposal. I've got to focus on making some money for the next few weeks. I know, I know, the book will eventually earn me millions, but in the meantime I've got to get some cashflow. That city project I was interested in is just a little bit too much for me since there is only me and it's a ton of work. I'm still waiting to hear back about my fabulous never ending, never starting project here in town. The developer is not returning my phone calls. So for now I abandon the topsy turvey unreliable client world of architecture and turn instead to my amazing business skills. We own 2 other businesses besides my architecture firm, and I need to find another to supplement my erratic income. That's why we bought the first 2, but now I need a third. So if anyone has a nice service business that has all the key employees already in place and with attractive seller financing..... please let me know. I can't spend all of my hours here in my office pretending to have clients. I also run the financials for the other 2 businesses from my fabulous office that no one sees. I really like making money from doing nothing but managing people and businesses that I don't really have to work in. I don't have to show up everyday and I don't have to actually produce anything except a clean set of books at the end of the year for the accountant.