Turn to the year 1999, a couple of friends sitting on a deck drinking beer and having a few laughs. The intelligent looking one (ME) sips a bud as he looks over to where his wife is, over through the window in the kitchen.
She was sincerely listening to her childhood friend Simone, she had that look on her face, the one I never see. This look was only reserved for her closest girlfriends lately and I never got it. I always got the "Martin, I love you... but" Look.
We had gone through some pretty rough times in the last few months. Cassie's dad died recently, and the loss of our daughter only could bring strain to a marriage that was good and the participants were both sincere and good people. But life will bring what it does, or so I thought.
Lost in thought, I hear my name loudly mentioned and good natured laughter was being executed at my expense. I snap out of it and re-focus on the conversation, only to discover we have come back to what we always talk about lately.
My friends were good hard working honest people. Geoff was a carpenter, Beasley was a chef and there was my brother Andrew who was in sales. They were my inner sanctum. A close knit group and our wives, which instantly would seperate for a good part of the night whenever we would meet, then rejoin as a group and have a great time as couples.
It was a ritual, a tradition that we counted on every weekend because everyone seemed to enjoy the dynamic. It wasnt perfect and we all understood that we took the good with the bad.
That night our conversation took a strange detour. I read a book that would change ALL of our lives, but we are jumping ahead a little too fast.
I found the book as a free download online back then. There was something about the way it was written that made my attention pique. Our conversation that night steered towards things like leverage and capital gains and economies of scale and a dozen other features of the book I could remember and sound knowledgeable on.
Needless to say, it wasn't the types of things we usually talked about during a social gathering except for "show off" value. But this conversation with the guys wasnt the same. They responded with great interest and contributed to the conversation I initiated with their own enthusiasm.
Back to my marriage.......My wife was happy but not you know, delighted anymore. The emotional burden had dampened her feelings and there seemed to be little I could do about it. My job was reasonable as the State manager of a leading insurance company I made a fair and reasonable living. I was middle class but not wealthy enough to avoid a few things that needed taking care of. I made enough for Cass to be a stay at Home mom looking after our surviving children, but not enough for it to be comfortable.
You see, I talk about this night because it was the one turning point I can define in our lives. The desire and need was just right. The solution was evidently available through this book and we all felt the same.
As a group we all agreed we had read "money stuff" and the "how to get rich quick stuff". We all didnt even need to verbalize our opinions on this stuff. It was hype and an insult to our intelligence. But nevertheless we talked about what I was willing to present via the book I read. My opinion wasn't disregarded by these straight talking lifetime friends of mine. They instinctively knew I was on the level and they were prepared to hear me out. To this day, I dont know if they were humoring me or not, but Im certainly glad they did do whatever it was they did at the time. I never would have acted on my impressions otherwise.
O.K. Cut to the year 2003 Early that year, I had achieved a goal I set out to achieve 27 months earlier. $1 million dollars in 48 months. It was a modest goal the 48 months and was created in nearly half the time.
My Friends, and their friends also achieved results for themselves in that time because I couldn't shut up about this book. They read it, their friends re
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