Life Partner's Annual Meeting Report

On August 7th I attended the Life Partners (LPHI) annual shareholders meeting in Waco, Texas. Here's my short report (PDF format) on what I saw and heard plus some analysis of why I own the stock and want to buy more.

Full disclosure: My company is a licensee of Life Partners for its life settlements product. I am an investor in the same product. My wife and I also own LPHI shares.

July 2008 Trip to Seattle, Anacortes, San Juan Islands, B.C. Canada

Actually, I (Amber) took off on 6/28 by myself to the Bay Area and Napa (CA) to visit a few women investor friends. We've been having mastermind calls monthly but it's great fun to meet in person. I learned that Laurel's a great cook and all of the other women knew more about fine dining and coordinated wardrobe than me :-)

Photos and Highlights of our July trip:



David joined me in Seattle on 7/2 and we did some touristy things in between our business meetings and updates:

• Seaplane tour of Seattle (wonderful experience, highly recommended)
• Dining at the top of the Space Needle (40 min. per revolution and we got to see the whole city 3 times before we left for the observation deck)
• Picnic lunch at Alki Beach with a killer view

We then drove down to Anacortes to meet with David's parents (who happen to be our big clients) for 4-July fireworks at the harbor. David's brother Eric and his girl friend Robin joined us on our 44' chartered power boat around the San Juan and Gulf Islands:

• Killer whales were spotted near our boat (so I heard - I got sick and stayed in bed)
  
• Docked right in front of Empress Hotel in Victoria Harbor, toured the Parliament building and Empress Hotel, got a live diving show at the local aquarium
  
• Stopped at Brentwood Bay and pulled into Butchart Gardens with our dingy - beautiful weather that day with all flowers blooming! It's really exciting since last time David and I visited it was winter and not too much to see. We came back after dinner on the boat for a live concert show.
  
• Walked around Port Sidney before the women were dropped off at the ferry terminal to head back to Anacortes by ourselves.

The 3 Overfield men (David, Eric, Dad) went boating around for a few more days, visiting various islands including Galiano Island, Cabbage Island, and Sucia, and even cooking a nice dinner for themselves on the boat. After returning to Anacortes to return the boat, they took flying lessons together and had a great time.

Natually everywhere we went we looked at real estate and toured open houses. We love the Pacific Northwest during summer time - I'm sure we'll have lots of "corporate retreats" there in the future.

May 2008 Trip to Bay Area, Phoenix, and Las Vegas

Wow I still can't believe we fit all this into 2 weeks in May: 3 round trip flights, 7 different places for lodging, and 4 different rental cars. It was too hectic for my taste but we got a lot of business done.

See photos below:



Highlights:

1. Attended 3 separate events hosted by the Keiretsu Forum in the Bay Area, an angel investor network that we were looking to join. Really enjoyed meeting the high caliber members and looking forward to becoming active members ourselves.
2. Attended 2-day (5/17-5/18) Private Money Bootcamp in San Francisco presented by Matt Scott. Matt is a great guy and the class was very intensive and worth-while for people involved in private equity. We're still digesting 3 big printed volumes of class material.
   
3. Met 2 separate groups of investors in Phoenix area for investor tours of Dazzle Dental. Met with senior management to go over operations, marketing, etc. Very impressed to see the progress made in the last year and new buildings under various stages of construction for new dental centers that we invested in. It's really great to have our friends join us in this investment.
4. Spent 2 days in Las Vegas meeting corporate executive team of Dazzle Dental. Also checked out what had happened with the strip since we last visited almost 10 years ago! Walked around the Bellagio (loved the water shows) and Venetian (we want to go back to the real Italy)
   
5. Met our friends as well as new business contacts in Silicon Valley, Phoenix, and Las Vegas.
   

April 2008 Trip to CA

Not too long after getting back from 10 days in southern CA in late Feb., we went back to CA for 20 days in April! This was kind of a trial for the "mobile lifestyle" (ref. book "The Four Hour Work Week") we want to achieve on a full-time basis and we did it!

Enjoy the slide show!



Highlights of the trip:

• 10 days in Bay Area visiting old school and work friends, as well as business contacts, and eating great ethnic food we miss so much (as usual, our stomachs did not have enough room to hold all the food we wanted to eat)
  
• We toured the Vetrazzo plant in Richmond CA (part of investment due diligence) - love the product (recycled glass countertop that looks like artwork), check it out!
• While in Berkeley, we walked around Berkeley campus a bit and visited the marina so I got to relive some college memories.
• Went to a MonaVie tasting meeting in the Bay Area, followed by Cashflow 101 game. We came away even more impressed by the product and simple and profitable business model.
  
• 4 days in San Diego attending workshops (topics were leverage and time mastery) put up by Maui Millionaires - somehow I managed to survive the 12-16 hour days and still felt energized by the great networking and ideas. I'm finally ready to give up control and look for a personal assistant.
  
• On the way to San Diego, we visited Equastone's office for investment due diligence.
• Spent about 5 days in Long Beach area with David's family and friends in the area

We somehow managed to take care of some paperwork remotely for a real estate closing in progress (seems to always happen while we're on a trip).

2007 Year In Review

[revised 1/6/2008]

Happy New Year!

First, let me confess that I expected to have this post written by year-end 2007, but that didn't happen. I had trouble summarizing what has happened for us in 2007 - there was so much we wanted to share it became overwhelming just to think about it. Anyway, below is my attempt to summarize the events and lessons learned in an interesting year.

April 2007

We spent 3 days at a weekend workshop by Maui Millionaires in San Diego, where we met some great people including Brion and Jean from San Jose, CA (our “home town”) who became our good friends this year. We also visited family and friends in southern CA, and toured some coastal real estate in North San Diego County.

May 2007

We got to see our investing hero Warren Buffett and Bill Gates up close at the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders’ meeting in Omaha, NE.

In late May, we became independent distributors of MonaVie. We were introduced to both the wellness product and the business opportunity in late April. Since it was a network marketing company, we were pretty skeptical at first. Looking back, it's funny how we spent a month investigating this $39 opportunity. Upon a closer look, we found that this was an exceptional product backed by lots of credible research and people with good reputation to lose.

We also became convinced that the network marketing distribution method is here to stay and thrive, helped by the growing trend of social networking and declining effectiveness of mass advertising.

June 2007

We took a trip to the west coast: visiting friends in the Bay Area, touring coastal real estate in northern WA near the Canadian border, and boating around the San Juan Islands in the Pacific Northwest with David’s parents and brother. We also spent a week in Vancouver, B.C. (one of our favorite cities) by ourselves and celebrated our 6^th wedding anniversary there.

We closed 3 real estate transactions while traveling – it wasn’t fun but we got it done. It happened to be at the beginning of the credit crunch due to subprime mortgages.

September 2007

Amber spent 3 days at a beach condo in the Monterey area (northern CA) with 4 other women investors and business owners. David joined Amber afterwards for a weekend in the Bay Area, visiting lots of friends.

We then headed down to spend 1 week in southern CA with our friend & mentor Jean, visiting David’s parents in Long Beach and watching Jean in action growing her MonaVie business teams.

We spent 4 days in Atlanta, GA to attend a Financial Fluency workshop with some friends.

David took a one-day trip to Phoenix, AZ to investigate a startup business opportunity, which we subsequently invested in.

Oct – Nov 2007

David spent 4 days in Philadelphia in early October, attending an investing workshop with a friend.

In early November David took a one day trip to Denver, CO for a design meeting for one of our development projects.

We attended Loral Langemeier’s Millionaire Maker game launch over 2 weekends in November at a Barnes & Nobles bookstore in Dallas. It was a competition with about 30-40 players at each of the 2 events. We finished first and second and won good prizes (books & audio programs) at the local event.

Dec 2007

We spent 6 days in Flathead County, MT, and then 4 days in Teton Valley, ID and Jackson Hole, WY areas.

We participated in design meetings for 2 full days and met with our local development team for the project we invested in Montana. We also found time to ski/snowboard one day and tried dog sledding for the first time (12 miles, 40 paws, great fun and highly recommended). Unfortunately, most of Glacier National Park was closed, but we did manage to get in for some photo ops (with lots of deer sighting).

While in ID/WY, we met the manager of our investment fund and toured many development projects our fund invested in. We got to stay at a model home so it was pretty nice and comfortable. Even though it was cold (12-30 degrees) we really liked the “winter wonderland” feel and the natural beauty of the mountains and rivers. We are already planning to go back next summer.

We got back home just in time to prepare for the holiday activities, including 2 dinner events with David’s relatives in the area, and hosting a dinner at home for some friends and Amber’s family.

By year-end 2007, we became licensed to bring fractional life settlements to accredited investors, after discovering that we could invest in this asset class normally reserved for institutional investors.

Other Events & Activities in 2007

As you can see, there has been a lot going on for us in 2007, including increased travels. In our effort to make new friends in our local area we have gone to events on meetup.com and hosted Cashflow games at our house. We also enjoy spending time with friends from our church.

God has blessed us in 2007 with new friendships as well as renewal of old ones, better health (especially for Amber), time to travel together and opportunities to help people with their financial education, which is becoming a passion for us. We feel compelled to share these blessings with others and help them live an abundant lifestyle.

Lifestyle Goals

Early in the year, I told David that 2007 was going to be the "year of the network," because it was kind of embarrassing how long it took us to realize we couldn't do everything by ourselves and still achieve time freedom or have time to spend with people - we definitely were stuck in the "DIY" mindset.

As the year progressed, it became clear to us what lifestyle goals we were striving for:

1. Time freedom - flexibility of schedule
2. Location independence – live and work wherever we choose
3. World-wide network of friends with whom we could share our success as well as lessons learned
   

In 2008, we will continue striving for these lifestyle goals – and remember you are all part of goal #3!

We hope you and your family had a wonderful year 2007, and we wish you all good health and prosperity in 2008, as well as success in everything you set your mind to. Please keep in touch and we look forward to hearing from you!

Book Recommendations

We've been asked many times what books we would recommend to others. Well, the first version of our book recommendation lists are finally here! I (Amber) spent some time looking for a good way to implement this on our web site, and decided to go with Amazon's "favorites" widgets. Pretty cool! Check it out under "Favorites" section of our web site.

We'll be adding to this section over time of course, and your feedback is welcome.

September 2007 Trips and Events

I didn't think it was possible, but as September draws to a close, I realized it could have been the busiest month for us this year! Let's see - this month we spent 2 weeks in various parts of CA, and then off to Atlanta, GA for 4 days, had a friend from CA visit us at our house for the weekend, and David took a day trip to AZ earlier this week. More details below...

We started the month with a Cashflow game meetup (we've enjoyed meeting new people and playing the game), and after Labor Day (uneventful), had a lunch meeting to do some due diligence on a deal we're evaluating. Did I mention we love evaluating deals?

Women's Cashflow Party
On 9/5, I (Amber) was off to northern CA on a 3-day excursion with several accomplished women, including our friend Jean who invited me to the event. All 5 women are business owners and investors and I enjoyed meeting the other 3 women (Gabrielle, Laurel, and Sandy) through Jean. Gabrielle had secured a condo right off the beach in Aptos, CA (near Monterey) - you could see the ocean and hear the waves rolling in all day/night; it was amazing!

We shared our personal and business stories, walked on the beach, ate really well at wonderful restaurants (I was probably the only amateur when it comes to fine dining), and of course, played Cashflow game together. It was funny that Sandy and I - the more "experienced" players - were lagging the newbies at the game. Lots of "creative" financing and partnering ideas came out at the game, as well as illegal "baby trading" schemes - OK, you'll have to play the game to understand the joke :-) We even got some shopping done at Carmel. All I can say is I thoroughly enjoyed myself and all these women "own their lives", working smart and playing hard.

One interesting note is that we met a "traditional" financial planner on this trip and his ideas about investing were worlds apart from us (the 5 women). A few of us politely "quizzed" him on what he would do with a client's investment dollars today, and he didn't really give us satisfactory answers. To him, beating the S&P 500 by a few points was considered awesome investment performance, and yet he never asked us what returns we get on our businesses and investments. Oh well, such is the mindset of the "average" investor and investment "adviser" (read: commissioned salesman), who can only hope to get "average" returns at best, after paying lots of fees and taxes.

Our Weekend in the Bay Area
Jean, Sandy, and I left Aptos and returned to San Jose on 9/7 (Friday) afternoon. David flew into San Jose, CA that evening to join me at the hotel. We had late dinner with my friend Rudy from my college days at UC Berkeley. I hadn't seen Rudy in person for a few years and it was great to finally catch up! We spent a few hours talking after dinner in the hotel lobby.

Since we were spending the weekend in the bay area, we maximized our time spent with friends in the area. We met Kurt and Jenny at their house in Menlo Park and played with their kids Lucy and Ben (both very cute!)

We then drove to our old neighborhood in San Jose and visited Stan and Vivian at their house - they also have a cute daughter named Karena (forgot to take a picture, darn!) It was strange to drive by our old house and see what the new owner did to the front yard. It felt like a different era when we were living there.

For dinner we met our friend Bethany from Intuit at Straits Cafe in Santana Row - food was great but unfortunately it became too "night clubby" and loud, impossible to hear each other at the dinner table. I don't know why most restaurants are so noisy nowadays, as if nobody knows how to enjoy a meal together with just great conversation. We left the restaurant and ended up having a great conversation in the parking lot! Bethany shared with us how she became a Christian and we were so inspired and touched - it was a blessing to get to know her better.

The next day (Sunday 9/9) was jam packed as well. We met Alan for lunch in Los Altos, then met with my college friends Khang & Betty at Jean's house in San Jose. We met Robert & Cathy in their neighborhood in Mountain View, watching their kids play with the neighbors' kids for awhile.

For dinner we were hosted by Eric and Charlene at their house in San Jose, joined by JP (from David's previous hockey team) and his newly wed wife Sarah. It was great hearing everyone's personal stories, as well as sharing our own. We had a great time even though it was a very long day.

I wish we could have spent more time at each location. We feel like we're making up for lost time with our friends, now that we're financially free and not confined to the traditional "9-to-5 work schedule". We really hope more of our friends join us in pursuing this freedom, which frees people up to enjoy life with their family and friends.

David always said he wanted to make sure we keep in touch with people in our wedding party, and I'm glad we were able to spend some time catching up with our bay area friends after moving away in late 2004. We didn't make it to ballroom dancing Sat. night as planned but it was so worth spending time with our friends instead. Next year we'll probably travel even more (!), especially to CA.

Week in Southern CA
On Monday 9/10 Jean and we flew to Southern CA - Jean is on a tour for her growing MonaVie business and we wanted to shadow her most of that week to learn from her success. David's mom picked us up from the airport, and we were soon joined by David's dad on his 50' Riva boat for a cruise around the Long Beach harbor! Jean got to "drive" (OK, "pilot") the boat in a U-turn and she pulled it off - we were very impressed, and of course took lots of "king of the world" (Titanic movie reference) and "wind blown hair" pictures to make Jean's husband Brion jealous (Monday was a work day for him and most of the world) :-) Seriously though, Jean deserves a break after getting herself out of the rat race in one year and very close to getting Brion out in a few months.

After the cruise we "parked" the boat and had a nice BBQ dinner on deck. In the grand Overfield family tradition, we stayed on the boat and talked for awhile after dinner. Jean told her story of being worn out by her corporate job, to the point of taking a medical leave, and how a bottle of MonaVie came to her at the right time through a friend, restoring her health and giving her an unexpected business opportunity which ended up getting her out of the rat race.

The next day (Tue. 9/11) after dropping Jean off for her first meeting, David and I had a great lunch together by ourselves. We then visited our friends Curtis and Anh (with their baby boy) at their home in Fountain Valley, before meeting David's parents for dinner - it was a day before their anniversary and we had a good time catching up.

Somehow David managed to fit in water skiing with his parents while I was sleeping in Wed. (9/12) morning. David and I drove to San Diego area Wed. afternoon and stayed overnight. We met Jean at a team training meeting and over the next day followed her around to various locations and meeting various leaders in her team as well as people interested in getting into the MonaVie business. Ever since MonaVie was mentioned in the Fortune magazine recently, there has been increased awareness about the product, and many people are becoming distributors (adding 10,000 people a week). We were impressed by the number of business owners (spa owners, fitness club owners, cafe owners) who became distributors, and heard so many powerful testimonials it's incredible! We came away even more motivated to grow our MonaVie business.

After a full 2 days in the San Diego area, we drove back to David's parents' house in Long Beach late Thu. night. David dropped off Jean at the airport early Fri. 9/14 morning, went for another round of water skiing, and we met David's parents for lunch at an Indian restaurant. It was funny that David and I both kept saying "we learned a lot" when asked what we did in San Diego with Jean.

We flew back to TX Fri. 9/14 afternoon and didn't get home til almost 11pm CST.

Trip to Atlanta, GA
We took off again to Atlanta, GA on Sat. 9/15 after we were home less than 24 hours from CA (just did laundry and re-packed our bags). We added this trip on at the last minute after I had received 4 free tickets to go to a workshop on Financial Fluency by Maui Millionaires. Since we had time flexibility and wanted to help our friend Chen in Atlanta who's interested in financial freedom, we decided to go to the workshop with Chen and his wife Alisha. The event was held in downtown Atlanta and our hotel was within walking distance so we didn't need a rental car.

Turned out some MonaVie distributors also went to the event, so we got to meet them as well. Since this was a more introductory workshop on financial fluency, it was mostly a refresher for us. However, for most people this was the first time they ever heard of the idea of financial freedom, or a different plan than the "traditional" way (work 40+ years at a job, save after-tax money, retire on half of the income from your working years, and hope you don't outlive your "nest egg"). As usual, David Finkel did a great job teaching and we would recommend his books and workshops for people who are seriously interested in financial freedom.

I'm glad we made time to go to this workshop with Chen and Alisha - after the workshop ended on Monday 9/17 we also checked out the local real estate market and visited their beautiful new house under construction. We had not seen Chen for a few years and this was the first time we met Alisha, who is pursuing a fascinating career in opera singing and does indeed have a beautiful voice. On our last night in Atlanta, they treated us to dinner at a Thai restaurant - we had great conversation getting to know each other and the food was yummy.

As a side note, Chen and Alisha decided to join our MonaVie team a few days later and we're so happy to work with them. It's great that we get to pick who we want to work with in our businesses. I think Warren Buffett (whom we admire) says that he can't believe he gets paid to do what he loves to do anyway, and he gets to work with people he likes and admires. David and I feel the same way - we're so blessed to have this lifestyle of freedom, and we would love to help others do the same.

Late September Events
After coming back from Atlanta, I was sure my brain could not be more "full"! I'm not used to traveling so much and it usually wears me out quickly. David was worried that might happen but surprisingly I came back pretty excited (for an introvert), albeit physically tired. It's a strange state to be in, I know. After all those years of being tired and grumpy, I could use a change :-)

Anyway, a few days after we got back, Curtis visited us for 2 days from CA. Of course the 3 of us played Cashflow game together (his first time) -- it was fun to watch someone struggle in the rat race (getting "downsized" multiple times with a few "babies" to support) and then finally get out. In fact, Curtis beat David and me and won the game!

You'd think after all the travel and events, we would slow down for the last week in September, but you'd be wrong! David took a long day trip to AZ on Tuesday 9/25 to evaluate a business we're considering investing in. On Wed. 9/26 evening we went to a free workshop in Frisco - there are so many wealth building "education" companies out there these days. No wonder: they don't teach you what you need to know in school, especially how to manage your finances. The sub-prime mortgage crisis, record number of foreclosures, huge amount of consumer debt and the negative savings rate in the U.S. are just a few signs of most people's lack of financial literacy. Not all of these "wealth education" providers are good, but at least in a (mostly) free market economy, this unmet need for financial education should be served better.

Coming up...
We are going to host a cashflow game at our house this Saturday 9/29. On Sunday 9/30 afternoon we'll meet with our local MonaVie team to discuss what we've learned from our CA trip and plan future events.

On my list of to-do's is to write a series of blog posts based on a few topics, mostly relating to what we've learned in our journey to financial freedom over the last few years. David has been saying "someday I'll write a book about this" but I figure we might as well take our own advice and "start small". I hope this happens reasonably soon. If you have suggestions on topics you want to read about in our blog, please post a comment. Thanks for reading!