Why would anyone ever want to write a book?
I’ve asked myself that question, numerous times. In school, when the teacher told us to write a paper, it was like torture. It was Mrs. Durham, just trying to make life miserable for us. Nobody would ever write if they didn’t have to write.
I guess that’s the answer. You write a book because you have to write a book. That’s how Homes in Order came about. I had to write it! I’ve seen enough of financial hardship in my real estate career, and my mind has been obsessed with finding a solution. It wasn’t that I was trying to find content to write a book. It was that my mind was continuously thinking about how numbers work, how loans work, how debt works, and how management works. I wrote the book because I want to help others understand how it works.
One morning as I was getting ready for work, I remember walking out of my closet asking myself, “How much, exactly, would I save if I were to pay extra to my mortgage? The mortgage is cheap money, right?”
As I did the research for myself, I discovered a little about how money works. Millions of financial calculations later, I developed the algorithms that proved the solutions to my questions. But it wasn’t done. Like the wind or water gradually eroding and shaping the red rock Arches in Southern Utah, each day my project took shape, and defined itself. $1 = $5. A dollar Saved is Five dollars Earned. Homes in Order.
Very late in the process, when I saw “A penny saved is twopence dear,” Benjamin Franklin’s virtues resonated and completely changed the shape of the project. That was exactly what I had been trying to communicate. Benjamin Franklin made it so simple. And that’s the most difficult part of the project. Taking a complex financial formula and making it easy to understand. “Write with the learned, pronounce with the vulgar.”
Why would anyone ever want to write a book? Because you have to. The book made me write it.
I hope you’ll enjoy my book!