on 13-Feb-2018 (Tue)

In mathematics, a metric space is a set for which distances between all members of the set are defined. Those distances, taken together, are called a metric on the set. A metric on a space induces topological properties like open and closed sets, which lead to the study of more abstract topological spaces.

In fact, a "metric" is the generalization of the Euclidean metric arising from the four long-known properties of the Euclidean distance.

A metric on a space induces topological properties like open and closed sets, which lead to the study of more abstract topological spaces.

We should be almost always asking instead of telling. You should frame most of what you have to say in the form of a question. The prospect should do most of the talking, primarily answering your questions. The more the prospect talks, the more both of you win.

The more you try to convince the prospect that your product or service is the best, the more resistance you create.

Understand this, almost anything you say can be phrased as a question. As long as you're asking questions, the prospect remains involved in the conversation.

Do you prefer to have...?

Yes, is that what you want?

Are you willing to pay more for top quality and on-time delivery of service?

When you're focusing on what the prospect has to say, your ideas on how to serve him are welcomed, especially when those ideas are phrased as questions.

What else do you want?

Gathering information isn't closing.

The entire High Probability Selling process is a closing process.

The web is the ultimate merit-based marketplace: If you have what they want, they’ll buy it.

you can literally be up and running with a full-featured web site for well under $100.

create a product for next to no money and for just a little bit of your time

You don’t need big blocks of time to get a six-figure second income. All you need is scraps of time here and there.

people can get things done on their own without being told what to do and when to do it. Are you one of these people?

The real trick is to know your very next step to take and to take small actions regularly.

some people out there are ready-and- willing buyers right now. It’s a matter of finding them

we’re living in a society where the pace of new good ideas is getting quicker

Most people are collectors of things. They don’t buy just one book but lots of them. They don’t have one cat but several. They don’t stop with one screwdriver, casserole recipe, or dog leash, but they own many.

Everywhere you look, the old model of big, slow, and one-size-fits-all, is giving way to fast, agile, and just-the-way-you-want-it. This is wonderful news for the micromanufacturer and micromarketer you’ll become

Can you turn on your computer and use a mouse? Can you read plain text on the screen? Okay then, you’re good to go.

Other metric spaces occur for example in elliptic geometry and hyperbolic geometry, where distance on a sphere measured by angle is a metric

You do need to be clear and direct in what you offer people, and that’s easy to accomplish

It’s much less painful and much more profitable to have your business in an area that’s already somewhat established.

Most of your competition is not very good at selling

Most businesses do a bland-to-terrible job of customer service. They make the really good companies stand out, and that’s the kind of business you should create. Really savvy marketers have a rule: For fastest revenue growth, look for businesses with an existing, installed base of customers. It’s smart advice.

On the web, nobody cares about your background. In the Internet world, clients could not care less.

You can’t let your overactive protection instinct squash your business idea altogether. If you let that happen then it might as well be a thief breaking into your house and stealing all your business ideas—either way, you’re left with nothing to show for your asset. It’s much better to launch your product—even if it’s not perfect—and start to make money with it.

people who believe some of these 10 mistaken notions. You might even be one of them. Do you see how powerful it will be when this book shows you how to navigate past these false barriers but your competition is stuck with them? That’s why I say you should thank your lucky stars for all the half-truths, myths, and bad information surrounding online businesses.

you really should concern yourself with—the true barriers to your progress.

We all have people around us who mean well with their advice, but in reality they’re not that helpful and not that successful themselves. It’s very dangerous for you to take advice from them.

That’s absurd. I don’t think I can sit on the couch and make money!

There’s no question that many people work extremely hard for their money. The mental limitation comes when they think that only through hard work can they produce honest money. It seems that some people apply moral overtones and believe that easy money is only what thieves can get away with.

making an information product one time and selling it for years or even decades afterward. Oh, you should update the information from time to time, but fundamentally you have done the work once and now will receive an income stream for a very long time.

don’t have some moral or religious aversion to making money without shedding any blood, sweat, or tears.

It’s simply not necessary to take great risks or step way outside of your comfort zone in order to make a lot of money, but stretching that zone is a good thing

a stretched and limber brain will make you more money.

’ve made many millions of dollars in real estate and have never found it necessary to knock on door after door. Instead I use direct mail. I created a series of letters and figured out where to get good-quality lists of motivated sellers of real estate.

most people have highly developed excuse generators

look for ways you might adapt something to work. Look at each interesting idea or success you hear about as a potential foothold. It might only be something you can jamb your foot into with some effort, but you will now be a step higher than you were before

begin to recognize that decidedly unhelpful voice in your brain and stick it off in a corner

the good news is that plenty of methods still work just fine for making money online. No single method is revolutionary, just as nothing is the single super-food you probably want to eat for the rest of your life to the exclusion of all else.

with steady effort it begins to work

By all means keep your eyes open for the next technology that can make your life easier

simply look for how it might fit into what you already have in place

All these barriers and dangers are great for you because they mean less competition.

I suggest you review those sections regularly. It’s so easy to be lulled back into thinking in those old, counterproductive ways

see opportunity and potential profits just about everywhere you look.

Free morphemes can function independently as words (e.g. town, dog) and can appear within lexemes (e.g. town hall, doghouse).Bound morphemes appear only as parts of words, always in conjunction with a root and sometimes with other bound morphemes. For example, un- appears only accompanied by other morphemes to form a word. Most bound morphemes in English are affixes, particularly prefixes and suffixes. Examples of suffixes are -tion, -ation, -ible, -ing, etc. Bound morphemes that are not affixes are called cranberry morphemes.

homeomorphic spaces are topologically the same.

Each choice of open sets for a space is called a topology.

In particular, sets of the form (-ε, ε) give us a lot of information about points close to x = 0. Thus, rather than speaking of a concrete Euclidean metric, one may use sets to describe points close to x.

In general, one refers to the family of sets containing 0, used to approximate 0, as a neighborhood basis; a member of this neighborhood basis is referred to as an open set.

When difining nearness between points with open balls, the measure of distance becomes a binary condition

Sets that can be constructed as the intersection of countably many open sets are denoted G_δ sets.

infinite intersections of open sets need not be open.

topology is closed under finite intersections while sigma-algebra is closed under countable intersections

A complement of an open set (relative to the space that the topology is defined on) is called a closed set.

U is open if every point in U has a neighborhood contained in U.

Intuitively speaking, a neighbourhood of a point is a set of points containing that point where one can move some amount away from that point without leaving the set.

In a convex problem, if there is a local minimum that is interior (not on the edge of the set of feasible points), it is also the global minimum

A large number of algorithms proposed for solving nonconvex problems—including the majority of commercially available solvers—are not capable of making a distinction between locally optimal solutions and globally optimal solutions

Generally, unless both the objective function and the feasible region are convex in a minimization problem, there may be several local minima

mathematical optimization selects a best element (with regard to some criterion) from some set of available alternatives.

Fermat and Lagrange found calculus-based formulae for identifying optima, while Newton and Gauss proposed iterative methods for moving towards an optimum.

McDonald’s chairman Ray Kroc said: “We can invent faster than they can steal.”

even if you didn’t invent faster than the thieves could knock you off, you could always claim to be the genuine article, the first-ever, and urge customers to accept no substitutes.

You only need to find hundreds or perhaps a few thousand people worldwide for your product to make you a very nice pile of dough

make a bunch of money with a product and then you’ll have plenty of resources to go after fame.

Even the mighty Mississippi River starts as a few trickles and then combines over time to become something impressive.

You can make a bundle of money by carving out your corner of an existing product category.

start small, nimble, and cheap

Your first moneymaker should be an information product.

Relatively short process. Can be as short as days.

What Problem Have You Solved?

People want to know the straightforward, quick, easy way to operate things

Think of a solution that either you have found or someone you know has found. turn that solution into an info product.

Be highly efficient. The competition is simply too great to trust mere theory. Therefore use tested and proven methods whenever possible.

You don’t have to implement everything right away. Just take one investing step at a time. The real key to success is to get moving and take those steps.

Here ’ s how a future billionaire thinks: “ The way to become as wealthy as Donald Trump is to start owning commercial property in my town. ”

Commercial property isn ’ t your destination; it ’ s the way you will reach it.

Just what is commercial real estate? It’s Office buildings (all the way from skyscrapers down to a small building with a dental office in it) Apartment buildings with five or more units Stores, whether they’re in big malls or small, local shopping centers Hotels and restaurants Industrial space (factories, warehouses, and so on)

The wealth opportunity with commercial real estate is enormous for the very reason that most people think they could never own it.

Thank your lucky stars that commercial real estate remains shrouded in myth and misinformation for millions of real estate investors. They convince themselves that it ’ s not worth doing commercial real estate because they imagine a series of huge barriers in their way.

Here are just three of the many psychological barriers to entry: “ The bigger the building, the bigger the down payment that I need. ” “ I couldn ’ t possibly own a shopping center; I know nothing about retail sales. ” “ All the good deals must have long since been picked over: I ’ ll see only the lousy ones. ”

It’s Not about Your Wealth or Lack of It — It’s about the Property

I recognized two life-changing principles early on, and I ’ m now handing them to you: Principle #1: The better the deal, the less people focused on me and the more they focus on getting that deal. If I had a clear winner on my hands, they really could not care less that I was an inexperienced investor. They just wanted the deal. Principle #2: Real estate is an inefficient market. That means bad, good, and great deals are being generated all the time, and they pop up in unexpected places.

On any given day, hundreds of busi- ness situations change in your town: Companies merge, expand, and decide to relocate. Contracts are awarded, marketing campaigns take off, and products get publicity. Other companies change hands because the owner dies or retires. These events often result in a property being put up for sale.

The role of financial reporting is to provide information about a company's financial position and performance for use by parties both internal and external to the company. Financial statements are issued by management, who is responsible for their form and content. The role of financial statement analysis, on the other hand, is to take these financial statements and other information to evaluate the company's past, current, and prospective financial position and performance for the purpose of making rational investment, credit, and similar decisions. The primary users of financial statements are equity investors and creditors.

• Equity investors are primarily interested in the company's long-term earning power, growth, and ability to pay dividends.

• Short-term creditors (e.g., banks and trade creditors) are more interested in the company's immediate liquidity, because they seek an early payback of their investment.

• Long-term creditors (e.g., corporate bond owners such as insurance companies and pension funds) are primarily concerned with the company's long-term asset position and earning power.

Financial statements are the most important outcome of the accounting system. They communicate financial information gathered and processed in the company's accounting system to parties outside the business. The four principal financial statements are:

• Income statement (statement of earnings)

• Balance sheet (statement of financial position)

• Cash flow statement

• Statement of changes in owners' or stockholders' equity

These four financial statements, augmented by footnotes and supplementary data, are interrelated. In addition, there are other sources of financial information, such as management discussion and analysis, auditor's reports, etc.

Income Statement

The income statement summarizes revenues earned and expenses incurred, and thus measures the success of business operations for a given period of time. It explains some but not all of the changes in the assets, liabilities, and equity of the company between two consecutive balance sheet dates.

The income statement lists income and expenses as they are directly related to the company's recurring income. The format of the income statement is not specified by U.S. GAAP and actual format varies across companies. The following is a generic sample:

The goal of income statement analysis is to derive an effective measure of future earnings and cash flows. Analysts need data with predictive ability, hence income from continuing (recurring) operations is considered to be the best indicator of future earnings. As operating expenses do not include financing costs such as interest expenses, operating income (EBIT) is independent of the company's capital structure.

In the typical income statement this means segregating the results of normal, recurring operations from the effects of nonrecurring or extraordinary items to improve the forecasting of future earnings and cash flows. The idea here is that recurring income is persistent. If an item in the unusual or infrequent component of income from continuing operations is deemed not to be persistent, then recurring (pre-tax) income from continuing operations should be adjusted.

The net income figure is used to prepare the statement of retained earnings.

Balance Sheet

A balance sheet provides a "snapshot" of a company's financial condition. Think of the balance sheet as a photo of the business at a specific point in time. It reports major classes and amounts of assets, liabilities, stockholders' equity, and their interrelationships as of a specific date.

Assets = Liabilities + Stockholders' Equity

• Assets are the economic resources controlled by the company.

• Liabilities are the financial obligations that the company must fulfill in the future.

  Liabilities are typically fulfilled by payment of cash. They represent the source of

  financing provided to the company by the creditors.

• Equity ownership is the owner's investments and the total earnings retained from

  the commencement of the company. Equity represents the source of financing provided to the company by the owners.

Cash Flow Statement

The primary purpose of the cash flow statement is to provide information about a company's cash receipts and cash payments during a period. It reports the cash receipts and cash outflows classified according to operating, investment, and financing activities.

The cash flow statement is useful because it provides answers to the following simple yet important questions:

• Where did the cash come from during the period?

• What was the cash used for during the period?

• What was the change in the cash balance during the period?

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Financial Notes and Supplementary Schedules
Financial footnotes are an integral part of financial statements. They provide information about the accounting methods, assumptions and estimates used by management to develop the data reported in the financial statements. They provide additional disclosure in such areas as fixed assets, inventory methods, income taxes, pensions, debt, contingencies such as lawsuits, sales to related parties, etc. They are designed to allow users to improve assessments of the amounts, timing, and uncertainty of the estimates reported in the financial statements.

Supplementary Schedules: In some cases additional information about the assets and liabilities of a company is provided as supplementary data outside the financial statements. Examples include oil and gas reserves reported by oil and gas companies, the impact of changing prices, sales revenue, operating income, and other information for major business segments. Some of the supplementary data is unaudited.

Management Discussion and Analysis (MD&A)

This requires management to discuss specific issues on the financial statements, and to assess the company's current financial condition, liquidity, and its planned capital expenditure for the next year. An analyst should look for specific concise disclosure as well as consistency with footnote disclosure.

Note that the MD&A section is not audited and is for public companies only.

Auditor's Reports

See next subject for details.

Other Sources of Information

• Interim reports. Publicly held companies must file form 10-Q (interim report) on a quarterly basis. It is far less detailed than annual financial statements, as it contains unaudited basic financial statements, unaudited footnotes to financial statements, and management discussion and analysis.

• Proxy statements. An analyst should look for litigation, executive compensation, and related-party transactions, known as proxy statements. Proxy statements should be considered an integral part of the financial report, and they may contain special compensation "perks" for officers and directors, as well as lawsuits and other contingent obligations facing the company.

• Companies' websites, press releases, and conference calls.

Follow the system for attracting deals, two things will happen: You’ll see a lot of worthless deals, and every so often you’ll come across a real gem.

The auditor (an independent certified public accountant) is responsible for seeing that the financial statements issued comply with generally accepted accounting principles. In contrast, the company's management is responsible for the preparation of the financial statements. The auditor must agree that management's choice of accounting principles is appropriate and that any estimates are reasonable. The auditor also examines the company's accounting and internal control systems, confirms assets and liabilities, and generally tries to be sure that there are no material errors in the financial statements. Though hired by the management, the auditor is supposed to be independent and to serve the stockholders and the other users of the financial statements. An auditor's report (also called the auditor's opinion) is issued as part of a company's audited financial report. It tells the end-user the following:

• Whether the financial statements are presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles.

• It identifies those circumstances in which such principles have not been consistently observed in the current period in relation to the preceding period.

• Informative disclosures in the financial statements are to be regarded as reasonably adequate unless otherwise stated in the report.

An auditor's report is considered an essential tool when reporting financial information to end-users, particularly in business. Since many third-party users prefer or even require financial information to be certified by an independent external auditor, many auditees rely on auditor reports to certify their information in order to attract investors, obtain loans, and improve public appearance. Some have even stated that financial information without an auditor's report is "essentially worthless" for investing purposes.

The Types of Audit Reports

There are four common types of auditor's reports, each one representing a different situation encountered during the auditor's work. The four reports are as follows:

• An unqualified opinion report is issued by an auditor when the financial statements presented are free of material misstatements and are in accordance with GAAP, which, in other words, means that the company's financial condition, position, and operations are fairly presented in the financial statements. It is the best type of report an auditee may receive from an external auditor. It is regarded by many as the equivalent of a "clean bill of health" to a patient, which has led many to call it the "clean opinion."

• A qualified opinion report is issued when the auditor encountered one or two situations that did not comply with generally accepted accounting principles; however, the rest of the financial statements are fairly presented. This type of opinion is very similar to an unqualified or "clean opinion," but the report states that the financial statements are fairly presented with a certain exception which is otherwise misstated.

• An adverse opinion is issued when the auditor determines that the financial statements of an auditee are materially misstated and generally do not comply with GAAP. It is considered the opposite of an unqualified or clean opinion, essentially stating that the information contained to assess the auditee's financial position and results of operations is materially incorrect, unreliable, and inaccurate.

• A disclaimer of opinion, commonly referred to simply as a disclaimer, is issued when the auditor could not form, and consequently refuses to present, an opinion on the financial statements. This type of report is issued when the auditor tried to audit a company but could not complete the work due to various reasons and does not issue an opinion.

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Your marketing systems will eventually find a gem that’s so good, no one will care that it’s your first deal.

The financial statement analysis framework provides steps that can be followed in any financial statement analysis project, including the following:

• Articulate the purpose and context of the analysis.

• Collect input data.

• Process data.

• Analyze / interpret the processed data.
  Interpret the output to support a conclusion (e.g., a buy decision).

• Develop and communicate conclusions and recommendations. Communicate the conclusion or recommendation in an appropriate format.

• Follow up.

What is the purpose of the analysis? Evaluating an equity or debt investment? Or issuing a credit rating?

The context needs to be defined clearly too: Who is the intended audience? What is the nature and content of the final report? What is the time frame? What is the budget?

Gather a company's financial data from financial statements and other sources described in Subject c (other financial information sources). Also gather information on the economy and industry to understand the environment in which the company operates.

Compute ratios or growth rates, prepare common-size financial statements, create charts, perform statistical analyses, make adjustments to financial statements, etc.

Periodic review is required to determine if the original conclusions and recommendations are still valid.

Commercial Real Estate Will Open Up a Huge Segment of Your Local Market That You Previously Avoided

Confining yourself to investing only in single-family homes is like looking at your town through a drinking straw. The whole town is there, but your view is incredibly narrow. Once you are comfortable with my systems for investing in commercial property, you’ll be throwing that straw away. Everywhere you look, you will see opportunities that never occurred to you before. You will have become a transaction engineer.

Maybe there is a parcel of land next to a highway where you can now envision a small offi ce building or strip mall. You could buy the land and fl ip it to a developer for a nice profit.

Maybe there is a run - down strip mall (several stores next to each other in a row) that you pass every day while driving to work. You notice that with some simple improvements this area could be getting much more business.

Commercial real estate will vastly broaden your horizons.

The more property types you can invest in, the easier it will be to fi nd a great opportunity.

Start anywhere you like — but make sure that you start . You do want to be a transaction engineer, but you do not want to have analysis paraly- sis, where you never quite get around to making offers and doing deals.

Build a low - cost team of professionals to do the heavy lifting.

Less Competition: They’re Scared Off Because They Don’t Know

Have the right marketing systems in place, you’ll be successful regardless of how much competition there is. Second, that’s all the more reason to branch out from single - family homes into commercial property, where there are fewer investors.

There’s no need to stop investing in one type of property, once you know how to invest that way. Instead, you simply focus on one type while keeping your eyes open to all the other possibilities that come your way.

The true lubricant business was steady cash fl ow. It didn't matter how powerful my real estate engine was; without that cash flow, the gears would grind to a halt.

With even a single commercial property, you can look forward to a nice check being dropped into your mailbox every month like clockwork.

At first the checks may be smaller because your number - one priority is to cover the cash flow needs of the property. You’ll have operating expenses that must be paid each month, and capital expenses (major repairs) that will come up from time to time.

Your first goal may be to accumulate enough positive cash fl ow so that it equals what you are earning in your full - time job. Then you’ll have the option to quit that job and become a full - time investor.