Real estate, taxes, asset accumulation: review

My first experience with these free courses sucked me right in. In addition, there are still online courses by Alex Fischer for those who are already further along than I am and want to learn how to cleverly pack real estate into business forms, so that you can make the optimal tax construct work for you. After watching almost all of his Youtube videos on real estate (buying, selling, renting, appreciation & Co.) for weeks, I have now watched his book “Reicher als die Geissens” (Richer than the Geisses) for the first time – the title says it all! The bestseller now has over 200,000 readers. Alex Fischer is a real estate investor and after all I have experienced and learned in the last weeks and months: Exactly what I want. Real estate, freedom and a top management, with good tax model, behind it.

Do you already know the new tax coaching by Alex Fischer? Convert taxes into private assets, for entrepreneurs, self-employed and freelancers. Read more here: Alex Fischer experiences (tax coaching).

Field report from the book + strategies

In this article I want to tell you about the book “Richer than the Geissens”. After I have read everything and especially part 3 often several times, because of the high density of information, here is the review, complementary to the online videos and courses that you already get for free on Youtube. For beginners, beginners and beginners like me, perfect before it goes to the big tax coaching.

What do you get out of this field report?

• My motivation: The book has 3 parts, over 400 pages, I want to show you here my most important learnings
• My situation: I already have a little experience with real estate, but I am at the very beginning.
• My goal: I am an entrepreneur, have 2 companies and about 10 employees, my motivation is to get into real estate buying, selling and renting.

Now free on Spotify

Alex Fischer is the best! The whole book is now available for free on itunes and Spotify!

• Listen on Spotify
• Listen on iTunes

Who is the book for? Finance, Real Estate, Mindset

In his audio book you get 100 principles and 43 strategies for financial freedom, private and professional happiness. To give you a little insight into the book and the free podcast “Richer than the Geisses” on Spotify and iTunes, I have extracted individual learnings to whet your appetite for more!

• First edition published in 2016; audiobook is constantly updated
• 668 essential tips
• 43 ‘timeless laws of success
• 456 pages or 79 episodes in the audio book
• 3 parts (Mindset, Strategies / Tools and Building a Money Machine)

Many authors who deal with the topic of success and career are themselves on a quest. Alex Fischer has been through it all. Today he owns over 20,000 square meters of residential and commercial space in the Düsseldorf area, one of the most expensive cities in Germany. You can learn from someone like him! Therefore, my recommendation for all those who want to be successful in real estate (but also in life): “Richer than the Geissens” by Alex Fischer. Here you learn how to build up companies, how to run them successfuly, how to invest your own capital, how to buy your first real estate and how to run it as an investment tool. You realize your 1st real estate by effective strategies, which make it at all possible for you to build up sufficient own capital funds, in order to double your cash flow with it. That’s the big goal. The way to get there is step by step.

It is important to understand that this is only an extremely small insight into the audio book “Richer than the Geisses”. Because in total you can expect over 600 principles, “43 timeless laws of success to get off to a maximum start” and “14 concrete steps, how you can become a real estate millionaire in five years with 0 euros equity”.

What particularly intrigued me, as I am also an entrepreneur and looking for more success and cash flow – including through good employees, were the consequences success rule – customer & employee selection.

How should you listen to the podcast?

It’s best to distribute individual episodes or chapters over days. The audio book consists of 3 chapters. If you want to understand the principles and ways of Alex Fischer to have the greatest learning success, you have to take your time! Every single episode contains a lot of know-how. Therefore, we also recommend repeating important chapters.

Who’s Alex Fischer?

He is one of the best-known real estate investors in the German-speaking world. Alex Fischer started his career himself with 0 euros of equity. Due to his early, close connection to finance and trading, he started earning money on the side early on, in his youth.

Alex Fischer built up more and more equity and made his first experiences with real estate. In the meantime, he holds over 20,000m² of residential and commercial space in and around Düsseldorf. Well provided for, absolute financial, temporal and local freedom.

Alex Düsseldorf Fischer speaks from experience: he has bought, renovated and resold over 2,000 properties in the last 20 years.

He has made it his new goal to help as many people as possible with his insider knowledge to become financially independent and free! If you want to know how you can have success, happiness and financial freedom like Alex Fischer, then stream the free audiobook now! In “Richer than the Geissens” you will learn how to apply the 43 laws of success.

Extremely much know-how and story

Real estate millionaire Alex Fischer gives extremely deep insights but also personal ones. Like in episode 41: The Blind Swimmer. Whenever he’s about to give up, he thinks of this one, fascinating story of perseverance, his personal “perseverance doping”.

In short, it is about a man. He lived with his wife in India in the 70s. His wife fell seriously ill. Unfortunately, they lived at the foot of a mountain. There was no way over the mountain, which would have been barely a kilometer as the crow flies. Since there was no path, he had to walk around the base of the mountain with his sick wife in his arms. She died. He swore to himself that never again should a man lose his wife just because he couldn’t make it to the doctor in time.

So he began to cut down the first rock faces. After 22 years he milled his way through the cliff of the mountain with simple tools – what an achievement! After 22 years, he had actually built a walkable path. Not for himself, but for others.

For one thing, you learn will and perseverance from history. If he has such a great achievement, how can I get hung up on small problems? For another, the little story shows that being happy doesn’t depend on your own well-being, the environment is at least as important to a happy life. Mindset is everything. You see, it’s not just about entrepreneurial principles, it’s mostly about mindset!

Your goal: “With 0 Euro starting capital in 5 years to become a real estate millionaire.” – Alex Fischer

Mindset, tools and best practice real estate

The book has 3 parts.

1. Mindset and important basic knowledge as an entrepreneur of your life
2. Basic tools for you as a manager of your own life
3. How to recognize and build a money machine, here using real estate as an example.

But one of the most beautiful sentences at the beginning is this one:

“Suppose someone said, Alex you have 450 pages to pass on everything important to your son, what would you write down?” – Alex Fischer

To be successful, you need a lot of things. It is not a single note that you have to play, but a chord, a polyphony, according to Alex Fischer. According to Alex Fischer, after decades of searching, there are 43 regularities that you absolutely have to sound at the same time. Then you have fun and money. You can neglect 2, 3.

If you disobey more than 5 rules, you’re on the brakes. If you ignore more than 15, life is exhausting, tedious and frustrating. If you follow only 5 of these rules, you end up on the street. These 43 laws and principles are discussed in Parts 1 and 2. Some of them are millennia old laws and new modern principles. They are valid all over the world.

The biggest mistake, from his statement, all looking for a money machine. These are tons heavy and stand on large foundations, much EDP, much effort. Even if someone gives it to you, how will you install this big machine without its own foundation, without maintenance knowledge and how do you put it into operation?

Even if you have the machine, it’s useless without a foundation and maintenance. Central to this is an entrepreneurial foundation. If you ask entrepreneurs, they always talk about the money machine, not about the foundation, the logistics around it. Like a fish, you don’t notice the water around you unless it’s gone.

An example: 6,500 m² property (shopping centre) bought for 1.2 million euros. This investment has an annual target rent of 500,000 euros. That means the property pays itself off in 2.5 years, another year for the tax and from then on 500,000 euros cash flow comes annually for free disposal.

Shopping centre example & return of investment

• Purchase price: 1.200.000 Euro
• Surface area: 6,500 m²
• Target rent (year): 500,000 euros
• ROI: 2.5 years

Selfmade real estate millionaire

I’ve looked at a lot and have a favorite: Alex Fischer. Self-made real estate millionaire, down to earth, focused, very clear in his thoughts, ideas and structures. I’ve been following his Youtube channel for a long time. Then came his book, with stories and experiences from himself: Richer than the Geisses. Now the book is available for free, yes free! Therefore, here is my extra tip for all who also have the desire to make money with real estate.

Learn how you can build up a cash-flowing million-dollar fortune and thus make your life more and more relaxed, just by using your brains alone.

• Alex Fischer Tax Coaching – Application
• Tax Coaching Experiences – Participant Interviews

Part 1: Objective, content and mindset on money

One of the most interesting findings:

What is your individual goal?

What goals drive us as people, but also as entrepreneurs? In episode 6: Your personal real estate opportunities, Alex Fischer goes into the very basic goals that drive us, especially with regard to real estate. Anyone who listens to the podcast “Richer than the Geissens” is pursuing one goal in particular: earning money with real estate.

Later in the podcast, it goes much deeper into your mindset. At the beginning of the podcast it’s called “Identify your personal opportunities in the real estate market”, that is, which segments, opportunities and goals are meaningful for you personally?

In the podcast, Alex Fischer lists many different motives that can drive you, from worry-free retirement to cash flow through real estate in a big way. You want:

• Supplement your future retirement as effectively as possible,
• Convert taxes and duties into private assets,
• Earn or make a living with real estate brokerage,
• Generate additional cash flow before retirement,
• Be able to live out of the cash flow of the rental income or
• Like Alex Fischer, making a living in real estate.

Fundamentally, achieving your goals is about having a positive mindset. What do happier-than-average people have in common? They take their life, work, but also their relationships playfully, according to Alex Fischer. Why were Alex Fischer, Boris Becker, Michael Schumacher and also Reinhold Messner themselves sad?

“It was success that killed the game.” – Alex Fischer

Repeating this game is boring and no longer gives the same satisfaction. It feels like it’s all downhill from here on out. So “just” making more money doesn’t make you happy anymore. The big question:

“What makes you fun? What makes you happy?” – Alex Fischer

Your Purpose: Why you do something (higher goals)

Alex Fischer starts off by asking, “How the hell do you find your Purpose?” Episode 16, How to Find Your Purpose is about how you’re no longer “just” pursuing goals. You’ll learn what that means in Episode 16, here’s a little insight:

Henry Ford’s dream was that everyone should drive a car. With the assembly line, he transformed the car into a mass product for everyone. Steve Jobs wanted to give everyone a tool to make a dent in the universe. Currently, Apple ranks as the most valuable company on Wall Street with a stock market value of $920 billion. With computers, MP3 players but also the smartphone, Apple revolutionized the digital entertainment and mobile phone industry.

Changing Beliefs: Attracting Money (Success Seeks Success)

If you repeat something thousands of times, you develop a habit. Who suddenly decides against it and 2, 3 times a new concept, recognizes quickly that usually the habit prevails, so Alex Fischer in episode 21: Analyze your beliefs.

Like smokers, a thousand times the cigarette was “relaxed”, “delicious”, etc.. Suddenly you want to quit smoking. What happens? You decide 2, 3, 4 times against it and then you start smoking again. Simply because you have said a thousand times, “I want to smoke”.

Many carry the belief: “Money is bad”. Not exactly in this wording, but in this context.

Setting belief against belief does no good.

The solution is that “you dissolve old and outdated beliefs through awareness”.

Build and operate money machine (cash flow and reserves)

As described above, this review is about the 3rd part of “Richer than the Geissens”. Be sure to listen to Part 1 and Part 2 as well, or you won’t understand many of the principles and strategies in Part 3. I also streamed the audiobook in several stages. That is distributed listening to really internalize all the learnings, as well as repeats of individual, for me very interesting episodes.

Part 3 is all about building your money machine. In more than fifteen episodes, you’ll learn to create your own business model that generates passive income to the topic of real estate as an investment tool and… but let’s start at the beginning. Here are a few of the many, many learnings that you get in the podcast “Richer than the Geisses” from Alex Fischer himself.

But first, it’s important to set a big goal. You will quickly understand this goal while listening to the podcast.

“Thirty days off a month!” – Alex Fischer

This sounds unrealistic at first, but if you look at the passive cash flows installed step by step, this goal quickly seems reasonable. Because as we learned earlier in episode 43, “self-employed” and “entrepreneurs” are different. Self-employed people spend their time on money. Entrepreneurs create structures and machines that make money.

Small rivers become big ones: Development

How often do you face the problem: “You can’t see the forest for the trees”. A construction site here, a construction site there, in private life and especially as an entrepreneur. I myself found this quote, as short and simple as it is, extremely uplifting and motivating. In relation to my own work, projects but also to further aspects such as public relations or viral effects:

“Small rivers become big ones.” – Alex Fischer

As confusing as one’s own work often seems, especially when first setting up companies, everything gradually falls into place. Here, too, Alex Fischer brings many interesting aspects, for example this one:

• How much do you think you can do tomorrow? – You will overestimate yourself
• How much do you think you can do in a year? – You will underestimate yourself

Video: 10,000, 100,000… how would Alex Fischer invest?

What is the best way to invest your money? Which investments are really lucrative? What can you invest in to grow your money?

Part 2: Success as an entrepreneur: finances, customers, employees

1. Success rule, customer & employee selection
2. Is there a simple rule for success?
3. Pareto in application: Example customers
4. Finding Employees: A, B and C employees

Success Rule, Customers & Employees:

Part 2 deals with the basic tools for you as a manager of your own life. Based on his own experience, Alex Fischer shows which aspects are really important. In particular, the Parteo principle plays a central role in all entrepreneurial decisions from his experience: focus and select.

When you reach these episodes, you have already heard the first part in detail, some episodes even twice, three times. Here is a brief explanation of the setting that will take you to the episodes “Rule of Success, Employee Recruiting and Cash Flow”. Part 1 – Be happy through financial success. First of all, the audiobook and podcast “Richer than the Geissens” by Alex Fischer is about “being happy”, the “right mindset”, the Pareto Principle (or the mathematical formula), the relationship to money and earning money to the setup for success, the money magnet, money laws and your own account structure (keyword: “poor calculate” and build reserves). Part 1 of the book or podcast deals with your own beliefs.

A first Game Changer. Now starts part 2 of 3 with the basic tools for you, as a manager of your own life. Learning 1, which fascinated me: Is there a simple rule for success?

Is there a simple rule for success?

In episode 38: “How the Force is with You” author Alex Fischer dives extremely deep into the matter of his own ability. Not about typical entrepreneurial principles, but about physics and matter – interesting, especially for nerds like me. The big question:

“How do goals become reality?” – Alex Fischer

Goals can “become real”, they can materialize through your “own energy”. You can learn how this works in the podcast episode 38: How the power is with you! This link between natural law and fulfillment is extremely interesting and also shows you that there are always many small steps that lead to a result. Another phrase that I really want to give you as food for thought from Alex Fischer is: “Set high goals, then you have the least competition”. Here’s a reference to previous episodes where Alex Fischer mentioned Steve Jobs at a couple of points, the founder of Apple – at times the most valuable company in the world. Jobs didn’t want to create a simple product, Steve Jobs wanted “his customers to want to make a dent in the universe”. Another example is Henry Ford, he didn’t want to sell cars like everyone else, he wanted “everyone to be able to afford a car”. The rest is history. What do you learn from that?

“Set your goals high, then you’ll have the least competition” – Alex Fischer

Ingeniously formulated by Alex Fischer! But beware: Many set high goals, but do not invest long enough energy in it. Conversely to the learning before: How should your goal materialize if you do not invest enough energy? In short, everyone should ask themselves questions about their own experience. Can it be that you:

1. Didn’t keep things energized long enough,
2. You’ve been focusing your energy on the wrong things,
3. Directed the energy from the original goal to other things,
4. Directed your energy against other energy (swimming upstream)?

For more on the “materialization of goals,” check out Episode 38: How the Force Is With You.

Pareto in application: customers and financial resources

As a businessman, businesswoman or self-employed entrepreneur, you certainly know the Pareto Principle. But have you ever considered it as a mathematical formula? Alex Fischer goes into this principle and looks at it, at least for me, for the first time from a different perspective: Formula instead of principle! Because, more accurately, it’s not a principle, it’s a mathematical formula that doesn’t stop at the first step. The typical 80:20. If you think one step further, it becomes ingenious. Also on the already divided 80:20 can be separated individually again in 80:20. In the second step you take both results and divide them again in the ratio 1:5 or 4:5. So you get from the 20% with 4% (20% : 1/5) and with 80% you get 64% (80%: 4/5). Step 3 does the same, so you get 51:1. Listen to episode 13: If you do the same as everyone else.

Experienced entrepreneurs apply the Pareto principle in many stages.

• Step 1: 20% of the work provides 80% of the result
• Step 2: 4% of the work provides 64% of the result
• Step 3: 1% of the work provides 51% of the result

In Part 2, Alex Fischer delves deeper into this insight and applies it to customers. Hear more in Episode 39: Pareto in Application. Everyone talks about, “I’ll double my customers by next year!” If we think about the Pareto Principle, 20% of customers provide 80% of the effort, the “bad twenty,” according to Alex Fischer. On the other hand, there are 20% of the customers who provide good sales, the “good twenty”, your VIPs. They are where your focus is, all your energy. The “mid sixty”, the 60% in the middle are served, but you don’t want to invest much effort.

• Say goodbye to the “bad twenty”
• Automation of the “mid sixty
• Focus completely on your “good twenty”.

These “good twenty” will then become your 100% in the future – once again brilliant! If you go through with this, you will eventually only have customers that you love. Of course, the principle also continues with the renewed categorization into “bad twenty”, “mid sixty” and “good twenty”. If you repeat this principle mentioned by Alex Fischer for 3 years, you will increase your effectiveness by a factor of 50.

“3 years, effectiveness x50” – Alex Fischer

Finding Employees: A, B and C employees

Unfortunately, you won’t find the perfect employees for your company around every corner. Unfortunately, employees don’t grow on trees and you can’t create them on a 3D printer either. But if you want to succeed, it’s almost always a team game. Accordingly, you want to find good employees, preferably immediately and at least at the beginning, with the lowest possible acquisition costs and low costs for training. Learn in “Richer than the Geissens”, how you can search for employees, find and retain them in the long term, by selecting A-employees, . Many young entrepreneurs spend a lot of time with their employees, especially in the first few years, and vice versa, they are also in the company a large part of the week. The selection of applicants is therefore central.

A, B and C employees according to Steve Jobs

Alex Fischer explains what it means to categorize employees in Episode 35: Choose Your Partners Wisely. Here Alex Fischer goes into a very interesting point: categorizing employees for all the benefits I described above. For any entrepreneur in growth and in full process, choosing staff is critical to success and also making yourself happy. Basically, it comes down to this:

There are A, B and C employees

Steve Jobs provides the intellectual foundation here, which according to Alex Fischer (in brief), looks like this:

• A-employees are “rock stars” who keep the company going
• B-employees are “willing people” who go along but do not feel fully responsible
• C-employees are “brakemen and defeatists” and people who run in the opposite direction.

Steve Jobs rule: Only work with A-grade employees. This ensures long-term success. Also for existing staff: B-employees are either made A-employees or fired. C-employees are fired immediately. This results in another advantage, which Alex Fischer makes clear:

• A-employees hire A-employees; they hate B- and C-employees
• B-employees hire C-employees (probably due to feeling of superiority).

Pareto: Example employees

If there are too many B and (in the long run) C employees, your A employees will flee. According to Alex Fischer, only one C-employee can destroy the work of seven A-employees. Again, the Pareto principle applies on episode 13: If you do the same as everyone else, because:

• 20% of the employees do 80% of the trouble
• 4% make 64% of the trouble
• 1% is responsible for 51

The most important difference is that A-employees feel “responsible and as a causer”. Accordingly, they accept the error. B-employees and C-employees (abbreviated) do not feel responsible. C-employees even look for the fault in others.

Employee selection, the second big learning that I really wanted to give you.

With great power comes great responsibility

Another phrase that automatically stuck with me was translated into German: “With great power comes great responsibility!” The one or other Marvel fan, will know the sentence from the first Spiderman movie. Episode 48 on the podcast even has that quote as its title. Even though the episode has a different context, I really wanted to include this phrase because it’s very important to me personally – even a tenet of my faith. In fact, I included this guiding principle for myself a long time ago as well. When I am at presentations, this quote is always the introduction to the topic: “Responsibility for your employees”. Because not only personal development should be in the foreground, employees are extremely important and their goals and wishes must also be taken into account by good bosses.

Episode 48: With great power comes great responsibility is even more worthwhile for another reason, because at the end of the episode you get powerful tips in a checklist. At the end of the episode you also get a mega summary on the topic of marketing and sales knowledge.

Part 3: Making money with real estate

Be happy? Be successful? How does that work?! In “Richer than the Geissens” you learn from one of the best. In 3 parts it’s about your mindset, the right tools and the know-how to earn money through cash flow, passive cash flow, equity, your first property, and much more! So part 3 is all about building a money machine. Sounds good to me! In more than fifteen episodes you’ll learn to create your own business model that creates passive income at the beginning to the topic of real estate as an investment tool and… but let’s start at the beginning. Here are a few of the many, many learnings that you get in the podcast “Richer than the Geisses” from Alex Fischer himself.

1. Successfuly build and operate a money machine
2. PS for employees: Salary increase
3. Find & match goals, resources, strengths, industries
4. Earn money with real estate

Successfuly build and operate a money machine

As described above, this review is about the 3rd part of “Richer than the Geissens”. Be sure to listen to Part 1 and Part 2 as well, otherwise you won’t understand many of the principles and strategies in Part 3.

I also streamed the audiobook in several stages. That is distributed listening to really internalize all the learnings, as well as repeats of individual, for me very interesting episodes. Part 3 is then about building your money machine. In more than fifteen episodes you learn to create your own business model that creates passive income to the topic of real estate as an investment tool and… but let’s start at the beginning. Here are a few of the many, many learnings that you get in the podcast “Richer than the Geisses” from Alex Fischer himself.

But first, it’s important to set a big goal. You will quickly understand this goal while listening to the podcast.

“Thirty days off a month!” – Alex Fischer

This sounds unrealistic at first, but if you look at the passive cash flows installed step by step, this goal quickly seems reasonable. Because as we learned earlier in episode 43, “self-employed” and “entrepreneurs” are different. Self-employed people spend their time on money. Entrepreneurs create structures and machines that make money.

Digression – In “Reicher als die Geissens” (Richer than the Geisses) Alex Fischer draws a line between the term ‘being self-employed’ and ‘being an entrepreneur’. Self-employed people exchange their time for money by taking orders and doing work. You should be an entrepreneur! Why. Entrepreneurs build themselves a productive machine. This machine constantly and regularly throws off cash flow. That means, as an entrepreneur you shape your income in such a way that it is constantly increased without having to do anything yourself or directly. How this works is explained in the following episodes of the podcast.

So it’s all about achieving that goal of 30 days off a month. How do you get started? The best way is by taking the first step. By building money machines. Alex Fischer explains this in detail in the podcast. Because it’s through the money machine that you create passive sources of income.

What can such a passive source of income look like? He gives many examples. Here is a simple one, in which Alex Fischer tells about one of his acquaintances. This acquaintance deals in real estate. With every new closing, she directly offers even cheaper insurance. Thus she earns money with each conclusion by a signature and gets also in the future annually a commission, as long as the insurance is active. This is one of the many examples of passive income! In the podcast, Alex Fischer goes much deeper and gives several examples from different industries.

Collect passive cash flows

As with the well-known quote, many streams become a raging river, it is also for you to collect various passive money streams. So many that you earn yourself first free days. Your big and overriding goal is then 30 free days per month. So that you never again have to exchange time for money after Alex Fischer! Cost pressure and lack of passive cash flow, make you do things you don’t feel like doing. This cost pressure keeps you in the famous “hamster wheel and chains you to the ground”.

In Episode 54: Setting Up the Money Magnet, Alex goes over the money magnet again in much more detail.

At this point, you quickly realize as a listener that the money magnet will be extremely important, because no other tip repeats Alex Fischer in “Reicher als die Geissens”. This underlines how important it is to deal with the establishment of your own money magnet.

Digression – How does the money magnet work? Take 10% of your income (private) or 10% of your contribution margin (entrepreneur) and put it into a savings account. You never touch this account. In principle, the money magnet is so simple that it is easily underestimated, according to Alex Fischer. Mistake 2: Often it is destroyed again. However, tests and success reports have proven the success thousands of times. So that your money magnet functions you must consider these 3 rules. Rule 1) take 10% of your income (private) or 10% of your contribution margin (entrepreneur) and put it into a savings account. Rule 2) never touch this account! Rule 3) Never! Alex Fischer explains in detail on the podcast with stories from his own life why this money magnet changed everything for him. But he also explains that it’s not about this account making you rich. The account is about “attracting more and more money.” This account changes people’s mindset. Alex Fischer explains exactly how the money magnet works in episode 25: Building a Money Magnet.

In addition, you need to focus on activating passive cash flow, which gives you financial freedom. Because running costs take your breath away, like Alex Fischer in episode 55: Analyze and reduce costs. Only when you have enough passive cash flow, you can afford to increase your costs.

PS for employees: Salary increase

One point of the audio book I wanted to insert briefly for employees. The first question: Do you bring your company, your boss, profit? If so, ask yourself the second question: How often have you asked for a raise? PS: Of course, only if they are justified by your performance in the company.

Away from the podcast, I wanted to take a little look at current facts and figures with you. More specifically, the active demand for salary increases and promotions in Germany.

Statistics on salary increase and promotion

In the first survey from the Federal Statistical Office you can see the distribution of men and women who have actively asked for a salary increase. The result: less than half of the employees have ever asked for a salary increase! The distribution between men and women is almost equal. Men have a small lead of +4%.

• Women / Yes: 44 % (-4%)
• Men / Yes: 48 %
• Women / No: 56 % (+4%)
• Men / No: 52

After looking at the question of who has ever asked for a raise, here’s another look at career goals, or actively asking for a promotion. The survey by the Federal Statistical Office asked the following question: “Have you ever asked for a promotion at work?”

You can find more statistics at Statista

In audiobook episode 56: Increase income and creative time according to Pareto Alex Fischer gives good tips for those who are not yet self-employed or have their own business. Central to this is the big question, “Where does my salary actually come from?” A real food for thought for those employees who previously think that they are “only” paid by the hour. A fallacy, because you end up getting paid by results as an employee. Just like in physics:

Power = Work / Time

Want to increase your value in business? Be sure to listen to episode 56: Increase income and creative time according to Pareto.

In order for you to bring the best added value, you need to know 1) what your goal is 2) what you can do 3) who you know and 4) for whom your setting of goals, strengths and resources is most valuable. Another learning from Alex Fischer that I want to show you in short form. In total, the following section consists of 5 episodes of the audiobook:

Find & match goals, resources, strengths, industries

Each episode contains many tips, what I want to give you here is just a small, small insight with strong learnings from the beginning of the 3rd part of “Richer than the Geisses” by Alex Fischer. In the next episodes it is about being clear about your goals (what you have already learned in the first two parts).

For this, according to Alex Fischer, you need a detailed resource list, supplemented by a detailed list of your strengths and an industry market directory. Once again summarized, in the next episodes it is about:

1. Purposelist
2. Resource list
3. Strengths list
4. Industry Market Niche Directory

4 steps and 4 lists

Since you already know your purpose (listen to episode 16. How to find your purpose) or at least the technique you can use to find your purpose, the review continues directly with episode 58. In this audiobook episode Alex Fischer deals in detail with resource planning. Basically, resource planning is important so that you know your own assets. Simply put: Who do you know? What can you organize (through your contacts)? You want to find out what your resources are, then listen to episode 58: Your Resource List.

Now follow your strengths, how you identified them and how long such a list can be (spoiler, with Alex Fischer it was 5 pages at the end), the more accurately you can immediately assess in the analysis, what added value you can bring to customers. Find your strengths and categorize them, you will learn how to do this in episode 59: Your strengths list. With the knowledge of your purpose, your resources and your strengths you go to the last step, the alignment of these assets with the industry market niche directory. You’ll learn where to get The Industry Market Niche List and how to find your market niche in Episode 60: The Industry Market Niche List.

Match: Your market niche

The big goal in the process:

“Know your market!” – Alex Fischer

Find your place that guarantees you the cash flow you need for the equity of your first property. Through the targeted processing of the 4 lists, the subsequent assessment of individual areas and their evaluation, you will find the “gap” that makes you successful.

It doesn’t always have to be a world-changing idea like the iPhone. For example, the hairdresser could keep his ears open and cooperate with a real estate agent. If one of his numerous customers wants to sell a condominium, a house or even an apartment building, he or she would get a lot of commission as a tipster without investing any additional significant work.

Another example on the topic of resource planning and “Strengthen your strengths” by Alex Fischer: Even for unemployed people there are opportunities to independently build up passive cash flow and their own profitable business to generate equity. An unemployed person, who was supposedly not always lucky in life, has on the other hand very good contacts to other unemployed people through unemployment. That is, he or she has know-how of forms, procedures, appointments, measures, etc.. In addition, he or she knows some or even many other unemployed people. Wouldn’t this be the chance to build an own machine (keyword: digital information products)?

The more points you find, the more new points you will think of that you bring as strengths and resources! Organize your assets and find your market niche in Episode 60: The Industry Niche List.

You can hear everything else and much, much more in the podcast!

Earn money with real estate

Now here are 15 more extremely interesting and informative episodes. Your first equity, increasing cash flow to your first property and much more! For example, in the coming episodes you will learn the answer to the question: How does a property work as an investment tool?

But before that, you’ll get some good best practice examples from Alex Fischer’s environment: From the automation of information products to the use of roof space in the real estate sector, barrel ends for advertising, shared room rental through apartment division and permitted subletting in the lease, there are fact after fact and story after story. This much more follows from episode 61: Increase Cash Flow.

Universal, timeless recipe for success

The podcast contains so many universal and timeless recipes for success! It’s best to write along and always take diligent notes while listening. Here is a very memorable quote from Alex Fischer from these episodes that I made a note of:

“Strengthen your strengths!” – Alex Fischer

Here I want to point you once again to the universality of the audiobook “Richer than the Geissens”. For private individuals, employees but also entrepreneurs who already generate decent cash flow, the book and audio book is a strong and (for the subject) compact guide.

Press commentary

To build wealth and prosperity, I recommend Alex Fischer. His content density and expertise are simply incredible.

Dirk Kreuter (Europe’s No. 1 sales trainer and Speaker of the Year 2011)

Alex Fischer has extremely accelerated my personal and business development. His book shows a well-structured map with shortcuts to your goals. Grab it!

Hendrik Klöters (Founder of AMRAP Fitness and the Entrepreneur Channel

Alex Fischer is a lateral thinker. The knowledge in his book goes far beyond real estate investments. It shows you how to become successful and happy in your professional and private life.

Kris Stelljes (Internet millionaire and YouTuber)

Back to the Capital Investment editorial.

Precious metals: advantages, disadvantages and risk

The most important facts about gold, silver, platinum & palladium at a glance:

• Did you know? The purchase of investment gold is exempt from VAT
• Purchase of historical gold coins or old gold subject to VAT
• Investment gold is bars and typical investment coins such as Krugerrand
• Purchase of silver and other precious metal bars taxed at the regular VAT rate of 19%.
• Silver and platinum coins often with favourable differential taxation
• Tip: If you keep precious metals for 1 year, the resulting profits are always tax-free – more on this later, in the question: Are profits from gold sales tax-free?

What is the purpose of money? Basis gold

What is the purpose of money and why do many not have any? In a nutshell, it’s this: money is a form of energy. Here are some thoughts from episode 15: What is money and why don’t most people have it?

Money is a voucher that gets its value only and exclusively from people’s trust in it.

Source: Alex Fischer – Reicher als die Geissens (Book).

The road to money is long, if you mentally get into its basics. For example, the question: What is trust? Firmly convinced of the reliability, trust you get when you are able to foresee the actions, behaviors or regularities.

Banking system: emergence

How did the first banks come into being? The answer lies with goldsmiths. They stored jewelry for people, like rings. People got receipts for them, which they could redeem. Travel was much easier this way, receipts instead of “a chest full of gold”. Goldsmiths realized that never all people redeemed their vouchers at the same time, so the idea was born to issue different vouchers for the same item – hoping, of course, that they would never all be redeemed at the same time. These vouchers were issued for interest. This is how the credit system came into being.

The blacksmith lends money that is not his, hoping to get it back with interest.

What precious metals are there?

Popular precious metals are mainly:

1. Gold: The classic among the precious metals
2. Platinum: (still) in demand in the automotive industry
3. Palladium:Alternative to platinum
4. Silver: Only with specialist knowledge

Precious metals can be used as a form of investment by the investor without much know-how (silver is an exception).

Unlike investments such as classic cars or art, a concrete value is tangible and is determined daily on the stock exchanges of this world. Investors only have to follow the current share price. But be careful: High fluctuations in the price of gold (and other precious metals) are also possible here, the risk is therefore medium to high (for silver, for example).

The return is medium depending on the price development. The return on precious metals is medium to high, depending on the price development, as is the risk of precious metals. Precious metals are an attractive form of investment worldwide. It can be used at short notice, without great know-how. Through stock exchanges and trading, concrete values are at your fingertips at any time. You as an investor only have to follow the share price. Of course, there are also risks with precious metals as well as the generally high fluctuations, as known from the gold price.

Advantages of precious metals

• Gold is mainly bought in times of crisis, thus the price development is often opposite to the stock prices (accordingly predictable)
• Palladium is very interesting because it can replace platinum in industry
• Platinum is particularly rare and valuable (as can be seen with cars as a capital investment or also with art as a capital investment, rarity is a top indicator), accordingly palladium is also such an interesting substitute.
• Silver is subject to strong price fluctuations in the everyday life of the stock exchanges, this opens up yield opportunities, but also carries risks, as can be seen immediately in the disadvantages.

Disadvantages of precious metals

• As described above, gold is subject to large fluctuations in contrast to equities. Major gains may therefore take a few decades to materialise.
• Palladium, like many important raw materials (coltan, etc.), is mined especially in crisis regions; the working situation of the local people is viewed critically.
• Platinum is used for jewellery, but mainly in the car industry, so platinum is very dependent on it
• Silver is subject to strong price fluctuations and is very dependent on the given economic situation, accordingly a lot of attention is required from you as an investor in trading.

The most valuable gemstones

1. The Pink Star (Diamond) for 67 million euros
2. Lesedi La Rona for 64 million euros
3. The Constellation for €55.2 million
4. Oppenheimer Blue for €50.81 million
5. Blue Moon of Josephine for 45 million euros
6. Fancy Intense Pink for 34 Million Euros
7. De Beers Millennium Jewel 4 for 28 million euros
8. The Unique Pink for 27.8 million euros
9. Orange diamond for 26.5 million euros
10. Blue diamond for 26.3 million euros

Source: Gevestor.com

Gold, Silver & Co.

How much gold is mined in a year?

Source: Goldsilbershop.de

Data: Markt-Daten.de (Internet: markt-daten.de, retrieved 01.10.2012); Silberinfo.com (2009), World Gold Production – Historical (Internet: www. silberinfo.com/gold/bilanz.html, retrieved 01.10.2012); Silberinfo.com (2009), World Silver Production – Historical (Internet: www.silberinfo.com/silber/bilanz.html, retrieved 01.10.2012).

Goldnugget

Is the sale of gold taxable?

Gold, like all other precious metals, is subject to taxes. But there are exceptions. Did you already know? The taxation of gold sales does not apply if your profit does not exceed the legal exemption limit in the trade. This is currently 600 euros. After the holding period of one year, the profit from a sale is tax-free. The regulation applies to investment gold as well as to old gold.

Source: Gold.de

Silver

Current rate

Source: ImmoAO

Gold rate

1000 gram gold bar

Silver rate

1000 gram silver bar

Platinum rate

1000 gram platinum bar

Palladium exchange rate

500 gram palladium bars

Monitor calibration: How to adjust the contrasts and set them correctly

You should know in advance that your monitor, which is apparently set in the realistic color segment, only in very few cases actually meets the high demands of photographers. As soon as you decide to work with photos and want to bring them into the desired format on the screen, post-process them in color or post-expose them, you can’t avoid professional monitor calibration.

The reason for an inadequate calibration is not only based on unavoidable error tolerances, but often lies in the pure intention of the manufacturer. After all, you should be concerned about the correct setting if you want to use the screen without errors in the color representation and achieve razor-sharp images. There are very simple guidelines for detecting a faulty color setting. Most monitors are kept very bright, which means that the color blue is set to be particularly intense. Blue makes the screen look brighter, while orange suggests warmth and comfort, for example.

Default settings for laptops and PCs

Especially for laptops and notebooks, intense blue is used in the default setting, which makes the screen look bright and invites you to work. For desktop computers and TVs, however, manufacturers use orange and high-contrast red, as these colors are very appealing, especially at first glance in artificial light, and suggest a good image.

Neither a too bright nor a too “warm” monitor is really suitable for professional image processing. Because only the setting of natural colors can be used as a basis for image processing and excludes that you argue with the laboratory about the poor color reproduction after making the prints. Photos that are too color cast or too pale lose their appeal and have a negative effect on your image as a professional photographer.

Experience: Achieve familiarity with the pitfalls of technology

If you present edited photos to a public community on an uncalibrated monitor, this can be the undoing of your skills as a photographer. Because the images look different on every monitor and do not necessarily have to be displayed in the color nuances that you recognize on your screen and define as “real” color. In order to calibrate the monitor correctly and not to be irritated by bright or warm colours, you should use a photo with natural and rather pale colours as a basis. Take this as a background and aim to improve the image with your monitor display settings. If the photo now seems real and authentic, you should check the color effect on another device and not rely on the fact that it was so easy with the calibration and your screen is now perfectly adjusted.

The more often you practice and the more intensively you deal with the naturalness of colors and their effect, the better you will succeed in calibrating the monitor correctly and the more authentic your photos will be after processing. Neither too diffuse nor too glaring contrasts are useful in your job and lead to the result you want for pin sharp and vivid looking photos from your indoor and outdoor shoots.

Online course: Monitor calibration – learn settings for free

Here you will learn in 5 parts how to calibrate your monitor for image editing.

Introduction

Types of calibration

Color spaces

Calibrate

Hardware suggestions

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