Since the demise of my last partnership, I’ve been struggling with how to fill the gaps that it left in my business and personal life.  I’m especially sad for the loss for my son both personally and his charity.  In time other relationships will fill in the loss, but there is something I can do to fill in the lost funding for David’s charity.

One of the most successful models I’ve seen for raising massive amounts of money for charity is by taking a talent and finding a way to leverage it for the benefit of the charity.  Well, one thing I know how to do is put on a seminar that reignites the participants and provides solid content.  In fact, I had this epiphany the other day.  I’ve spent the past 12 years learning from some of the masters at putting on seminars.  And I probably overstayed my time in the shadow as 2nd string.  The fact is that I do have credentials that many others lack and I’m also one of the few people who insist on “walking the talk.” I’m not going to tell someone I am a multi-millionaire unless I really am.  I’m not going to say that I run a multi-millionaire company unless I really do have a business that is worth that much.  That’s one of the reasons why I’m doing this “Journey to a Million in Two Years or Less” publicly.  In 2 years, I want to be able to talk about how I did it.

So, back to the question - how do I take this talent and find a way to provide the funding that Thunder Mission (David’s charity) needs?

The best answer I have is to put on a weekend event at a reasonable price with mostly all of the proceeds going to charity.  I will hold out the hard costs of credit card fees but absolutely no other costs.  A very bare bones seminar costs $15,000 - $20,000 to put on, which is a significant gulp if I plan to do a couple of these a year.

That’s where I was when I asked my friend Sharon Lechter if she had any thoughts about how I could get a company to underwrite part of the expenses.  She did me one better!  She found a venue that donated the space!  I have to pay a slight fee to cover the cost for the air conditioning and staff for the weekend.  But, it’s just hard costs.  

This is something we can do!  Plus the venue is a private ampitheater, so it’s a beautiful, state of the art, intimate setting.  I’ll announce it to my TaxLoopholes database in the next few days and put the tickets on sale .  

Oh, I also got Sharon to come talk and then do a private lunch with 19 other people who want to learn how to write a best-selling book!  (Sharon has had at least one book on the NY TImes best seller list for over 10 years now)   This event is going to be great.

The ampitheater seats only 130 people, so once the tickets are gone - they’re gone.  The last time I did an event like this, we sold 450 tickets.  So I figure it’ll sell out really fast.  I did promise the owner of the ampitheater that I would do another event like this for her charity.  I’m not sure if any of the tickets will be available for me to sell for that event, because it looked like the other charity is going to sell to their own huge database.

I’ll keep you posted on the progress.  This doesn’t count toward the million dollar journey, so technically I guess it doesn’t belong here.  This one feeds my soul and helps my son’s charity.