Saturday, October 02, 2004

New wheels... This is the car I've wanted since 1976!

New house, new state & now new wheels...

I remember as a kid, my father had a Porsche 924. It was copper colored & my brother & I used to both ride in the front seat - I cannot remember even if we wore a seatbelt? It was such a cool car. What I remember the most was the smell inside the car. The smell was unique, I've been in almost all of the exotics & only a Porsche smells like a Porsche.

My entire life, I have always dreamed of owning a Porsche 911 Carrera. Today, I brought my new Porsche 911 Carrera Cabriolet home. It is triple black: black paint, black soft-top & black leather interior. I know Arizona is hot but sometimes you cannot deny the desires of a 10 year old boys dream grown up.

Would you like to know the coolest part? The smell inside my lil convertible smells the same way my dad's did in 1976!

I cannot wait to see how fast this lil 6-speed will go out on the highways.

Thursday, September 30, 2004

Good bye California…Hello Arizona

So after living on the beach for the past year as beach bums, Leslie & I have offically moved! We were flying home from Leslie's grandparents house in August 2004. During this voyage home, we started discussing our future and our future family. We know we want to have kids sometime soon and that Los Angeles is not the place we desire to raise them. We started brainstorming were on this planet we want to raise our kids. We did some investigating and toured Southern California to no avail. We also starting visiting Arizona frequently and we fell in love with the area, the people and the abundance. So the BIG question was could we adjust to the heat, especially the summer heat. We started visiting Scottsdale, AZ a few years ago and although the 100 degree plus heat will get your attention, we knew we could adjust. And so the adventure begins...

We must have looked at 3 dozen homes in a pretty short time and made a couple of offers that were close. Finally, we found our new home and our offer was accepted! The moving truck arrived at our townhome on the morning of Sept. 15, 2004 which is exactly 1 year from the day we moved in. That night after the moving truck departed, Leslie & I, along with our English Bulldog, Roxy, departed Santa Monica enroute to our new home in Scottsdale, AZ.

How exciting? Very! We arrived at the guard house and after introducing ourselves to the security staff our realtor arrived with everything we required to get in to our new neighborhood. The movers arrived with 15 minutes and started moving our stuff into our 1st house. We have never had a house of our own before. We just moved out of a townhome with 5 other families behind our unit. It is pretty cool that 2 years ago, Leslie & I had a 2 bedroom apartment in Atlanta, GA. As old George Jefferson says,"We're Moving On Up!"

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Avon Walk For Breast Cancer - Santa Monica, CA










I just completed to Avon Walk For Breast Cancer in honor of my mother. The minimum to walk was $3500 & my goal was to raise $5,000 for this walk...I did not do it... I raised over $20,000 with my team, with $10,000 of this from my personal fundraising efforts. The support within my company was overwhelming. The majority of dollars I raised came from within this amazing community. The support was not just financial, I had a business associate fly in from NY & 2 others within LA raise money & walk with me. The walkers arrived before sunrise just a block from our house on the beach. It was a very sureal start to a long weekend, to say the least. You could feel the buzz in the air. Leslie arrived long before I did, as she volunteered and was directing traffic when I walked up.

It was a grueling 2 day event. On the first day, Saturday, we walked a full marathon (26.2 miles) and the blisters let us know not to forget the final .2 miles. After spending roughly a half hour getting treated for my blisters, Leslie picked me up at the end of the first day & took me home.

The next morning I could barely wake-up... I met up with my buddy walkers and the day began. I was much more emotional on day 2 than I was the previous day. The last 2 miles I could barely think. Once I saw the finish line, Leslie was there, people were yelling & screaming...

I meet so many inspiring woman this weekend, each has been touched in one form or fashion by this horrible epidemic. It was the memory of my Mom that inspired me to walk on, inspite of the pain I felt.

I walk for you Mom. I miss you & will love you always. Thanks for always being my best friend & encouraging me to follow my heart without limitations.

Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Home From Greece...It Was Amazing!!!


Hi!

I hope the past 2 weeks have been amazing for you. Leslie & I are just back from a spectacular trip to Greece. As you know, we were there for the 2004 Summit Conference. We spent several days before the conference on Santorini Island. If you have never been, make sure you write this jewels name down.

It is a must see in your lifetime. We will definitely return. One of my favorite memories of Santorini, while there are so many to pick from, is when we rented a brand new Audi TT convertible and went ZOOMING around the island. We will never forget the excitement we had that day. We covered almost every mile of the island from the black beaches of Kamari to the red beaches near the archeological ruins in Akrotiri and we finished out our day by watching the most spectacular sunset from a quaint restaurant in Oia. It is almost hard to believe all the places we have been with Liberty League in the past 12 months. 1 year ago we went to our 1st ever conference...it was held in the Island nation of Fiji! We actually went early to that trip also and got married on a secluded private island days before the conference began. We had to take a sea plane from the mainland to get there! After Fiji, we went to Las Vegas, NV for a Super Saturday National Training event. That was the first time I ever went to Vegas and left with more money in my pocket/bank account then I went with. We actually left with tens of thousands more than we had before the trip! Our next trip w/ LLI was to Cancun for our 1st Liberty Conference. We went early and we stayed late...do you see a pattern developing here? Cancun was awesome... the resort we stayed in was ALL-INCLUSIVE! It didn’t matter what time of the day or night we called, they catered to our every whim! After Cancun, we went to Orlando, FL for another Super Saturday! My most vivid memory about this event is that most of my immediate family was present getting the same information I was there to get and for the same reasons! To grow our businesses and boy have they grown!!! After this training day, we next attended another Liberty Conference in HAWAII! It was my first time there and Leslie’s second (she was there while in school cheering at the Aloha Bowl!) We went 1 week early (imagine that?) and rented a huge estate right on the water with two couples we have become wonderful friends with through Liberty League. Our next Super Saturday was very cool as all of LLI headed to our backyard in Anaheim. We took our team to Disneyland the day before. Let me tell you, it was so cool to meet all the kids of our teammates! That brings us up to date for now. While we were in Athens, we saw the Acropolis, the original Olympic stadium, the ruins of the Forum, and so on...it was a living history book. I will never forget swimming in the rooftop pool of our hotel and seeing the Parthenon & Acropolis a few blocks away. We also took a 9 hour island cruise with about 100+ other Liberty Leaguers, their families & several of our speakers. We finished out the event with a black tie formal event at the Byzantine Estate. The coolest past of the night is when Brent Payne & Shane Krider (the 2 co-founder’s of Liberty League) donated $100,000.00 to Acres of Love (www.acresoflove.org) and then these 2 announce that they are giving away a brand new 2004 BMW Z4 convertible as 1 of the 5 prizes for the Dog Days of Summer contest on August 21, 2004 at the next Super Saturday event in Phoenix. For more details and a fun video check out my website: www.michaelhamburger.com or www.libertyleague.com/us (Let me know if you see Leslie on the phone in the Dog Days video!)

When someone asked you how you spent your summer...what will you say?

Wednesday, March 03, 2004

Our 1 year Update: 03/03/2004

Kava Ceremony w/ Village members, Fiji

Hello Everyone:

Today, March 3, 2004, marks our 1 year anniversary in getting started with Liberty League International. It is almost hard to believe what all has happened in our lives. I am very proud to share with each of you some of the past year’s highlights. As many of you know, 1 year ago both Leslie & I were working J.O.B.’s in Corporate America and doing quite well. I was making over 6 figures a year at my job and Leslie was making $33k + commission. We found this business while we were on a snowboarding trip in Salt Lake City, UT at the end of February with Leslie's brother & his wife. We made the choice to get started immediately after returning home from the trip. Am I glad we made the choice? Keep reading and you decide. We got our business up the next week when we returned home to our 2 bedroom apartment in Atlanta, GA. We got ourselves qualified and in a money making position our first week in business and put our first money in our pocket the very next week! This showed us that this opportunity was for real and this was before our course arrived in the mail. We came shooting out of the gate our first month and made the choice to leave our jobs at the end of March. Leslie left her job on March 24th and I left my job 1 week later on March 31st. Both of our bosses thought we were nuts and now my former boss has gotten himself started!

Champagne view from our Honeymoon Suite in Fiji
We decided to travel to Los Angeles for Labor Day weekend in August of 2003. We fell in love with the beaches of Southern California, found an amazing townhouse overlooking the ocean, went home and packed up and moved 1 week later. We drove cross country working our business from our cell phones and plugged into every call to share our adventures and the dollars made simply by following the system from the road. We “camped” out for 3 weeks while awaiting the arrival of our movers and our belongings & experienced our best day ever in the business!

One year later as we look back we have been to Fiji in the South Pacific for our first Summit Conference. We took the opportunity and got married before the Summit Conference on the beach of a private island which we traveled to by seaplane! We originally had decided to get married on a beach in south Florida. We’ve also spent over a week in Cancun, Mexico at our first Liberty Conference back in October of 2003! We’ve attended 2 national training events, one in Las Vegas, NV in August of 2003 & one in Orlando, FL in January of 2004. We have just returned this week from spending 10 days in Hawaii at our second Liberty Conference. During the past year, we’ve been afforded the opportunity to hear from world-class speakers, such as, Bob Proctor, Doug Wead, Andy Andrews, Fredrick Lehrman, Jordan Goodman, Jerry Clark and Patrick Combs, to name just a few! And we are already looking into the future, as we are committed to attending our second Summit Conference this June in Athens, Greece! We are also looking forward to returning to Cancun this October for another amazing Liberty Conference. We will also be attending another nationwide training event in 45 days, either in Scottsdale, AZ or Las Vegas, NV.

Private Island dive excursion with our friend's Bob & Lisa
Is this too good to be true? You be the judge. Decide for yourself. Within our first year, we have tripled our income! We enjoy the freedom from no longer be chained to 40 – 80 hours per week at our jobs and we now work our business 20-25 hours per week! We can travel anywhere we choose without “taking vacation” or “calling in sick”! Do you want to know the best part? Besides the time & money freedom we now enjoy, we are assisting others in achievement of their goals. We have had the honor of assisting numerous others achieve a 6 figure income and create the life of their dreams! What will you decide for your life? I invite you to checkout our new website www.michaelhamburger.com or contact us with any further questions you may have.