The following is an excerpt from the book The Peebles Principles
by R. Donahue Peebles with J.P. Faber
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; April 2007;$24.95US/ 29.99CAN;
978-0-470-09930-8
Copyright © 2007 R. Donahue Peebles
Prologue
I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I came from what most
people
would describe as a middle class home, an only child in a one-parent
household. But by the time I was twenty-seven I was a multimillionaire,
and
by the time I was forty-five I was worth more than a quarter of a billion
dollars.
This book is the story of how I created that wealth, beginning with
nothing.
It is also a book about how to get rich, following the principles I
learned
over more than two decades of building my personal fortune. It is the
breakdown of the deals that created that fortune and how I won those
deals.
It is a handbook of tales and tactics for a twenty-first-century
entrepreneur.
Perhaps not everybody wants to get rich, but I would say that this
particular desire is somewhere close to the core of the American dream. I
know that I wanted to be rich when I was young. I wanted to achieve a
financial stability that would free me from the worries over money that I
experienced growing up. I wanted to leave that field of gravity forever.
My dream came true with my first big deal, when I was twenty-seven, which
turned me into a multimillionaire. I have since consummated deals that
dwarf
my first win, but I have never had that same feeling.
I remember that day vividly, when I signed a letter of intent with the
city
of Wa****ngton, DC, to develop an office building on Martin Luther King
Avenue. The bricks and mortar were still to come, but that do***ent meant
I
would own half of a multimillion-dollar project and would be receiving a
mid-six-figure income annually for decades to come.
When I returned to my apartment, at about 8 o'clock, a group of my friends
were there. To celebrate, my girlfriend had gotten a cake from the
Watergate
Bakery, a white chocolate mousse cake, and a few bottles of champagne. It
was a moment worthy of celebration, a breakthrough moment, the biggest
event
of my business career to date. It meant that my financial future was set
from that moment on. I could quit right there if I wanted to; making a
half
million a year was more than I'd ever envisioned as a kid, when I was a
teenager living with my mother and helping her make ends meet.
That night, lying in bed, I thought about it all. I thought back to how I
was so impressed in high school when I learned that Walt Frazier was
making
$300,000 a year playing basketball. I'd wished that one day I could do
that,
and here I was, on my way to making more than that. It was just such a
sense
of relief. I was done. I didn't have to do another thing except make sure
the construction company actually built the building. What a great moment.
It was more than just the money, too. In that moment I was vindicated: The
road that I had taken -- to quit college after one year, to forgo the
pursuit of a medical career in favor of real estate -- had proven to be
the
correct one. The risks had paid off. As I lay in bed I even calculated how
many years I would have been in medical school, followed by an intern****p
and residency. At that point I would have been in my first year of
intern****p, struggling financially. Now, with one deal, I was going to
make
more money each year than top doctors.
It was a bigger moment for me, perhaps, than someone from another
background. I did not come from poverty or ignorance, but neither did I
come
from affluence, the kind that allows children to enjoy a sense of
indifference about money. My mother and I had been on our own since she
and
my father divorced when I was five years old. Although my father was
gainfully employed as a government clerk and auto mechanic, he never
sup****ted us. My mother did that, through a variety of jobs in the
industry
that I would end up choosing: real estate. She worked variously as a
secretary, a broker and a mid level executive at Fannie Mae. We lived
mostly
in and around Wa****ngton, D.C., with a couple of years in Detroit, and our
fortunes went up and down as her career changed. We did very well in
Detroit, for example, when she had her own real estate brokerage. Later,
when we moved back to Wa****ngton, she was a secretary again, and again we
had to worry about money.
My point is that from the age of 13 on I was aware of our financial
limitations, about being able to afford the necessities of rent, groceries
and school clothes, and from that age on I wanted to make sure I could
avoid
those same worries when I became an adult. Fortunately, my mother was a
very
bright woman. Both she and the other members of my extended family --
especially my grandfather, a hotel doorman who sent four of his five
daughters to college -- believed there were no limitations to what I could
achieve in life. They gave me a great sense of self-confidence and
ambition,
and did the sorts of things, like my mother teaching me to play chess when
I
was in grammar school, that pay off so handsomely in later years.
This book is not an autobiography, however, except to the extent that such
information helps readers understand that I entered the economic jungle
with
no resources beyond my native smarts, a decent education and a good family
background. This book is rather about the methodology of creating success
and wealth and an explication of those methods.
I know I have had my fair share of good fortune, and I am thankful for it.
But I believe the principles that guided me are principles that can help
anyone to achieve success. I don't believe you need to be born with any
special advantages, or any special instincts, other than a basic amount of
intelligence and a drive to succeed.
I have written this book to share my principles with those who also aspire
to make something of their lives in this land of op****tunity called
America.
I do a lot of public speaking, and what I try above all to convey is the
idea that the number-one challenge of the entrepreneur is belief. If you
believe in yourself, and believe that anything is possible, then the road
to
success is wide open.
What follows in this book are the deals that took me from a wage earner to
a
world shaker, from a single man in a tiny apartment to a happily married
man
with a loving family and a substantial fortune. I learned something from
each one of the deals I describe, as I hope you will. While the profession
I
chose was real estate, I believe that the same principles apply to any
entrepreneurial endeavor.
Many people will say you have to be lucky to get rich, and I agree. But
understand that luck, as a dear friend and mentor once told me, is "where
op****tunity and preparation merge." This is the kind of luck required to
be
a successful entrepreneur. My hope is that this book will give you the
principles you need to prepare for the op****tunities that will undoubtedly
cross your path.
Good luck to you all. May the next big deal be yours.
Copyright © 2007 R. Donahue Peebles
Author
R. Donahue Peebles is Chairman and CEO of The Peebles Cor****ation. He is
a
recognized leader in real estate development and entrepreneur****p, with a
****tfolio that includes four-star hotels and luxury residential and
commercial properties in Wa****ngton, D.C., San Francisco, Las Vegas, and
Miami Beach. He is also Chairman of the Greater Miami Convention and
Visitors Bureau. He and his projects have been featured in the New York
Times, the Wa****ngton Post, Forbes, Inc., USA Today, the Wall Street
Journal, Black Enterprise, Wa****ngton Business Journal, and South Florida
CEO magazine, along with many other prestigious local, national, and
international publications. He has been profiled on CNBC and CNN Financial
Network, and has been a guest on Bloomberg radio and the Tom Joyner
Morning
Show. He and his company have received many regional and national awards
in
recognition of their entrepreneurial success, including the 2004 Black
Enterprise Company of the Year award.
For more information, please visit www.peeblesprinciples.com
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