PLP-069 Background Checks And Why You Should Use Them
Lending money can be difficult. Any good investor should understand the importance of doing background checks prior to finalizing any transaction. Who to loan money to can often be decided through that person’s reputation. No one would want to fall on the empathy trap and end up trusting the wrong person. Predicting and verifying are key to loaning money. The gut is a powerful tool in lending and instinct can make or break and investment.. Verifying is a crucial part of investing. In every aspect of it, one needs to understand the value of doing background checks before putting precious money into jeopardy.
---
Listen to the podcast here:
Background Checks And Why You Should Use Them
I’m on a trip to London, England and I'm here to give a presentation on the claims that we've had, what we see are the common causes, the amounts of these claims and how much they're going to cost underwriters and insurance companies. I have been tapped by my company to present at Lloyd's of London in the Old Library, which for me is quite an honor. I know people in London do it all the time, but to have a Texan come across the pond and the company pay for it, to put on an hour and a half presentation, for me, it’s very much a humble brag. Take that for what it's worth, but at the same time, I am very happy to be here. This is a huge thing for me. It's on my bucket list and I'm happy to be sharing some of this with you because as a private lender, I still have a day job. That's what I'm trying to coach with people. Keep your day job, stay on top of it and private lend on the side to help the old retirement out a little bit.
I jumped on the Heathrow Express at Paddington Station and I decided I'm going to cab it over to my hotel. I did that, got checked in, changed in my suit, hoofed it over to the office, gave a presentation for one of the London brokers on fracking, a preview of what I'm going to do. Thankfully, it went very well. For that, I am grateful and very happy, but I have not recorded near as much as I had hoped to. I have a composition book full of notes. It’s my first opportunity to put something meaningful on tape. I've been here for about five days, I would hope to have five recordings. I jumped off the plane. I was busy and then I had the presentation. The next day I had coffees, lunches, coffees and pints, dinner with my boss, our chairman. Friday, I ate a meal. It did not agree with me and it didn't show up until late Friday night. Saturday has been a complete wash, just lying in bed, being miserable and drinking lots of water.
I got up at 6:15, London time. It's 12:15 for Central Houston time. I fumbled my way on the tube, on the subway, because there are four lines that were closed. One of them was the one that I needed. I ended up going to Paddington Station, which is the completely wrong station I needed for the ticket I wanted. After about £20 of cab fare and some looking on my smartphone, I finally got over to King’s Cross Station in London. I took a train up to Cambridge and I'm so glad I did it. It's nothing out of the ordinary except when you consider that Cambridge University and Trinity College is where both Stephen Hawking and Sir Isaac Newton attended. Newtonian Physics, black holes, A Brief History of Time, all that was figured out in this town.
Of course, it's full of tourists. I can't tell you how many American accents I heard, which normally is disappointing to me when I travel. I'm a snob, I will admit it. I can't tell you the number of nationalities I heard and saw while I was hoofing it, backpacking it through Cambridge. What an amazing day. Disparagingly, I'm going to say Cambridge is the Oklahoma of the UK. I'll tell you why. I’ve got family in Oklahoma and every time I go, I'm astonished. There's a church on every corner in Oklahoma.