WEALTH

Dubai, UAE – 03 December 2021
 

Dubai is one of my favorite cities. I love its vibrancy. It is constantly changing, developing and improving.

I spent a week in Dubai last month. On the drive from the airport to my hotel near Dubai Marina, I was mesmerized by the endless display of lights and dramatic shapes of hundreds of skyscrapers. It felt like Las Vegas on steroids, but without the skank, stank and crime.

I love Dubai’s mix of people and cultures. On Saturday, I went to dinner with one of our Dubai based members, Stewart. We decided to go to COYA at the Four Seasons Resort on Jumeriah Beach where we were surrounded by a wide mix of locals and expats.

At one table near ours was a Sheik wearing the traditional white keffiyeh robe while his wife accompanied him in a full burqa. Nearby there were romantic couples dressed to the nines, hipsters ironically embracing nostalgia and future party goers ready for a night at the disco. I think we were the most casually dressed among the crowd.  

All of these people have one thing in common, wealth. They either have it, want it or want people to think they have it. All in all, they all want more of it. Honestly, we all want more of it.

I could easily focus on the excesses of wealth in Dubai. There is an endless supply of low hanging fruit. Consider the Aston Martins and Range Rovers parked outside the restaurant.

Even better, take a walk through a neighborhood on the Palm. My friends live in a spacious waterfront villa on Palm Jumeirah. When I took their dog Lizzy for a walk one afternoon, I was struck by the fact that nearly every garage had a Lamborghini, while the requisite Bentley adorned the driveway.

This is wealth, but not the wealth I want to focus on in this article.

Defining Wealth
The dictionary defines wealth as: an abundance of valuable possessions or money,… the state of being rich; material prosperity… or plentiful supplies of a particular resource.

While those descriptors are appropriate for wealth that has been achieved, I offer a nuanced definition. Let’s focus on the pursuit of wealth, the security it brings, the opportunities it brings, and the choices we may make.

Wealth in Obris
Alongside Freedom, Adventure and Connection, Wealth is a pinnacle descriptor of Obris, but not as an ostentatious demonstration of “wealth achieved” like what I saw on Palm Jumeirah.

When you attend one of our Global Investor Summit events, you will not find an ostentatious display of wealth. Yes, there are watches, Amex Black Cards and a fair bit of gold jewelry, but that is where the obvious ends.

Obris members demonstrate their wealth by the choices they make, what they value, where they live and how they prioritize use of their time.

They choose where they live on the planet. They define their priorities and how they act on such priorities. They choose their destiny.

They are able to do so because their wealth works for them.

The common denominator is that they demonstrate a yearning to grow their wealth. That will not be obvious upon first glance – you have to get to know us to understand how we prioritize growing our wealth.

My friend Adam is a good example. Adam owns a flower farm in Bargara, Queensland, a coastal town four hours north of Brisbane, Australia. Adam and his wife started the farm 20 years ago and have grown it into a significant operation that supplies fresh flowers to wholesalers as far off as Sydney and Melbourne.

For the past five years, Adam has worked to make himself irrelevant in daily operations of the business. If the business is sustainable without him, Adam has considerable freedom. He can still be found driving the tractor to plant sunflowers in the fall, but he does so because he loves farming. He is just as likely to be out flying his IPC Savannah plane.

I would love to work from Adam’s beach front home office looking out past the trees and rocks to the Pacific Ocean where he spends time developing his portfolio and active investment projects, improving his investing skills, being present with his family and plotting his next adventure.

Aside from the past two years, you are just as likely to see Adam in Europe, Asia, North America or elsewhere — we are currently plotting a trip to Antarctica.

Adam engages his wealth to work for him, so that he can live the life he chooses.

Making Your Wealth Work for You
That is the thesis of this article – we prioritize making our wealth work for us.

I suspect that may be one of the reasons you read the Global Investor. There is considerable power, peace and adventure that come with actively growing your wealth.

If you are already doing so, great. We would love to have you as part of the Obris community – you will fit right in. Obris is made up of people like you.

Likewise, if you are drawn to making your wealth work for you, Obris is equally a good fit for you.

We offer considerable resources to our members, and the Obris community equally provides phenomenal expertise for the aspiring active investor. I will write more about this in our fourth exposé on Connection.

You have to start somewhere. I have learned a great deal about investing and life from Obris members like Adam, people who bring tremendous expertise in areas beyond my scope.

Obris’ Role in Growing Wealth
Marvin and I have built Obris with a core focus on growing wealth for our members. We craft deals that you cannot find anywhere else. We search for investment opportunities that will offer multiple X returns within a few years.

We secure hard-to-get pre-IPO shares in companies that may offer multiple X returns when they go public. I wrote about our Coinbase win earlier this year. We have also made a bespoke investment in Kraken, Coinbase’s largest competitor just recently.

We personally invest in these deals alongside our members, and we often take on an active role in the governance of the companies in which we invest.

Our secure high yield investment products are a part of most Obris member portfolios. Our CFS High Yield Debt Fund averages 20%+ p/a returns. Consider that $100K invested in the Debt Fund with a conservative 20% annual growth, when compounded annually, will be worth $200,000 in five years and $1M in 13.5 years.

How is that for making your money work for you!

Your Wealth
How does our description of wealth resonate with you? Are you achieving the freedom to live where you want to live? Does your wealth afford you security, opportunities and choices? It should!

Let’s discuss how Obris can help you make your money work for you so that you may live life freely.

Get ready for the next article on Adventure. Making our money work for us affords us time to live well. We have a great deal of fun doing so.

Sincerely,
James on behalf of the Obris Team