Blog
Equity National Title is a company that's dedicated not only to awesome experiences and community involvement, but to education as well. We maintain this blog so that we can be a valuable resource to homeowners, lenders and realtors.
By: Equity National Title October 14, 2019 No Tags Uncategorized
Story Lines: “Mickey Mouse to the Magic Kingdo...
Walt Disney was an animator, a voice-over actor, and a world class entrepreneur. Born in Chicago on December 5, 1901, Disney took art classes as a boy with plans of becoming a commercial illustrator. His interest in animation took him and his brother Roy to Hollywood in 1923 where they opened Disney Brother Studios. Disney introduced Mickey Mouse to the world in one of his very first “shorts” called “Steamboat Willie.” Created with Dis...
By: Equity National Title October 14, 2019 No Tags Uncategorized
My Lines: The Mourning After
A month ago, the 18th anniversary of 9/11 came and went, and like most old enough to remember, I remembered exactly where I was when a report of the first plane hitting a tower came. And, the second. And then the third (Pentagon). And the collapses of the towers. They are moments seared in my mind, brought alive once again by televised remembrances, documentaries and conversations in the days before and after the anniversary. And as vivid...
By: Jim O'Donnell July 8, 2019 No Tags Uncategorized
My Lines: July 2019
Around the fire-pit with my kids and their friends, I’m known for asking a conversation-starter question to get conversations rolling. My favorite is the following: ‘if you could go back in time as an observer, to what date or period would you go back, and why.’ My go-to answer is the weeks before, during and after the 4th of July, 1776. Last week, on the 4th, I confirmed it as my favorite as I re-read the Declaration of Independenc...
By: Equity National Title July 1, 2019 No Tags Uncategorized
The Big Box Store
Sam Walton transformed the retail grocery business making Wal-Mart the largest corporation based on revenue and the biggest private employer in the world. Walton’s retail career began in Des Moines, Iowa where he worked at J. C. Penney for $75 per month. He resigned in 1942 and went to work at the DuPont munitions factory in, Tulsa Oklahoma while waiting to be inducted into the U.S. Army Intelligence Corps. After the war Walton took over man...
By: Equity National Title April 8, 2019 No Tags Uncategorized
What if you got 1% better every day?
Lucille (my wife) thought I was having a mid-life crisis by signing up for two 5k races one week apart. For the first one she threatened my son Ryan into running with me. His job: make sure I did not croak during the race. I still don’t understand how he’d have helped if that happened other than for her to know sooner. It felt great to get started and as I jogged I thought about my times in the Downtown 5k over the years and gave mild thou...
By: Equity National Title April 2, 2019 No Tags Uncategorized
A Computer in Your Pocket - Steve Jobs
When Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs passed away in 2011, people around the world paid tribute to his vision and achievement. The Macintosh, the iPod, iTunes, the Apple Store, Pixar, iPhone and iPad, have transformed publishing, music and film creation and distribution, retail, computer animation, and mobile access to the internet. Job’s contributions revolutionized industries and reshaped popular culture. Steven Paul Jobs, adopted son ...
By: Equity National Title March 11, 2019 No Tags Uncategorized
Be the Change
He was a powerful voice for the dissatisfaction of how things were and an inspiring vision for what was possible. And, importantly, an organizing impetus for concrete steps toward that vision. What he represented – along with many others like him in those days – was change from the way things were which is another way to say ‘resistance.’ And therein laid bare was the tension in the civil rights movement – the forces for change pitte...
By: Equity National Title March 11, 2019 No Tags Uncategorized
Self-Driven Success - Elon Musk
Before new technologies or business models can be transformed, there is a period of instability. Change is difficult and most people don’t like it. But, as the old saying goes, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” This means things are always changing and that past transformation have consequences. Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa on June 28, 1971. By the age of 10 he’d taught himself computer programming ...
By: Equity National Title February 11, 2019 No Tags Uncategorized
News Lines: February 2019
Last month I wrote about the real estate settlement procedures act, its anti-kickback provisions, and that it is still not ok to accept payments solely in exchange for the referral of business. This article discusses New York State’s Insurance Regulation 208. In addition to summarizing the travel and history of the regulation, and its impact for everyone involved in New York real estate transactions, this article intends to drive home the...
By: Equity National Title February 11, 2019 No Tags Uncategorized
The Oprah Effect
Oprah Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi. The daughter of a teenage single mother, Oprah was molested as a child and in her early teens. At 14 she gave birth to a baby boy who died while still an infant. Oprah left her mother to join her father, Vernon Winfrey, who was working as a barber in Nashville, Tennessee. Winfrey was taught to read by her grandmother at the age of three. She attended Lincoln High School in M...