Online Trolls Have Made False Assumptions About The Financial Situation At Lighthouse International Group, now known as Lighthouse Global. What's The Reality of What It Takes To Build a Pioneering Global Organisation From Scratch?
I am writing this blog because of accusations being made by online trolls accusing Lighthouse Global of financial irregularities. These accusations are deliberately designed to create fear and cast doubt on the legitimacy of Lighthouse Global. In my experience very few things create more fear in someone in relation to an external organisation than aspersions and critical accusations about financial issues and investment - especially when there is a lack of context in relation to the accusations and certain parts of their complaints are used in a way that distorts the reality of the situation and circumstances.
Why I've Invested In Myself Through Lighthouse Global?
The first thing to get cleared up is whether or not it's true that people have invested in themselves through Lighthouse Global and then been asked to invest more money, as shown in the screenshot below. The answer to this is a categorical yes! Have I invested more money in myself with Lighthouse Global than I thought I would? Again - the answer is yes. So why is that? Well, because I am helping to build a pioneering global organisation that I believe is going to make more of a difference than any other company that has ever existed and making multiple investments is part of the territory when it comes to being pioneers. No one knows exactly how much investment it's going to take when venturing into virgin territory and no one has even tried, let alone achieved the same thing before. Thomas Edison is a great example of this when he pioneered the light bulb over 20 painstaking years of research and development. During this time, along with his fellow pioneers, it was an essential requirement to continually raise investment. Of course, he never thought it would take as long as it did either, but it did.
Secondly, I’ve also had to invest more because it’s taken longer to develop myself than I ever expected and because I have been lazier in my development than I ever really want to admit. I don’t think there is anyone at Lighthouse Global who ever thought it would take this long and I don’t think there is anyone at Lighthouse Global who realised it would be as challenging and that they needed as much development to become an entrepreneur as they do! But we have needed to grow through the challenges and the learning curve we have had to go through, just like a child has to grow through puberty before they become a man or a woman. This is especially the case given that 90% of businesses fail in their first year. Furthermore and in fact more damning, is how little my degree in business and a career in finance had actually prepared me to become an entrepreneur. This was because I had worked in businesses that had pre-created systems and processes that I simply had to “plug-in" to and here I was learning to build them from scratch!
Unfortunately in my and our collective cases, becoming a high-level entrepreneur capable of building global communities is not an automatically guided process, like puberty. It’s hard to say the least and I’ve had to face unexpected inner struggles and battles as well as overcome my procrastination. Indeed I can tell anyone reading this that if I had done what Paul S. Waugh had guided me to do through all these years I would be a multi-millionaire already! Furthermore, I have wanted Paul to make me a multi-millionaire by giving me a magic system I just had to follow. But that was never what he and I agreed to do for me or how it would be. He agreed to help me develop myself so that I could become someone who doesn't need to depend on him or anyone else as a kind of business sugar daddy, but to become someone who can, not only become a financial multi-millionaire themselves, but who will use that money benevolently, for the good of others, as well as myself, with emotional and spiritual maturity. It’s taken a long time to grow into and become that person because of who and where I was when we started.
This was definitely surprising to me as I’m also not a stupid person in the mainstream sense of the word. I’m a qualified Chartered Accountant who worked on multi-million dollar accounts for some of the biggest Fortune 100 companies in the world in Bermuda. Trust me, developing into a global entrepreneur is THE hardest thing I’ve ever done. Sadly the tiny minority of ex-Associate Elects who have left and unlawfully demanded money back though have wanted exactly that, a quick-fix money system where they just pay some money in and then everything was basically done for them. They wanted that plug-in, they didn't want to really have to face the genuine work of growth and development and, so it turns out, were what you could call, "fair weather" Associate Elects.
What About The Paperwork?
Another accusation in the screenshot I have included is the lack of paperwork and receipts for investment through Lighthouse Global. Firstly, there is no policy of not giving receipts. If someone invests in themselves through Lighthouse Global and wants a receipt, contract or invoice then they could have asked for one at the time of investment, just as you would ask for a receipt in a shop. But did those now criticising us ask for one? The answer is no and they are absconding their responsibility in that by blaming Lighthouse Global.
Secondly, at the end of the day, everyone who has got involved and invested financially did so on the basis of trust, often after years of building relationships within the organisation and being mentored. This factor itself is something that actually attracted me to Lighthouse Global myself because I know, from being in business before, just how much trust enables transactions to happen quicker and reduces costs. Think of all the millions and billions that are spent on lawyers’ fees reviewing contracts. These all have to be paid by someone. I also know from experience that paperwork means little. I’ve been involved in a case where I lost £50,000 in a property scam in 2011 where I had all the paperwork in the world and it didn’t do me any favours at all when the scammer went to jail without the money I'd put in being traced!
At Lighthouse Global we invest a huge amount of time and effort into nurturing and developing our relationships and because of this many agreements can be made over the phone during recorded conversations because the relationship has been built for many years and has such a strong foundation. There have been various claims online from a former Associate Elect Richard Thomas. The details and record of Mr Thomas's investment in himself are in both his bank account and ours, in recorded conversations and text messages which, by UK Law, is proof of purchase.
"There are billions of contracts made each year. Apart from consumer credit agreements, there is no requirement for the sale of goods to be in writing. The vast majority of contracts for sale of goods and services are by word of mouth. Such contracts are just as valid and as legally enforceable as written contracts. Three things are required to strike a sale's contract. Agreement to sell. Agreement to buy. Agreement on price. Once these three things are in place, and the money & goods title change hands, consumers' rights detailed in the Sale of Goods Act come into force; and lack of a receipt will have no affect on these consumer rights, whatever the Seller contends."
In UK Law, verbal agreements are binding:
"Clients will often presume that verbal agreements are not binding. However, as a general rule, the law considers that verbal agreements are legally binding." - Rachel Harrison, Farleys Solicitors
Thirdly, a business isn’t legally obligated to share what they do with your money. If you buy petrol from BP do they tell you what they did with your money? If you went to University like I did, have they told you what they did with your money? The fact is they don’t and they aren’t obliged to do so. All that I care about is that I got the tuition that I paid for and that is what happens at Lighthouse Global. Paul S. Waugh spends hours on training and mentorship calls with me working to guide and help me achieve my dreams. I’ve blamed him in my head at times for my failures and lack of progress of course, that’s what we tend to do as humans when we don’t get the results we want and things become hard because of our own limitations. We rarely ask ourselves, “what is my responsibility? or what should I have done instead / better?” because then we would have to face the consequences of our own failures.
What about our Financial Records?
In line with financial regulatory obligations, Lighthouse Global Holdings Tradings is a Limited Liability Partnership. Because of this and to put it in plain English, legal jargon aside, this simply means we are not obliged to put our financial records up in the public domain, nor do we have a legal requirement to be audited. We do have certain regulatory obligations that have been fulfilled annually which are further detailed below and we have specialist advisers in regards to our financial reporting requirements who will advise us if any changes become necessary in the future, especially in light of our global expansion!
The trolls have also been posting a printed balance sheet which shows zero net assets as shown below (with no relevance in answering the question "What is it like to be mentored? Anyone had any mentoring from Lighthouse Global?"). This is because we have been in the pioneering research phase and any income has simply been reinvested in cost-covering research. As you can see below, there is a legal reason for everything that has been published as it is and we are double-checking with our specialist advisors to ensure all our accounts are accurately assessed. All of these facts could have been quickly and easily given on receipt of any proper enquiries.
What are our exact legal obligations in relation to what we need to publish and why is legal for us to not publish income and expenses
The trolls against Lighthouse Global claim and/or implying that there is deliberate financial impropriety or even criminality in relation to Lighthouse Global which is this is absolutely not the case.
This claim is vague and in ignorance of the legal requirements we are clearly in accordance with. It is evidently motivated by an attempt to somehow find a way in which to discredit and ‘criminalise’ Lighthouse Global making it malicious in its intent as it is wholly unresearched and unfounded.
As stated, we are a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) and because of the size of that Limited Liability Partnership we do not need to publicly declare all financial information as per the Companies Act 2006. Small LLPs may choose not to include a copy of the profit and loss account if they meet certain requirements, which Lighthouse Global certainly does, and hence does not have to declare income for our size of LLP.
Given the pioneering phase of our work over the last 18 years Lighthouse Global has run at a significant loss which is all recorded in our accounts. For this reason we have had little to no organisational financial assets to speak of because we have been just about covering costs where we can. We are very aware our balance sheet currently intentionally shows as £0 on our reporting and we are in communication with Companies House and HMRC in order to review this and update this information where/if there have been any oversights.
In accordance with company law and its legal status as a small LLP, Lighthouse Global files annual accounts with Companies House. Failure to submit correct accounts is a criminal offence and the Directors of Lighthouse Global as an LLP would have been prosecuted if this were the case. If Companies House believed that Lighthouse Global was not carrying out any business or in operation, they could also strike the LLP from the Companies Register and dissolve the company. As this has not happened, it is clear that Lighthouse Global is a viable company.
Lighthouse Global’s annual accounts (which only includes the balance sheet) are publicly available and have clearly been submitted in compliance with our legal obligations under the Companies Act 2006.
Lighthouse Global is in ongoing communication with Companies House and HMRC in relation to this matter in ways that are perfectly normal and legitimate for an LLP to do. They have let us know that if there are any adjustments that need to be made to previous reporting, then this can be done. There is nothing untoward and so this is not a reason to be publicly defamed online or in the national press.
It’s certainly been a rollercoaster of a journey over the last decade of my involvement at Lighthouse Global. As I continually reinforce personally, it’s been the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life and I’ve had to face fears to grow that I definitely didn’t want to. But incredible success brings incredible demands at times and ultimately I am doing this because I believe I will have a better life than I ever thought I would have, compared to not doing this, not to forget that I will also be helping millions of children. Somehow that seems to be conveniently forgotten as accusations against us are thrown around by those trolling us.
Jatinder