Why Almost Everyone Struggles More Than They Should in REI
I just got back yesterday from a weekend at the Oregon coast in Lincoln City with my wife and some college friends. It was a blast… but the weather really blew (litterally… the wind gusts hit 80 mph!).
Anyhow, in the past 30 days I have only worked for 3.5 days (including today) because of a vacation or two, the holidays, etc. Ya, even on the days I “don’t work”, I’m thinking about my business and ways I can grow it… and how I can continue to strive toward my life goals.
But…
With all of this time off lately, I’ve really been doing some heavy thinking about my future, my real estate investing business, and my other business ventures as well. My most profound realizations have come in the whole “life success” area and how I need to change my focus a bit… because in 2007 I found myself falling off track away from my goals and dreams more than once.
How much did these lapses cost me in 2007? Who knows… probably way more than I want to know.
Anyhow, this morning I came across an email sent by a guy named Rich Schefren. I’ve been reading his blog and newsletter for about 6 months now… and have seriously found some things that have meant a ton to my future success in life and in business.
On a recent post from Rich he really grabbed my by the neck and made me realize a few things about why I didn’t reach all of my goals in 2007. One thing that Rich really has made me realize over the last 6 months is that you really NEED to figure out what you are good at and love to do… and tailor your business and life so you concentrate on doing those things… while finding other ways to get the things you hate to do done.
You need to master your strengths… and delegate the rest.
Rich tells why people struggle more than they have to… and has 5 simple questions that everyone (I don’t care who you are!) should write down and answer right now. Whether 2007 was the worst year of your life… or the best year of your life… you need to take 10 minutes and answer these questions for yourself.
Here we go:
- What were your greatest accomplishments in 2007?
- What were your biggest disappointments in 2007?
- How did you limit yourself last year, and how can you stop?
- What did you learn from the last three questions?
- How can I (you) use this information to make 2008 the best year yet?
These questions sound really simple… and they are. But, the thing is… success is simple. It is just doing the right things repeatedly over time.
Most people don’t reach success because they either don’t do the right things (like taking 10 minutes to review 2007 and see how you can improve on it)…
or…
they do the right things once or twice… but not repeatedly over time. This is where most people fit in I believe. You know what you are supposed to do… you do it a few times… give up on it because you don’t see instant results… and you are back to where you were… in a crappy situation.
I can tell you right now… doing a reflection like this is A RIGHT THING TO DO. I do a mini reflection every week to see how the week went and how I can do better next week.
How else will you know where to go if you don’t know exactly where you stand? You don’t!
Here are snippets from my “5 question” reflection.
#1: What were your greatest accomplishments in 2007?
My greatest accomplishment in 2007 I think was getting out of a career situation that I absolutely hated and that got me nowhere in the year I was there. It’s not that the people, company, etc. were bad…. I just realized that I didn’t want to spend my life doing stuff I don’t ENJOY doing.
Another great accomplishment of mine was starting my second business venture (a consulting business… I’ll tell you about it some time 
, which I am planning to grow big time in 2008.
#2: What were your biggest disappointments in 2007?
I actually had a lot of disappointments in 2007. Going into 2007 I really had huge plans for everything… 75% of which I did not achieve.
My single largest disappointment in 2007 was the fact that I have yet to complete www.thereibrain.com and get it to be the resource that all of you keep emailing me to create.
I see so much crap out there in the real estate investing world and I know that people deserve better. New investors don’t deserve to be swindled into buying a $500 at home study course full of the exact same info they can get from reading a $19.99 book from Amazon.
People don’t deserve to get a solution that reveals 35% of the solution… only to leave you with less money in your pocket… and nothing to show for it.
And… because I wasn’t able to get this resource up to where it should be… I am very disappointed (very disappointed)
#3: How did you limit yourself last year, and how can you stop?
I limited myself in a few ways that I can think of right now.
- I did not create a solid outsourcing system so I can concentrate on what I do best… and delegate the rest. You wouldn’t believe how much time I wasted in 2007 doing work that any $10/hr person could do for me. Does it make sense that if my time is worth $75/hr… that I find myself doing $10/hr work?Heck no it doesn’t! I can bet that is exactly what 80% of real estate investors out there are doing also.
- I did not build my network of contacts as much as I should have. As you know, your network directly correlates to your networth. Don’t for a minute believe that you can go it alone and reach your dream life. I fell flat on my face when it came to building my network… because “I didn’t have enough time”. Bull $hit. I had the time… I just didn’t make the time. This year I will make the time.
- I didn’t spend as much time doing what I love to do (write and create content for you!) Truly, even though this website doesn’t bring in much more than enough to buy me a jar of peanut butter every month (it makes a bit more than that … I wake up every morning thinking about how I can provide the best content to you.Even though this is my passion… other things have gotten in my way to allowing me to do what I love. Namely, the first bullet point above… I was doing too much busy work and not delegating it to other people to do for me. I started to get this done a bit better toward the end of 2007… but 2008 will be the year that I really turn a corner and spend as much time as I can doing what I truly love to do.
Afterall… we only get one go around on this earth… why spend an extra second doing stuff I hate doing?
#4: What did you learn from the last three questions?
Wow, the last three questions really opened me up to the changes I need to make in 2008 to make this the best year yet. I learned that I need to make a huge fundamental change in the way I think about things. No longer can I look at things with the mindset of “how am I going to do this?”…
… but rather, “who can I get to do this for me?”. Once I make that shift, I can guarantee my life will be dramatically different (and so will my bank account).
#5: How can I (you) use this information to make 2008 the best year yet?
I am going to use this information to make me realize that in order to grow, I need to change. Success and growth doesn’t come by doing the same ol’ things over and over. It comes by finding out the things that are dragging you away from your ideal life (including real estate investing goals), and developing a system to deal with those things in a way that DOES fit with your ideal life.
For me, I can no longer use my precious time to do stuff that isn’t worth my time doing myself. I’m not saying that these tasks aren’t worth doing… it just isn’t worth it for ME to do myself.
What do you do now?
Okay, so what do you do now… January 2008… to ensure that 2008 is your best year yet?
- Sit down and answer the 5 questions above. Really take a hard look at 2007 and find out what you need to do in 2008 to have huge success.
- Head over to Rich’s blog and subscribe to his newsletter. You’ll notice that Rich isn’t a real estate investing guru… he is a business success expert and is the mentor of more multi-millionaires than I’d care to count. If you don’t think you need to be learning about how to be a better entrepreneur and business owner for real estate investing… you’re making a fatal mistake to your REI success.Rich has more free content each and every month than anyone else I know. He gives you content and training that other people charge hundreds for.
- Subscribe to our RSS feed and check back often to our blog for more info, resources, tools, etc. that you can use to live a better life and grow a successful real estate investing business that caters to YOUR GOALS… not the goals of some guru pocketing your hard earned cash.
- Post your answers to your 5 questions below in our comments area. It is a proven fact that if you tell people you are going to do something… you are more likely to follow through with it.
- Don’t ever give up!
Hey, I’d love to hear what your answers are! Let’s make 2008 the best year yet for both of us… and look back on 2008 as the year that changed our lives forever.
One more time, I don’t care what business you are in… who you are… how important you think you are… etc. Subscribe to Rich’s newsletter. Every single issue is a must read for me and I always take away things that I implement in my life and business to help me reach my goals.
HERE’S TO SUCCESS IN 2008!
Jan 28th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
[...] read a great post over at Real Estate Investing Brain » Why Almost Everyone Struggles More Than They Should in REI. He goes over a number of ideas about why we struggle with our business and financial lives and how [...]