4 Basic Principles to be successful, at anything
With Creative Real Estate Investing I believe there are 4 basic fundamental principles that must be achieved, on one level or another, in order to get be successful in your investing career. It does not matter if you are taking houses subject to the existing financing and reselling them, buying foreclosures and flipping them or rehabbing them, buying multi-families and renting them, or doing lease options. I could even argue that these basic principles can be applied to anything you want to achieve in your life. Once these steps have been mastered, it is a downhill battle, because the first 3 are an issue of the newbie. As I explain these principles, keep in mind that once you've gotten past the first 3, you're well on your way to a successful career. Keep in mind that these have all been struggles I have battled with personally. I don't claim to be past every hurdle myself, but once I recognized what the hurdles were, I was able to make a plan to jump over them. Any viola, life is much easier.
The first principle is that you getting the motivation to do whatever it is you want to do. This is not as easy as it seems because while trying to master the next two principles, human nature is to lose hope. But reading posts on TCI as well as networking with other people who are successfully doing it via REI Clubs or other places, should give you the desired amount of motivation. If it does not, you're in the wrong business, quit reading this post and go somewhere else. If it does, keep coming back the get booster shots of motivation, as well as to help those who are in need of a little boost with one of your great stories.
The second principle is learning how to do it. This is obvious, but not trivial. By learning from successful investors you will be able to learn to do things the right way, and in doing so-maintain motivation. Education is something that can never be taken away from you. I don't have to preach the importance of learning the correct way (as well as the right way!) of doing things.
The third principle is one of the ones that hits home with me more than any of the others. Getting past the negative feedback from the people in your life will be one of the hardest tests you face. It makes and breaks REIs every day. It will either hinder you from ever doing a deal, keeping you scared and paralyzed (analysis paralysis), or it will motivate you to "show them". You have two choices in this category. You can choose to be scared to get out there, or you can let this negative feedback fuel your desire to show everyone you are able to accomplish what he or she thought not possible. In your mind you know IT IS POSSIBLE. Look at all those here posting their success stories. Another way to get past this one is to ignore it. While practically impossible to block every negative comment from your mind, you can put them on the back burner. Once you've successfully closed a few deals, then address these negative comments. Do this in your own mind however, rubbing it in someone's face is not a nice thing to do. But since theses thoughts have been on the back burner so long, don't forget to serve hot.
Doing it. This is the last thing to do. That's it. This is easy once you've mastered the other three principles. Once the first three principles are taken care of, you don't have to re-address these issues. All there is left is to DO IT!
Get out there and address these issues, for if you confront your fears you can address any problem and get past it. GET THOSE DEALS!
Sam
Sam, I appreciate your advice and I have been following it for three months, including getting out there and doing it. I am finding myself discouraged because I am not finding deals. I have looked at FSBO, foreclosures, ads, made calls, knocked on doors of pre-foreclosures, continual letters to pre-foreclosures etc and nothing so far. I am also not working and putting everything I have into REI, and am worried about running out of money before I make a deal. Do you have any advice for me.
Thanks alot!
Michelle