Most successful investors, myself included, hold an unpopular opinion:
Life is long.
To live up to their full potential, every human needs to do some things that won’t pay off for 5, 10, 20, or even 100 years.
And if you zoom out to 1,000 feet:
Every day, I feel lucky that my great-great-grandfather (whom I never met) got on a boat with his wife and came over to the states. Then he proceeded to work insanely hard for basically his entire life. Not so he could have a better life, but so his kids and their kids could have a better life.
I have the opportunity, the values, and the ability I have today because of his sacrifice.
You hear many folks talk about the “you only live once” mentality and how instant gratification is the key to happiness.
Those folks aren’t successful.
Real estate takes time. Anything in life worth having takes sacrifice, work, and effort over a long time-period. Delayed gratification is the key to success in real estate.
If you have a short-term money maximization mindset, you’ll end up making decisions that aren’t in your best interest in the long term. You’ll chase fees, you’ll sell great assets, you’ll move around from one thing to the other, and there will always be greener grass on the other side.
True entrepreneurs and real estate investors know that value does not always equal money.
A successful real estate investor’s challenging and essential work is understanding where the value lies, even if it isn’t apparent.
What is the potential? What is the future worth? How can it be realized? What do I need to do to realize it?
It’s easy to ignore value because we can’t see it, touch it or count it. It isn’t liquid right now. It can’t be exchanged for money right now.
And that’s why there is an opportunity for us. Because we know the price you pay for something doesn’t reflect what it’s worth. And time and a little bit of effort can change things in a major way.
We know what others don’t because we can see value where others see pain. And we turn that value into money with our blood, sweat, and tears.
And most of the time it takes a really long time to make that happen. Broaden your time horizon.
Onward and upward,
Nick