Financial success means something different to everyone. I have been striving for financial freedom and success for many years and I think the definition changes for me all the time. It's been a moving target for me and I'm sure it's the same for most everyone. It probably has to be a moving target or how do you ever progress?
I think the biggest thing that has helped me to hit certain milestones in my financial life is my drive/obsession to succeed and not be average. If you want to get ahead in anything you do, you need determination, drive and desire to succeed. It’s very rare that someone is extraordinary without working hard, maybe the lottery winner or some naturally gifted phenom athlete, but for us regular folk, we don’t have that kind of luck. The rest of us need to rely on hard work, extra hours and learning from mistakes.
I feel like something that has set me apart from others, is my willingness to take a chance. I never wanted to be one of those people that regretted betting on themselves and missing an opportunity. That doesn’t mean I’m reckless! It means I make decisions based on the facts in front of me, do my research and calculate my risk and make as smart of a decision as I can. I learned this when I was right out of college and had my 1st corporate job as a financial advisor. As I picked up clients, looked at my colleagues’ clients, and prospected for more clients, I noticed that most of them weren’t super business savvy or tycoons, they just did some things well. I started to ask them what made them get to their current point of success, and some common attributes started popping up. One was real estate, most every client or perspective client that I met had some type of real estate in their portfolio, residential or commercial. Great way to accumulate wealth! The other thing I noticed was they weren’t afraid to take a chance. Some of them lost money, but others came out on the other side and made some good profit!
As I took that info in, it really stuck with me. What's my move? Here’s my 1st real financial move, I walked in the door of my house and told my wife “We’re selling the house!” She thought I was nuts! This was in 2006 and the housing market was on fire at that point. It was our 1st house and we had it for about 8 years at that point. We put it on the market within a few weeks and it sold in the 1st week for way over ask! I bought it for 152k and sold it for 410k!!! It was awesome to be honest. We moved into an apartment closer to my job and in a much better neighborhood, and I used the proceeds to buy 3 rental properties. I rented them out for a year, then sold them in 2008 right before the market burst. It was great timing and I got lucky. Without taking a chance and making a move, I wouldn’t be where I am today. That move set up my future and gave me some great experience!
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