Seriously people, if you’re not willing to “risk” a measly $20, perhaps you shouldn’t be thinking about investing in real estate. I’ve spent over $30,000 on every book, course, and seminar under the sun. I’ve walked out of seminars that cost me $5,000 and I couldn’t tell you one thing I learned. But, I’ve always gotten value out of the seminar because I wouldn’t allow myself to cop out and play the victim card. So, while I’ve been to seminars that were, what one might call, a rip off, I found other like-minded individuals to network with who were well worth the price of the seminar.
Don’t get me wrong. It sucks knowing some shmuck has $3,000 of my money and all he did was read out of a workbook. But, you know, you can spend your time crying about it, or you can suck it up and push through. At the time I went to this $3,000 + expenses (air fare, hotel, food, etc), I was not fabulously rich. In fact, I didn’t know if I was going to make my next mortgage payment. (Thankfully, I had a deal that came together in the end and I was fortunate enough not to miss any payments).
You deserve better for yourself not to let others dictate the quality of your life (and your mind). Instead, know this. You WILL get ripped off. You WILL lose some deals and money, sometimes very unfairly. You WILL fail. The truly wealthy people (of which I’m not – yet) just keep getting up and grinding. I can tell you example after example of how I got the raw end of the stick… I’m currently dealing with a situation where a woman – scratch that – a CON ARTIST (recently found out she has a record in several states for obtaining real estate under false pretense), stole nearly $90,000 cash from me. I sued and won, but she’s siphoned the money offshore somewhere and it’s proving difficult to locate and therefore collect. It’s been a huge burden on my wife and family. But you know what? I’m not a victim. I won’t allow myself to be. I made some mistakes and I’ve learned a ton – (especially at how vulnerable we really are since our law enforcement is way under resourced). And I sleep well at night. I have a family that loves me and that I love. I’m truly already wealthy. Wealth is a quality of the mind which attracts money, (no matter how inflated it gets).
What is money anyway? At it’s core, it’s a representation of value for an idea, right? Think about it – No money is made until at first an idea was seeded. And since there are no limits to ideas, there is no limit to the amount of money you can attract. It’s much more difficult to make money the goal, the purpose for your drive, and actually become rich. So few people have done that. And even those that have, they still have not reached wealth of the mind. They are still yearning for something else. If they didn’t, then why isn’t all of Hollywood sober?
These are fundamental principles that are talked about in several books. One that I personally love is “Think and Grow Rich” by Napolean Hill. I would highly recommend reading it. He explains it much better than I ever could.
[relaxes…]
Wow. I just went off the deep end a little bit there. Sorry about that. Had to vent. Hope I didn’t rub anyone the wrong way…