September 22, 2014 by Dymphna 20 Comments

When The Deal Goes South

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Today I want to talk about what it means when a real estate deal doesn’t go the way you thought it would…

Or planned it would…

Or needed it to.

The result is that your, or your spouses, worst fears are confirmed…

You’ve failed, and now you have to pay the price.

A part of the price of failure is an even larger sense of fear of failure than you had before.

And so what happens?

Change stops and personal development and financial growth grinds to a halt.

This is a fairly common tale, isn’t it?

One of the big obstacles that people find in their way of making big changes in their lives…

Is the fear of failure.

It’s almost as bad as people’s fear of public speaking…

Most people simply fear failure…

They feel deep within themselves that somehow they will be less of a person if they were ever to be seen failing…

It’s really that bad with some.

The imposters of success and failure

But what is failure?

Is it not being ‘successful’ at something?

Or is it not trying to be successful at something?

Think about it for a moment…

If you’re at home, sitting on your sofa, reading this right now…

Or you’re at your job that you don’t like very much…

But you’ve stayed in it because you’re too afraid to try something else…

Does that make you a ‘successful’ person?

And successful at what?

It does if your definition of success is enduring a dissatisfying job month after month, year after year and never stepping out of that box.

Put another way, if you’ve failed to try something new due to fear of failure, or a lack of confidence or education…

Would you really consider yourself a success?

Believe it or not, fear of failure is quite a powerful force in many people’s lives…

But the end result is that they live their lives in a sort of day-to-day paralysis…

Filling their time with diversions like the television or having a few too many down at the pub.

Everybody ‘fails’

The truth of the matter is that we’ve all heard the horror stories about real estate investments gone bad…

The negatively geared property recommended by your accountant that set you back years…

The reno project that never got finished…

Or the PPR that you can barely afford that keeps you from moving forward on other projects…

It stings, no doubt about it…

And makes us think twice or three times about the next deal…

While self-doubt creeps into our thoughts.

Oh, you thought you were the only one?

Please, don’t think you’re special, because we’ve all had them.

Almost everybody who has bought a property here and there has a story or two about a real estate deal that turned out to be a disaster…

Even the most successful real estate investors out there have their property misfires and catastrophes…

It’s just a part of investing.

Don’t crawl into a hole

And when you think about it, disasters here and there are a part of life as well.

So, while we’re on the topic…

Just what is the proper response to a real estate investment deal?

Should you do what many do, and refuse to do another deal?

Curl up into a ball and hide under a blanket and beg our spouses for forgiveness?

Well, that may not be a bad place to start…

But you’ve got to move on from that.

The “once burned, twice as careful” mindset is a natural reaction…

And the completely wrong one.

If you, or anyone else, let one or two wrong of failed efforts stop you in life…

There wouldn’t be much progress made around the world, would there?

The important part about failure is learning from your mistakes…

And let’s face it…

We’re all going to make mistakes…

The key point is not to make the same ones twice.

If you took the most successful real estate investors in the world…

Or even the most successful investors in the iLoveRealEstate Platinums…

You’d find a group of people who’ve made many mistakes in their real estate investment careers…

And yet somehow, learned from each deal that went south or sideways…

And still managed to make a go of it.

The very basic lesson here is simple, isn’t it?

Refuse to give up

Building a real estate investment portfolio that pays you passive cash flow whether you get out of bed or not…

Isn’t created by always making the right decision…

Or never making a mistake…

Rather, it’s built on the refusal to give up or give in…

Yes, it’s true…

You’re going to lose money on a deal from time to time…

Mostly in your beginning years…

Just because you know less when you’re first starting out.

But your refusal to stop…

Your determination to continue on…

Is what takes you above your so-called ‘failures’…

And turns them into valuable experience which you can draw upon again and again…

Deal after deal.

It’s kind of like swimming in the ocean and having a wave send you beneath the surface…

When you’ve hit the bottom, you know that the only direction to go is up!