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Using Leverage To Reduce Fear
In this episode, I want to talk specifically about leveraging your way into financial freedom.
In addition to that, I want to revisit fear and discuss how fear keeps us in financial jail. I heard a quote recently in a book, it said: “When you succumb to fear you are under the illusion that you can predict the future”.
The truth is we cannot predict the future yet we refuse to take action based on what we cannot predict.
You have heard me say versions of this many times before yet many of you listening to this podcast have not taken any action towards your goals because you are crippled by fear.
First off, I completely understand where you’re coming from in this regard. I too suffer and suffered from this problem. The most important exercise I can do to help overcome this phenomenon is what I learned from Tony Robbins. Tony advises re-centering your focus on what will happen if you don’t accomplish your goals and if you don’t achieve financial freedom.
For me, that was a defining moment because it was then that I realized if I didn’t take massive action towards achieving financial freedom life would likely become a living hell of boredom and insecurity. When I focused on what would happen if I failed the emotions that came from that became my fuel.
By focusing completely on what would happen if I failed I created emotional leverage within myself.
I have never been the type of person that just wants to be average. I was raised to be humble and to “fit in” so to speak in society. Being someone in a position to influence others is not a popular place to be in my family, those type of people were considered to be “show offs”. I was ok with average until the internet came about. After wasting far too much time on Facebook, I discovered what the new definition of average meant, and let me tell you, I did not like that definition. I knew I certainly wasn’t going to go down that road. The fear of becoming everything I did not respect was enough to light my fire and keep it burning right up until today and beyond.
One of the most popular phrases we hear today is that we all need to focus on our “why“ and if we do just that everything will fall into place. Well, I am here to tell you that although there is much truth to that, it certainly takes one hell of a lot more to get to where you need to be.
Although focusing on our “why” is very important we can’t lose sight of the fact that we still have to take a massive amount of action to get to where we want to be. With that said, I am not suggesting that we have to take all the action ourselves, instead, we can harness the power of others and leverage their time and expertise to help us complete specific tasks that will help us get closer to our goals.
Many of you listening to me right now might be thinking well that’s great Tyler here’s the problem I can afford to bring somebody else on the team right now because it costs money and if I had money I would need to invest in real estate in the first place.
First of all, I’m not suggesting you go out and hire a bunch of employees and just hope things work that will run any small business into bankruptcy. You can however still leverage the time and resources of others on an as-needed basis in a way that can be contingent on the sale of a property.
A good example of this is hiring a buyer's agent to assist you in finding opportunity. That buyer’s agent does the work first and only gets paid when a transaction closes. Many real estate attorneys will ask for a small retainer and the balance to be paid at closing, they are often okay with this because in the event you don’t pay them well… we know the rest of that story.
I believe in leveraging your network here’s what I mean by that. Let’s say there are you and two other people that are all relatively new to real estate investing. Would it make sense for each of you to divide up the individual responsibilities required to buy a property and share those responsibilities equally or as close to equal as possible?
If you have three people out pounding the pavement looking for opportunity instead of one, logic would dictate that your odds are much better. After all, one-third of something is better than 100% of nothing right?
This is why I love hosting my cash flow events. It provides an opportunity for like-minded people to gather and discuss what they need and what they have to offer, so they can collaborate towards one common goal. I find far too many people operate in a scarcity mentality versus an abundance mindset. If you can forge relationships with like-minded people and build trust with them over time you could easily build a powerful investing alliance.
Please understand that in many cases if let’s say there are three people one or two people may not have as much money as the third person in that case perhaps the other two could provide more time or more skills to the equation to equalize the contributions between the parties. What that specifically looks like only you will know because you actually have to do the work to have the conversation and negotiate a win-win for everybody on the investment side.
Leverage is something that we as investors often forget is available for our use. Many people think leverage directly ties to using the bank's money they forget about the ability to leverage other people’s time other people’s knowledge and other people’s resources that don’t necessarily always mean cash. As the saying goes it takes a village to raise a child well as I have said many times before it also takes a village to build a portfolio.
Without my go-to lender the investors in my database my real estate attorneys my title company my SEC compliance attorney and the other people in my team and let’s not forget my property management companies I would not be able to accomplish a darn thing. If it weren’t for the marketing team that helps me produce this podcast and distributed out to you there would be nothing for you to listen to right now.
As a real estate investor you are (or should) be somebody who is responsible for providing clean and safe affordable housing to people that need it. This means essentially that you have a responsibility to succeed if you fail other people will suffer, by suffering that could mean they are forced to live in a place owned by a slumlord instead of you. That said how about after the completion of this episode you get a sheet of paper and start to write down the team members that you feel you need to be successful. Next, to those titles in the next 30 days fill-in a specific name to go with the titles, here’s what I mean:
Real Estate Attorney: Shawn Yesner
Real Estate Agent: Chevelle Mills or Irm Lukanik
Title company: Insured Title Agency
Mortgage Broker: Frank Coto
Property Manager: Danny Quinn
Bookkeeper: Michael Jones
Social Media Marketing: Elesha Jones
By actually writing down the name with what specific roles you need to help build your portfolio you have a far greater chance of actually accomplishing your goals. I know it sounds cliché for me to sit here and say write down your goals and they will happen but I’m here to tell you from experience that this is a true fact.
As a reminder, please be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel at CashFlowGuys.TV