Most wealthy investors can agree that real estate is the best industry for building wealth. But so many people are stuck thinking in the same patterns of how to become wealthy in real estate based on what they see on TV or hear about on the radio. It takes experience to realize you’re headed in the wrong direction because the deviations are ever so slight, but ever so impactful on your life.
If you’re thinking long-term, your goal should be to build a business you can step away from without it crumbling to the ground. Why? Because without that flexibility, you’re giving up the world’s most precious asset: time. Time for family, for traveling, for doing the things you love.
Success: It’s such a broad term, and yet, it holds so much weight to each of us on a personal level that we can almost pinpoint exactly what success would look like in our lives — a bigger paycheck, a promotion at work, getting married and so on. But after managing tens of millions of assets in real estate business with hundreds of transactions and multiple appearances and a pilot show on HGTV, I’ve realized something: Success is all in the balance of life.
After 20 years doing what I do, I can confidently say that success isn’t all about the money. You can be as rich as Jeff Bezos and still not feel truly successful if your physical and spiritual game is off. And on the contrary, you can be in the kind of shape that Arnold Schwarzenegger would envy, but if you don’t have two nickels to rub together, can you really feel like you’ve reached success?
I believe business has become too money-focused. It’s a common myth that an effective business creates a drive for wealth that takes over all other aspects of your life. This simply isn’t true. It’s only an unnecessary obstacle society has created that takes us further from having a truly fulfilling, successful life in all areas.
But in order to open the door to the abundance of opportunity, here are a few lessons you can apply to not only your real estate business, but to your entire life.
Flipping homes is good, but holding them is better.
Sure, flipping homes can be exciting, and sometimes the payout is hefty. But it’s also a lot of work, a lot of time and a lot of stress. Make it easier on yourself and hold onto the home as a rental property. Pretty soon you’ll have a healthy rental portfolio stacked with properties that create a pretty penny in passive income. And when that happens is when you’ve successfully created a business you don’t have to babysit on a daily basis in order for it to generate cash flow. This boils down to more time for the things that matter without sacrificing your income or your lifestyle.
Think about it like this: You can sell a flip for a quick, one-time profit, or you can hold onto it and let it generate income for you every month for as long as you own it. With a little bit of knowledge on rentals versus flips, you could successfully utilize the profits from your rental properties to fund other businesses that generate the kind of wealth you’ve been after the whole time. Once you gain some experience with rental properties, you’ll wonder how you ever went without.
Don’t lose time. Leverage it.
Stepping away from your business can be a logistical nightmare if you don’t have the right pieces in place. To create a scalable business, you can’t take on all the work yourself. You’ll have to hire people who can perform certain activities within the business as if it were you doing it yourself. Get started on putting a team together that you trust so when you need time away from your business, you can take it without worry.
What is your time worth? If your annual take-home salary from your business is at least $100,000 and you’re working 40 hours per week, that puts your rate around $50 per hour. Think about that for a second. You’re spending $50 per hour on tasks you can delegate to someone else while simultaneously taking your time and attention away from the important things in your business, your family and your life. Spend more time on what matters by hiring someone at $15 per hour who is qualified to handle the tasks that don’t need your attention.
Relax, refresh and refocus.
There comes a time for every businessperson when their business takes over their life. It happens even to the best of us. But it’s important to be able to recognize when you’re spending too much time and energy on making money so you can stop, take a breath and relax, hit the refresh button on your mind and refocus your energy to all the places it needs to be, including your family, health and spirituality. Begin to recognize the warning signs of your “work-to-live” mindset and shift your thinking to what motivated you in the first place.
It all comes down to this: Business requires balance.
Most successful entrepreneurs need to find the perfect mix of business, family, health and spirituality in order to be and feel truly successful. Every top-level investor I know has, at some point or another, recognized this same problem within their business — making money by trading time. Stay in your lane by building up your rental portfolio to create passive income, surrounding yourself with a qualified team who can take the pressure off you to do it all yourself, and staying focused on the things that truly matter. When you’ve done those three things, you will begin to witness what true success feels like.