What worked yesterday – does not necessarily work today.
If you are already an investor, you know this to be true. Time and time again I will hear or read of an investor – particularly those that have only been in the business a few years or less – who is having tremendous difficulty adapting to the changes in the market. How what they were doing last year, just isn’t working at all this year….. and it’s having disastrous effects on their financial lives.
But the real core of the problem isn’t that things have changed so much….. it’s that the investor hasn’t changed in relation to the market.
When the world changes, those that don’t change and adapt – die a slow financial death. When I hear an investor complain about how the market has changed and how what used to work for them no longer does, I have to ask them, “What have you done to adapt?” Often, they simply don’t know how to adapt.
To succeed long-term in a career as a real estate investor, you have to become creative and learn to adapt yourselves to the changes in the marketplace. You cannot sit still; you have to constantly be seeking to improve yourself, and to build your entrepreneurial muscles. You need to be always thinking of what you can do that’s different, that no one else is doing. I mastered this long ago. I have always gone where others are not going. I’ll share a secret with you. “I hate competition”, it’s such a waste of time. There is enough challenge with making millions of dollars in real estate investing, much less to complicate things more by competing with dozens of other investors over each deal that comes along. When I see others going right … I go left. I used to do nothing but pre-foreclosures, now, I rarely touch them because so many people are in that area.
With all of the seminars that come through town promoting the tremendous profits in the pre-foreclosure market, everyone is pursuing them now and that segment of the market is over saturated. So I learn where investors are not going and what they are not willing to do, and I go do it. I have very little competition in my niche market.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge!” – Albert Einstein
“If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten!” – Henry Ford
(This quote is also known as the definition of insanity.)
“You cannot solve a problem, with the same level of thinking that created it!” – Albert Einstein
To succeed – to survive – to thrive – we have to put on our creative hats and come up with new and unique ideas and strategies on how to make money in this business.
The rules that apply to nature, apply to business – to survive, you have to adapt. To thrive – you have to become a master at adaptation.
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