Hey, JP here. For all the real estate investors out there, I have pretty powerful to share with you today.
Think about this…
Have you ever passed on a good opportunity, and then looking back, kicked yourself in retrospect?
Have you ever seen painful lessons, not just from the choices you’ve made and actions you’ve taken, but from the inaction and things you didn’t do because you were just feeling a little too nervous or uncertain or risk-averse?
If that’s been a part of your life at all, up to this point, this one’s for you…
“A Reluctant Investor’s Lament”
I hesitate to make a list, of all the countless deals I’ve missed;
Bonanzas that were in my grip, I watched them through my fingers slip;
The windfalls which I should have bought, were lost because I over thought
I thought of this, I thought of that, I could have sworn I smelled a rat!
And while I thought things over twice, another grabbed them at the price;
It seems I always hesitate, then make my mind up much too late;
A very cautious man am I, and that is why I never buy.
When tracts rose high on 6th and 3rd, the prices asked I thought absurd;
Those block-fronts bleak and black with soot were priced at thirty bucks a foot!
I couldn’t even make a bid. But others did – yes, others did.
When Tucson was cheap desert land, I could’ve had a heap of sand.
When Phoenix was the place to buy, I thought the climate much too dry.
‘Invest in Dallas – That’s the spot!’ My sixth sense warned me I should not.
A very prudent man am I, and that is why I never buy.
And that is why I never buy a corner here, ten acres there, compounding values year by year.
I choose to think as though I ought, ‘They bought the deals I should have bought!’
The golden chances I had then, are lost and will not come again.
Today I cannot be enticed, for everything is so overpriced.
The deals of yesteryear are dead – the market’s soft and so’s my head.
At times a teardrop drowns my eye, for the deals I had but did not buy.
And now life’s saddest words I pen: IF ONLY I’D INVESTED THEN!’
—Don Weill
So, I first heard someone read this sobering poem on a podcast. I then researched it online and found that it was written, believe it or not, in the mid-‘70s.
It’s striking to me how evergreen the truths are that are embedded within.
See, I can look back at my own real estate journey and, life in general, and see many opportunities that I missed because I was standing on the precipice of uncertainty — and paralyzed by a spectrum of anywhere from a little nervous to downright fearful.
The reality is that fear and uncertainty are all pieces of the puzzle of anyone’s life — no one’s immune to them. But we have a choice of what to do with them…
Let them control us… own us… and keep us missing opportunity after opportunity OR recognize them for what they are — and choose, in spite of them, to take courageous action.
That’s how courage is defined. Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is sizing something up and still choosing to take action — doing the right thing — in spite of feeling fearful in some way.
So really, this “Investor’s Lament” is a call to courage — not to dismiss fears, but to see them for what they are and use them to take courageous steps into opportunity when it presents itself.