Hey there, JP here —
This is actually a follow-up from our Success Ladder Part I blog. If you didn’t get a chance to read it, be sure to check it out. I covered the surprisingly negative side effects of dreaming about future success.
I added my insights to an interesting video I had seen, explaining that it is important to visualize the end goal of your real estate investing business. But it’s also essential to strategically plan for each “ladder rung” or step that will get you to that goal.
“We need to give thought, but we also need to take action.
You need to dream without just being a dreamer.”
~ Jim Rohn, entrepreneur, author, speaker
So, to recap… when building your success ladder, the steps to take are:
- Define success in detail.
- Reverse engineer the steps between “here” and “there.”
- Focus hard on just the first step.
- Remember that this is still an unproven vision or experiment at this point… and the only result of an experiment is the RESULTS you get.
One other crucial point I made in my previous post was that you need to first focus on a specific time span (for instance, the first year of your REI business). If you try to imagine and plan for the whole 20-30+ years of your REI career, you’ll quickly become overwhelmed.
I mean, really, who can hold that many details in their brain all at once?!
Lemme back up a hot second again…
Remember high school science class, when you had to follow the 5 steps of the scientific method? If your brain is a little rusty like mine, here are the 5 steps:
- Make an observation
- Ask a question
- Form a hypothesis
- Conduct an experiment
- Use the results to form a conclusion
This may seem like a pretty straightforward and elementary system, but it can be immensely helpful when building a “success ladder” for your real estate investing business.
So, between that list plus my thoughts in the previous post, I want to dig into more detail on step #4 above of building your success ladder: this is still an unproven vision or experiment at this point… and the only result of an experiment is the RESULTS you get.
Let’s dive in!
Becoming a Scientist
Remember that your vision is an experiment, and — before the experiment even happens — you cannot expect the results to be set in stone.
What I mean by this is: many times, people imagine a plan for the business they want to build… and that specific goal becomes how they define success. And they set themselves up for failure because, if they don’t achieve that specific goal, then they see themselves as — well — a failure.
But I look at things differently…
I look at this entire idea like a scientist looks at an experiment. Imagine a scientist going into a lab. He says, “I want to do an experiment, and I think that probably the result of the experiment will be this. And probably the formula for this experiment is A + B + C.”
In a similar way, when you plan for your future REI goals, you imagine the likely result that you’re aiming for, and you make an educated guess on the correct formula you’ll use to accomplish this result.
But you don’t have success tied to that specific result or formula, because you know that this process isn’t an exact science. There will always be wild cards (i.e., things or situations that are unique to your life, your circumstances, your skills and your market).
Making the Necessary Adjustments
So, in essence, you need to imagine success… and then tweak and adjust that vision based on the results that you get along the way.
Going back to the ladder illustration for a second… let’s say you’re about halfway up the ladder when you realize, to your dismay, that the next rung on the ladder appears to be weak and about to fracture.
Originally, your plan was to step on every rung to get to the top of the ladder. But would you step on a clearly unsafe rung now, even though that was part of the original plan? Of course not! (If you did, I’m not going to be the one driving you to the ER).
Instead, you would revise your plan.
In other words, you would step past that broken rung and move on to the next one above it. And you wouldn’t consider yourself a failure, because you know that adjustments have to be made along the journey.
In fact, it’s crucial that you don’t become emotionally attached to your vision or plan. Emotional detachment from the end result is really important.
Stop defining success as a specific outcome, and instead define success as:
- Actually following through with your experiment
- Getting the necessary data
- Trying again and altering what you’re doing, according to the results
Good Plans, Even Better Strategy
In your career as a real estate investor (or in life, in general) what you choose to focus on E X P A N D S. What I mean by that is: What you focus on can alter your beliefs and actions.
But you can’t just have a vision. You have to connect your vision to a well-formulated experiment. Then, you’ll actually be making PROGRESS. You won’t just be throwing darts and hoping to hit the dreamy bullseye you’re aiming for.
So, can you be a dreamer?
You sure can. But you need to be a dreamer and a scientist. Balance emotion with reason; balance passion with practicality. And that will get you started down the path of success.
So, perhaps you come across a situation in which you need to toss aside your best-laid plans and improvise instead? And it’s likely that your adjustments could turn a terrible situation into a fantastic one.
Just Follow These Action Steps
- Formulate your REI business plan for just a year.
- Write down or type up the steps (ladder rungs) that you want to accomplish in that year.
- Tweak your steps based on the results you get as the year goes on.
- Don’t view departures from your original plan as “failures.”
- Mentally store up your experiences and knowledge to help you make a business plan for the next year.
You got this!