The people you’re closest with can hold you back the most

After I read the book Rich Dad-Poor Dad, it was like a lightbulb went off in my head. I finally understood the path to creating wealth and how I could achieve financial freedom.

In that book, one of the main themes to creating wealth is investing in real estate. Now, you might not have any interest at all in real estate investing but just hear me out because it only plays a small part in the story.

I was so excited about real estate after I read that book that I consumed everything I could on it. I listened to every BiggerPockets podcast and watched tons of DIY remodeling videos on YouTube.

This is me replacing flooring in one of our rental units. All of this was hard work, but I don’t regret a single bit of it.

I managed to save up about $11,000 to start Investing in buy-and-hold rental properties. My plan was to buy undervalued foreclosure properties and put several thousand into rehabbing the property, then rent them out for monthly cashflow. After six months of holding the property I would do a cash-out refinance with the bank to pull my money back out. Then, use that money to purchase the next property and continually repeat.

This has been used by the hundreds of thousands of people to build real wealth. It is commonly known as the BRRR Strategy (Buy it, Repair it, Rent it out, Refinance it).

I did all the studying, got a real estate agent, got financing through a small local bank, and had everything I needed to get going. But, I had a couple of family members that did everything in their power to discourage me.

They told me that real estate was risky and there were a million things that could go wrong with owning rental properties. One Family member told me that it was nothing but a pipe dream and that I would want to sell the properties when I started getting phone calls in the middle of the night to fix someone’s toilet.

Another family member told me that anyone who is willing to invest in real estate after the Lehman crash in 2008 was a complete idiot and that I would regret it.

I would love to sit here and tell you that I Ignored those motherfuckers with my iron will and battled on, never missing a lick. But that was not the case…

I will be honest with you and tell you that I let them get in my head and started having second doubts about my goals of building wealth and creating financial freedom. I started letting myself contemplate that they might be right. And that my aspirations were nothing more than a distant dream.

All of their negative energy circled above me like vultures waiting for a wounded animal to die. I kept trying to educate myself and look for properties to buy but their words we’re like a ghost that would constantly reemerge to remind me that it was till there.

I eventually got past the things that they told me and persevered. And I did purchase rental properties that created wealth and passive income for me and my family.

Removing all the crap that the previous owners left at the house, which took three trips to the city dump.

The ironic part is that both of those family members seem very interested in what I was doing once they saw that I was starting to become successful at it. They would constantly ask me what’s going on with this property or what’s going on with that foreclosure. I don’t know if they were interested because I had accomplished something that they told me I couldn’t. Or, if it was just their way of hoping I would crash and burn like they told me I would.

Had I listened to them, I would’ve never found the success that I did. I just would’ve been stuck down in the mud with them, like they wanted. And if I could go back in time I would have loved for the conversation to go more like this:

Discouraging family member- “You will regret doing this, you will fail, you cant make money in real estate, you wont be able to find quality tenants, Just invest in a 401k because thats the safe way to do things!”

Me, trying to create a better life- ” How many succesfull real estate deals have you invested in?”

Discouraging family member- ” Well…………none”

Me, trying to create a better life- ” Well…….then maybe you should stay out of that area of advice giving until you get some experience in real estate outside of watching bullshit flipping shows on HGTV”

People will try to bring you down because they don’t have the balls to try make something better of themselves. When they see you trying to pull yourself up, they try to pull you back down to their level. It makes them uncomfortable to see someone who has the courage to play the game long enough to keep making it up to the next level.

The naysayers already made up their minds that they will always be nothing. And they want you to be nothing too so they don’t have to live their miserable life alone.

I’m not going to lie to you guys. I was scarred to death when I first got going in real estate investing.

And there where several times that I felt completely overwhelmed wondering what the fuck I had gotten myself into and hoping that I didn’t make a gigantic mistake. But I just kept pushing forward and never gave up. And that may just be the most important part of this entire post.

I don’t care what anyone else says , Never giving up is the hardest part. If you just stay the course, you will eventually find success.

The people that you associate with the most have the biggest influence on you. So choose wisely

One of the most sobering quotes I’ve ever read was by a guy named Jim Ron who said,‘You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.’ This means that you are the average of the five people you hang out with the most. Weather you know it or not you will start absorbing both the positive and negative traits of those people like a sponge. This is because humans are products of their environments.

I made a list of the five people that I spend the most time with. What they did for a living, thier goals and accomplishments, how successful their were, and listed the positive and negative traits they possessed as people. I realized that these people hadn’t done much of anything with their lives and did not want to be anything like them at all.

You have to either change the people or change the people….Think about that for a minute.

I had no intentions of trying to make the people around me change but I was obligated to be around them. I didn’t have the ability to go meet up with anyone that qualified as a successful businessmen or wealthy entrepreneurs.

More shit to the dump!

What to do when you are surrounded by losers who have no desire to do anything with themselves

I’m sure that like you, most of the people that I associate with our simple minded and don’t really want to do anything to better their lives. I recognize this early on and realized that I had to do something about it or the negativity of others around would prevail is a constant influence.

Simply put, I forced myself to keep to constantly consume positive influences.

I began listening to all the audio CDs and podcast about achieving goals and finding success. Whatever I my heart set on ,I would try and seek out videos about that particular thing.

No social media either! Most of that shit is littered with negativity and useless drama. Instead, I constantly reading blogs by people who achieved great things and encouraged others to do so as well.

If I was driving, I would just listen to Grant Cardone 10 X audio-book over and over.

Instead of death metal CDs in my car, I had rich dad, poor dad on audio tape.

If I was working out, I was listening to Tim Ferris.

Instead of reading magazines on the crapper, I was reading Bold&Determined.com articles.

I did everything I could to keep these people in my ear and I just pretended that they were my friends. I know that might sound silly, but it sure as hell worked. Their teachings and influence rubbed off on me and I began to adopt their mindsets and learn from their experiences.

You don’t need anybody else’s permission to achieve greatness. Life is too short not to make something out of yourself. Just ignore the naysayers and never stop moving forward to make your dreams a reality.