Question: What shapes a person?
Answer: The people we meet and the books we read.
As I look back at my 40-plus years, I came to realize how different my life is as opposed to how I thought I would become.
As a child and teen, I didn't think much of myself...Most people are shocked to learned that I was a very very shy young man. Never would I want to stand out of a crowd. I never ever rose my hand during class even though I knew the answers. I had a poor self image and absolutely no belief in who I was. That was until I met a man named Tony Nelson. Tony was my college girlfriend's dad and he was a man who clearly let it be know that he believed in me, when I couldn't do that by myself. I will spend more time on Tony in a later post. From his belief in me in propelled me to seek out other mentors and ways of thinking. Expanding my mind in a way I never thought possible. That belief led me to look into seminar's and books that would help me reshape my thinking and belief in myself.
One of my first mentors besides Tony and my Dad, was Mark O. Haroldsen. Mark is a successful real estate investor, mentor to hundreds if not thousands and one of the first people that taught me some critical lessons in life that you wouldn't learn from school or college. Please check out his website: http://markoharoldsen.com/
After all these years, I finally took the time to thank Mark for the man he helped build. For it wasn't his message that faithful day at a real estate seminar, my life may have turned out completely different.
Here is an excerpt from what I wrote:
"I wanted to thank you for the difference you have made in my life. At the tender age of 19, I went to a Financial Freedom Reports seminar on Real Estate Investment seminar back in 1989 in Las Vegas, NV. I didn’t know what to expect, but I felt drawn to this event. So I drove from San Francisco to Las Vegas not knowing how much it would change my life.
Back then I was a terribly shy young man, sitting in the very back of the audience, with no goals, lack of belief in myself, no direction, and a lack of understanding regarding personal responsibility.
I want to thank you for the lessons YOU taught me. You were one of my first mentors and you really reshaped how I thought about myself and my self image.
Towards the end of the seminar, you covered your 20 success principles and it changed my life. I took vigorous notes that day and later typed it up on my computer, printed it out and framed those 20 principles.
Not a week went by when I didn’t look at that picture frame of your 20 principles whenever I faced a challenge or simply wanted to remind myself to be all that I could be. These past twenty years, I have had my ups and downs. I had my struggles and I had my successes. If it weren’t for that incredible day of listening to your principles, I would not be the man I am today."
Now, I will share with you his 20 success principles that help mold my life and my own opinion of myself, Mark I still cannot thank you enough and I appreciate your permission to reprint this on my blog: http://markoharoldsen.com/secrets.html
--Posted with permission from Mark O Haroldsen--
I wrote down a list of 20 things. It's kind of a personal inventory and I want you to grade yourself on each of these as I go through them. See what kind of marks you give yourself.
#1 - Move Off of Square One
Are you active? Or reactive? Do you make things happen or do they happen to you? What's your mindset there? Are you the kind of person that in even doing a simple thing like arranging a party, are you the one to call the friends or are you the one who's always reacting to that? Are you the one who goes out and looks for the real estate deal and makes the phone call, or are you always waiting for somebody to come to you?
#2 - You've Got to Believe
Do you believe in yourself? Everyone believes in them self to a degree. But I don't think anybody has total self-confidence. In fact some, who are in your face the most, have the least self-confidence and are just trying to fake it until they make it. There's nothing wrong with that as long as you really get the skill and the stuff behind your persona that's up front. But understand the old Zen saying, "To know and not to do, is not yet to know." So if you know it and you don't do it, then you really don't know it.
Nobody believes in them self perfectly and I think that's helpful, especially when you're approaching Mr. Big, or Mrs. Big, or Big Corporation and you're scared to death. At times you're scared even to make a stupid phone call. You don't even know the other person on the line, and you can panic, get all nervous and tongue-tied about what you're going to say. But you've got to understand that the other person is not perfectly secure, either. Nobody is. That helps me approach these people and believe more in myself.
#3 - A Lifetime of Balance
Are you in a hurry? Now this one is kind of tricky because life is a balance between being aware of the limited time we all have and not being uptight about everything. It's knowing also that we only have so much time and we've got a lot to get done.
The average person only lives six or seven hundred thousand hours in a lifetime. That's not a lot of hours. If we didn't have a finite life span then we wouldn't have to set goals; we wouldn't have to set timeframes. I mean if you've got four or five hundred years, just take it easy.
Are you in a hurry? Are you aware of time? Do you set goals? Do you spend time planning? Somebody once said, "Most people spend more time planning their birthday list than they do planning their whole life.." They don't map out their life. They don't sit down with a journal. There's tremendous satisfaction if you sit down and write to yourself, and write your thoughts. Always date those thoughts. My dad taught me that. He was a journalist. When you sit down and write something in a journal as to what you're thinking at the time, always date it. Then go back and read it a year later. Sometimes you'll find that you have written some pretty impressive stuff. It remotivates you.
#5 - Make That Decision
Are you a decision-maker? Some people are so afraid of making a decision that they don't make any. Successful people will make a lot of decisions, and they'll make mistakes. They'll realize that they made a mistake. But that's okay. We hesitate making decisions because we're afraid. It's kind of like the stock market. Most people lose money in the stock market because they get their ego involved. They bought that stock at $25 and it went to $20, and then it went to $18. They say "I am not going to sell that until it goes back up," as though there's a law of what goes down must come up. But it's an ego thing. They get involved rather than deciding, "I'm getting out of this." The same thing with decisions. People are afraid to make decisions because they don't want to make a mistake. But it's okay to make a mistake, as long as you learn from those mistakes.
#6 - Let's Get Organized
Are you organized? Because if you're not organized you can't get much done. I'm not the most organized person in the world. But I'm not the worst, either. I work on it. If you're going to delegate to others you've got to be organized.
#7 - Your Word is Your Bond
Do you do what you say? Are you a person of your word? Somebody once said, "My honor is my power." Be honest. Be straightforward. It works and you don't have to have a great mind to remember what you said. As you'll see when we get into the Hansen model, one of the reasons Dell Loy Hansen has over a billion dollars worth of property is because he does what he says. He under-promises and over-delivers. So when he has another building to sell, he has a line of investors throwing money at him. Do what you say you're going to do.
#8 - Don't Be a Quitter
What's your stickability? How do you stick with a project? Do you give up at the first sign of trouble? Do you quit? Do you get discouraged? We all get discouraged at times, but do you keep going even if you're discouraged?
#9 - The Big "D" Word
What's your discipline factor? How disciplined are you? Nobody is perfectly disciplined. All of us are lazy to a degree. Nobody is perfectly ambitious, but how much discipline do you apply?
#10 - Likeability Factor
Do people like you? Are you likeable? That's a very important quality especially if you follow a Hansen model - actually most models. If people can't stand you - stop and think about your own contacts, people you do business with - do you like to do business with people who are obnoxious? Even if they're brilliant? Even if you can make money with them? Most of us avoid those people.
Are you intuitive? If people say you're gullible, you probably won't make it in most businesses. You can't be too trusting, especially at first. If you think everybody's totally honest and forthright then, I would say, be careful.
#11 - Micro or Macro Manage
Are you a generalist? Or a specialist? To make it in most businesses the more generalist you are the better. Generally speaking, you'll delegate better; a specialist wants to do it all himself.
Many people say about President Carter that he didn't do very well as a president because he was a micro manager. He had to read every report. He had to do everything himself. Nobody has time to do that. As another example, take Richard Branson who owns Virgin Atlantic. He's a brilliant guy, a likeable guy and he owns 360 companies. Now if he were a specialist trying to do the accounting on even one of those companies he couldn't do it. He has to be a generalist. He has to know a little bit about everything. He's got to be the orchestrator who stands up, knows a little bit about the violin, a little bit about the rhythm section and he can orchestrate the whole thing..He can hear a sound that's wrong if the CPA is not quite doing the job. He can get rid of him and get another one. He can raise the money.
#12 - Think Big
Are you ambitious? What's your energy? Energy can be created by ideas, great ideas. Big ideas give you great energy. You know that. When you wake up in the morning with a great idea, you're out of bed and going. If you don't have ideas, exciting ideas, you have a lower energy factor. The right food and the right exercise helps, too.
#13 - The Boss
How about being your own boss? Do you want to work for somebody else or be your own boss? You've got to be your own boss.
#14 - Goals Create Energy
Do you set goals? I'm going to divert just a little bit here and talk about goals, because it's a critical part of the whole formula. We all know that you should set goals. We've all heard that since we were kids. But a lot of us don't realize how much energy they create.
Here are some basics about goals. Facts produce chemical changes in the brain. We all know that if a lion jumps up from behind a tree we have more energy, and can run faster. We'd fight harder than any other time. So we know that the brain can create energy. I will submit to you the same thing as I said a minute ago with ideas. A great idea can create energy.
Secondly, there's a certain magic in writing things down. When you write goals down they become a part of you. And I'm convinced, the reason is because your subconscious takes over when you sleep. When you're not thinking about it, your subconscious is still working on that goal. Especially if you set a deadline, if you set a timeframe of when it's going to be done.
Your subconscious won't let you not pursue the goal. Goals can give you the world, a new life, a lasting satisfaction, and it can totally change your life. You need the right mindset for a goal.
Make your deadline. Years ago when they'd move prisoners from point A to point B, a deadline was a circle in the sand or a piece of rope. The guard would sit up in the tower with a gun. If anybody stepped across that line (so the prisoners were told) they would be shot. That's how the guards controlled them. That's where the term deadline came from.
In other words, when you set a deadline for yourself don't let it become a slide line. It's something you're going to do no matter what it takes to do it. Put a lot of thought into setting your goals. You don't want to set goals willy-nilly. The bad part about setting a willy-nilly goal is that you don't really make it. So be careful in setting the goals.
#15 - B-RAM
And then there's what I call the B-RAM miracle. Let me talk about that before we continue. I spent a lot of time thinking as I was writing this chapter on goal setting in my latest book. Why is it that people set goals and then they don't reach them? Whether it's making money, losing weight, eating better food, doing better in the job, buying more property, whatever it is. Why is it that people don't hit their goals so many times? Even the people who write them down. Why is it?
I thought and thought. I talked to people. I thought about myself when I've set goals and failed to reach them. I finally think I figured it out. It's a simple thing - they don't have enough reason. If you have enough reason to do something you'll do it.
How many people saw the movie or read the book Touching the Void? Did that guy have enough reason? What was his reason for crawling with a broken shin. Left for dead, he didn't have water or food and he had a broken leg. What was his reason for crawling down the mountain?
He had a strong reason - the will to live. What if I said to you that you had to make a hundred thousand dollars legitimately in real estate by this time next year? You had to do it or you were going to die. How many people think they could do it? You wouldn't watch TV. You wouldn't sleep very much. Talk about goal setting!
I came up with what I call - not just reasons - the B-RAM stands for Benefits, Reasons And Motivation. The following is my list of reasons to set goals. Write down your own list. Everybody's will be a little different.
- One of the biggest reasons that I wanted to make a lot of money was to prove to myself that I could do it. I finally figured that out.
- I wanted freedom from financial stress and worries. I used to worry endlessly about not having enough money because many times I ran out of money too soon. You see people who started out poor making millions and millions of dollars, because they know how bad it was to be at the very bottom.
- Freedom to travel and play when I want.
- Freedom to pursue any of my passions and other dreams.
- More time to spend with loved ones and friends.
- Have a great influence in the world through politics and education. I've talked with many people I didn't think I'd ever meet.
- Enhance ability to give to others.
- Help others by providing improved housing in real estate.
- Greater feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction.
- Opportunity for a new career later in life if I want.
- Better health and longer life.
So what I'm saying here is when you set a goal, put a timeframe on it; write it down after you've put it through your head enough times that it's really what you want. It's not what your spouse, or parent or kids want, but what you want. Then I'd suggest strongly that you work on your own B-RAM list - the Benefits, Reasons And Motivation. I would further suggest you write it down and put the list in strategic places in your home.
#16 - Disappointment
Can you take major disappointment? The reason I put that in one of the mindset items is because so many people think the world is just dumping on them. They really think that in the quiet of their own office, or car, they really start getting down on themselves and being disappointed because they failed. Again, if you realize that everybody feels that way it's easier to say, "I'm not going to let this get me down.
#17 - A View of Your World
What is your paradigm? Do you have the right paradigm? Paradigm is your view of the world. The paradigm drives your attitude, and your attitude drives your behavior. So many people try and change their behavior without changing their attitude, and before that they haven't changed their paradigm.
With real estate if you just work on the behavior - you're just fighting yourself with what you want to do. You can always learn all of the lists, and the "to dos," and all the pick-and-shovel work if you have the other things.
#18 - Your Choice
Do you use your power of choice? The thing that separates man from animals is that we can choose. We can choose what we believe. We can choose to believe we're going to do well, or poorly. Some people believe there is no God. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. If you choose there isn't that's a dark outlook, but you can choose it and nobody can prove you wrong. Or, if you believe that there is a God, you choose that to drive your life. If you choose to have success nobody can prove you wrong. If they say you're not successful yet, then you can say my life is not over yet. I'm only 87.
#19 - Using OPB - Other People's Brains
Do you borrow the brains of others? This goes to the generalist vs. the specialist, and all of the brains that are available for hire. It can be an architect, a banker, an attorney, whatever. Use their brain power often - along with your own.
#20 - Change
And then the last one I've got here is your adaptability - your adaptability to change. Things change with the times. Think of the people who refuse to use a computer, or use a cell phone, or use voice mail, or e-mail. With e-mail you can get so much done in a hurry. It's crazy not to change with the times.
