The old ass kicking….. in relationships, in business, in investing, in love, and in life.

We’ve all had one or two, haven’t we?

Pick up any biography and you’re likely to read about a few ass kickings in the person’s life. What’s interesting is what the person did after their ass kicking. In every biography the person gets up, dusts themselves off, and gets back to it. We are reading their biography BECAUSE they got back up. If they hadn’t gotten back up, there wouldn’t be a biography to read.

The value in each biography is seeing the person get back up. Seeing them learn from whatever caused the ass kicking. Seeing them adjust their approach and ultimately conquering what they set out to conquer.

Think of any biography you’ve read and you’ll see this in action. This is why I believe they’re the best books business owners and investors can read. Biographies show us what we have to do. They remind us that getting back up is where all the opportunity is in life.

Think back to the big real estate crash. Almost every real estate investor in the States got their asses kicked. Me included.

It’s interesting to see what those investors are doing today. The majority have washed their hands of real estate. “I’ll never invest in real estate again.” When their asses got kicked, they stayed down and didn’t get back up.

This is depressing to think about and this is because these investors learned so many lessons during the crash. Unfortunately, they’re not benefiting from those lessons today. Back when I had my real estate brokerage, my best client had purchased 20 single-family homes as investments. The crash kicked his ass big time. He got back up and continued buying homes after his ass kicking. He adjusted his approach based on the lessons he learned and is financially free today with a lot less stress.

We talk every week and both of us have come to the conclusion that the big crash was the BEST thing that could have happened to us. The reason why is because the crash gave us the opportunity to improve our approach. It gave us valuable lessons we could leverage to our advantage going forward.

We learned how to deal with adversity.
We learned how to get rid of unprofitable properties through short sales & foreclosures.
We learned how to deal with creditors.
We learned how to unwind partnerships.
We learned how profitable it can be clean up bad investments.
We learned that it’s actually better to have a low credit score than a high credit score.
We learned how unprofitable highly leveraged real estate can be.
We learned the power of paying cash for income producing assets.
We learned to invest for cashflow instead of appreciation.
We learned to be very careful with debt.
We learned that ALL markets crash.
We learned you can profit from each market crash.
We learned all of this and more.

All of these lessons have made us better investors. We get to profit today and tomorrow from each and every lesson learned during our ass kicking.

When I talk with former real estate investors who didn’t get back up after their ass kicking, they all still feel as if the crash was the WORST thing that happened in their lives. They’re still reeling from the beat down. They feel as if their lives are worse today than before the crash.

I think the hardest part of dealing with any ass kicking is controlling what you allow yourself to think. If you allow yourself to think that life sucks, it’s definitely gonna suck. However, if you look for the actual opportunity in the ass kicking and force yourself to think… “this is the best thing that has happened to me”, life will get a whole lot better.

This post wouldn’t be complete without including this:


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