BiggerPockets

I hear the word success bantered about from time to time and was thinking, success carries a different meaning for everyone.

As a real estate investor, I feel that I have reached some measure of success when my real estate investing can fully support me. Is that success?

I think almost everyone on this site has a different vision of what success means to them. I venture to guess that for some owning one single family rental gives them a feeling of success. Would I personally call this success no, but for that one individual that might be success.

My desire is that my real estate investments allow me the income to do pretty much what my wife and I want to do. Even if we all called that success it leaves a wide variation of results that could make that happen.

Any thoughts?

Hopes and dreams change as well. I love to try new things, when I was in my late 20s I took an art class. Going in I had some interest, but discovered that I enjoyed drawing and painting. My vision of the future changed.

For me success is:

1. Never sitting in commute traffic
2. Waking up without an alarm
3. Spending time with my family whenever I want
4. Feeling content that I consistently give back.

Success:

-Financial => Financial freedom via real estate or any other business

-Happiness => Being able to do that which makes me happy instead of that which makes me money

For me success means not having to trudge into work to do something I hate to make money. I also enjoy helping to educate others toward this goal too so success is making my students successful.

I think people are very bad at setting the RIGHT goals that take into account what will make them happy. Simply having more for more's sake is stupid unless the incremental effort is worth the cost. Everything in life is a tradeoff. The only thing you can never get back is your time.

John T. Reed has a book called "Succeeding" which is worth the cost and the time invested if you want to get a crystal clear vision on success. You can hit the highlights by going to his site, clicking on the title, and looking at the outline and the copy he uses to sell the book.

Personally, I have always felt that happiness is a choice. There are people that are very happy in what many of us would call miserable situations. Others that are far from being happy though financially they are very well off.

I happen to enjoy real estate investing and enjoy the interaction with people and the brainstorming which is often apart of a new investment. I enjoy taking a property that was a good investment and turning it into something of greater value. Perhaps that's why I look for that added potential in every property that I buy. To me it is not enough that an investment be good, there also must be some hint that it can be much better.

Simple. It's when I can walk down the meat counter at the supermarket and pick up anything I want WITHOUT looking at the price.

Haven't gotten to that point, yet.

Originally posted by Realtyman

Success has meant being able to be an investor full time since 1994. The investments paid off a mortgage on the only house we had ever lived in that was free and clear. Money went to the bank until it was needed for the next investment. Then comes a lull as you build up funds for another deal. For us, we seem to enjoy taking over from the mismanagementcompanies and turn something that was eating up the previous Owner into a "cash cow" that takes care of everything. After we get done smoothing out all their messes, it gets kind of uninteresting and we have to start looking for something new as a challenge.

I must say that I enjoy the challenge and the experience as well. It is exciting to implement the things you know will bring greater potential to a property. I never buy potential, but I look for it never the less.

Along the way I am building a team. It is my hope that my team can also make a decent living from my investment activities.

Success is something that I always seem to get to some degree. Even if it is a "lesson"! My plumbing contracting business was a success since I was always busy, made a great income and never had to advertize, just repeat customers and referrals. My student rental business allowed me to retire early, until I became restless, sold out to my partner and moved to restaurants. We completed our 5 year plan in 4 years and made lots of $$$. Then, as a contractor / developer, my wife and I started a 78 unit condo project just before the economic - housing downfall. Although our 5-6 year sell out has been revised to add another 5 years, we consider it a success! We have a long list of potential buyers waiting to sell their homes to buy. We build Energy Star 5+ and Green Built Certified. We have changed the condo market in our area in a positive way. Still, we are happy and love what we are doing. We just would like to sell more condos, faster! Until then (and beyond) we are doing the short sale buy/sell. We still love what we are doing and are happy but, we needed to change our business focus to match the economic realities and investment opportunities. Now, as we were ready to leave our weekly condo open house at our model home/office, another potential buyer came late, causing Jackie to go show a spec that we have and giving me time to answer this post! It is a good thing that we love what we do and working together because we sure spend a lot of time doing it!
Yep! We're successful!
Bill

Congrats to Bill P. Very diverse and very successful, and your wife is on board!.
I agree with other Bill on feelings of being successful. My post as I pointed out was strictly from the financial success standpoint. Rich

If I was to look down on earth,(i among the clouds) I would see that success has A broad meaning to us human's. It could be address in a variety (personnel:financial,etc.,the list is l o n g).
But thorough it all it becomes divine. I submit a few quotes to narrow my relpy -"I can't do it" never yet accomplished anything: "I will try" has accomplished wonders." - George P. Burnham
That is success - " Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible". - Anonymous
Even a word can help achieve success. Another
"What you can do, or dream you can do, begin it; boldness has genius, power and magic in it."- Johann von Goethe This I have to enter into my point - " At first dreams seem impossible, then improbable, then inevitable."-- Christopher Reeve (1952-2004) American Actor ( We all remember that little mishap Mr Reeve, got into)..
So, everyone has desribed success (individuaity)
and everyone is correct ; my point is Life is not holding a good hand; Life is playing a poor hand well. thanks Joseph