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Let’s Talk About Success Baby!

Julie Broad
3 min read
Let’s Talk About Success Baby!

Let’s talk about success for now to the people at home or in the crowd.
It keeps coming up anyhow.
Don’t decoy, avoid, or make void the topic.
Cuz that ain’t gonna stop it.

For all those people who weren’t born in the 70’s or early 80’s to know I am referencing an old song by Salt N Pepa I can only say sorry that you don’t know the song because it’s a classic.

Today, inspired by some hip hop music, I want to talk about success. But, I am not going to teach you how to succeed or what it means to be a successful real estate investor. My only objective is to get you thinking about the labels you use because I think many of us use certain words without thinking. And yet by using these words in a certain way I believe we hold ourselves back from achieving the things in life that we truly want and from becoming the great people we all can be.

Success and failure are two such words that I believe are used all too often in a way that restricts all of us.

I used to think that if I earned a six figure per year salary I would be a success or if someone was a millionaire that meant that person was successful. I achieved both those marks in my life by the age of 31 (as long as you define a millionaire as someone with a million dollars worth of equity … I sure didn’t have a million in cash sitting in the bank!).

But, I am not a success. And it’s not because there are times when I am so cash poor I don’t have enough money for a sandwich – although that has happened.

It’s because nobody is a success.

The same goes for the word failure. Nobody is a failure.

We, as humans, fail at some things just like we succeed at some things. Success is the achievement of something good but it is not a word that can be used to describe a person. Success is a noun not an adjective.

Now we talk about success on the radio and video shows.
Many will know anything goes.
Let’s tell it how it is, and how it could be.
How it was, and of course, how it should be.

And how it should be is that we’re humans. And we set goals and we dare to dream. And sometimes our dreams come true and we succeed at something we try. And sometimes we dare to dream and that action turns out to be a failure.

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But, we, as humans are never a success nor are we ever a failure.

Remember that next time you fear failure. Or even if you fear success.

If you aren’t making an offer on a property or if you aren’t getting up in front of your real estate investing club to pitch your deal because you don’t want to be a failure … let it go. There is no such thing.

Sure, that action may not go that well but it WILL NOT DEFINE YOU. Whether you succeed at that one thing will not change WHO YOU ARE!

The fact that you take action, fight to achieve your dream life and keep on pushing
on despite achieving the odd failure or the odd success defines you. And it will define you in a way that will make you proud of who you are and hopefully of what you contribute to those around you.

You can succeed and you can fail … but those events do not define you. They can’t.

Let’s talk about success, baby (sing it)
Let’s talk about you and me (sing it, sing it)
Let’s talk about all the good things
And the bad things that may be
Let’s talk about success (come on)
Let’s talk about success (do it)!

>>Props to Salt N Pepa for their song “Let’s Talk About Sex” for the inspiration for this simple but important message.<<?

Images: © Shineart | Dreamstime.com, Richard0

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.