Goal setting and getting at it.

March 7, 2021

In the last 12 days I have been working on many different issues. All related to real estate.

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With so many things going on, I really have to choose carefully how I spend my extra time. There is this fear of missing out (FOMO) that everyone normally has, but at my stage in life, that is not the case. I am where I want to be, doing what I want to do. My plan is well underway.

Every morning I listen to motivational talks or lectures while I exercise. One common theme is that you have to be at peace with your own plan. Project yourself into the future 5 years and see yourself accomplishing something great, something worthy of your time and effort. Take a lot of time to figure that one thing out (ala. Curly in City Slickers) but when you do find it, fixate on the goal and become obsessed with it. If it is a huge goal, chunk it down. Break it into smaller achievable goals and most importantly Do Not be afraid of how other people see you. Your harshest critic and your biggest fan should be yourself and your own conscience. Every day you should be visualizing your goal and telling yourself, stop being lazy and get at it. At the end of the day you have to ask, what did I do today to get me closer to that goal and what am I going to do tomorrow for that same goal.

When you are developing your plan, It is good to put it out there and have feedback, but take what other people say and think with a grain of salt. If you are confused about what to do, or what to do next, you have not clarified your goal enough so that you can see what needs to get done... break the goal down even further, into a manageable activity that you can make progress on. Then get at it.  If it is a goal that someone else has accomplished, read their biography. Learn from their mistakes.

When making a decision about what I am doing right now, I ask myself ..is what I am doing one of the things that needs to get done? Is this thing that I am doing and filling my time with moving me closer to my goal or are they excuses for me to use and say that I do not have enough time to do what I need to do? When I thought about this concept years ago, I made a conscious effort to give up my unproductive late night hour (now hours) and replace them with very productive early morning hours.

Today is Sunday March 7th and it is 11am and I have already completed 5 hours of activities that all move me towards my goal. A neat side effect of working these long days is that I am able to fall asleep almost instantly.

In the last two weeks I managed to squeeze in a couple 16h days. By this I mean 1h exercise, 1h chores in the AM, a full 8h work day, then another 6h of work broken into 5-6 different activities that keep me moving towards my goals. The activities that I regularly do to further my goal:

- Reading, (last book was Crushing is in Commercial Real Estate, current book is what every RE investor needs to know about Cash Flow and 36 other key financial measures. This is an excellent book as they give key figures that banks look for when you ask for financing and not just the figures from the investors point of view. )

- Studying, and doing some sort of course work, (Currently working on a Legal update for Strata Management)

- Attending a seminar (BP has one every Wednesday)

- Listening to a pitch or talk on investing or some aspect of investing. The last three talks I attended in a zoom meeting format were for:

Tax Prep (it is that time of the year)

Investing in Storage units.

Investing in a new Stratified/Managed Rental pool type investment.

I found this investment interesting as I manage a similar type of property for a large group of owner/investors. That property that I manage has something like 300 units total and 100 of those are rentals. A large portion of the owners in the other 200 units have purchased a second unit and have assigned it to a rental pool. The advantage is that the pool is professionally managed and the monthly payout is guaranteed, even if your individual unit is empty. The rental pool usually has 2- 3 vacancies, but the rents collected for the other 97-98 units is collected and distributed between all the owners.

- I also (virtually) attend Vancouver RE meet ups. The free groups are small and overshadowed by larger pay to join and meet movers/shakers. The largest local group is the Real Estate Action Group. I have met many contacts there and invested with a few of them. There are always spin-off events hosted by some of the presenters, including bus tours and flights to larger investment presentations or international meet ups.

- Connecting with people on Linkedin that I have come across and spoke with in real work or event

My Linkedin network is currently about 20 close friends, 200 trades people and now I am slowly adding investors. I get a constant barrage of invitations from companies and trades I have never met but I try not to link unless I have at least spoken with them.

- Writing blog material such as this,

- Responding to a forum thread in BP or 2+2, where I have some knowledge.

- Managing my own RE issues. Unit repairs, rent collection, record keeping for taxes, or writing a report if it is for a group of investors.

- One of my most recent new activities is to do additional calculations for a potential investment to see if the investment meet a banker's criteria. This is a good extra step for me to actually know how much capital I need to purchase the RE or how much extra capital I will need to raise.

- Review buildings for sale to see if anything interesting new has recently come online for sale.

- Read the local news in the city that I have chosen for investment, especially infrastructure development, job gains/losses and the local real estate outlook.

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Even now as I read this blog before I post it, I think one of the best reasons to blog is to have to get my ideas clear in my head. If I leave things all vague and in a cloud, I have an excuse not to take action. By writing it here, I have to read it before I post it and see if it makes sense. By listing all of my goal activities, I have added a little bit extra clarity to my plan.