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Romance: The Little Discussed Factor Necessary to Your Survival in Real Estate

Ben Leybovich
4 min read
Romance: The Little Discussed Factor Necessary to Your Survival in Real Estate

My wife Patrisha is hands down the hardest working woman in the biz. She does it all. Professionally speaking, she not only runs a nonprofit music school in Lima called The Music Factory, but she manages the back office of everything that I do, and being a serial entrepreneur, I do a lot. I mean, I couldn’t find my way around the QuickBooks if I were sitting under a tree and it fell right on my head. It’s bad, y’all. I’d be totally freaking lost without my wife!

But the more impressive reality is that she does all of this stuff as an afterthought to that which is most important – family. We have twins, Aaron and Isabella, who just turned six on June 1st. Aaron was diagnosed on the Autism spectrum when he was three. The wonderful all-knowing doctors told us that essentially it is what it is

Well, “it is what it is” don’t work too well for Patrisha. Status quo NEVER works too well for Patrisha! Dan Doctor, HBOT therapy, metal chelation, a complete overhaul of diet, and everything in between that could have been done was and continues to be done. And while lots still needs to be done, at six years of age, though the most strong-willed child you’ll ever meet, Aaron now feels feelings, makes eye-contact, understands humor, has a girlfriend at school (whom he kissed at the First Grade graduation and made her blush), and is interested in making friends and socializing. And the fact that at six years of age he reads at a Fourth Grade level and does math at a Third Grade level is nothing special around here…

There is a Price

I am not talking about tens of thousands of dollars annually, although that’s also there and will more than likely continue to be there for the foreseeable future. No, the real currency we trade is our sanity and relationship between mom and dad.

Related: 7 Ways to Stay HAPPILY Married When Investing with your Spouse!

Yes, my friends, in the easiest and most “plain vanilla” circumstances, any relationship is work; relationships simply take work. But under constant duress of our lives, the relationship between mom and dad is of the essence indeed; it is the fundamental building block upon which everything either works or it doesn’t. Unbelievably, my wife has the presence of mind to attend to that too, as if she doesn’t have enough to do.

Frankly, my experience tells me that women are stronger than men. Women are also wiser than us guys. The difference, I believe, is that men can think in one, or perhaps two dimensions, while women are able to internalize three dimensions. In other words, when considering an issue, I see about a 120 degree perspective, while my wife sees a full 360 degrees…

This is the essence of wisdom. This is the essence of perspective. We guys need to spend our days pushing ourselves to see wider angles and deeper colors.

She Knows When It’s Time

Well, one thing that my wife sees well in advance of my being able to internalize it is something I refer to as “Daddy is Tired.” I admit that Patrisha carries much more of a load around here than I do or could, and she does it with grace unknown to me. And yet as any entrepreneur should, I push, and push some more, and push again… and the reality that I don’t have gainful employment simply means that I do a lot of the pushing with kids yelling in my ear. Talk about tough!

Unfortunately, unlike my wife, who has the patience of Job and handles “tired” as though it’s a walk in the park, I simply burn until there’s nothing left and then I crash. My patience goes out the window, my already irritable nature flares up even more, and I turn into a Russian Bear, completely unable to be either productive or reasonable.

Well, my wife somehow knows before I do that things are about to fall apart, and she fixes me – it’s called romance, and it looks like this:

 

photo (1)

photo (2)

And… I’m not showing you any more pictures, but feel free to use your imagination. Suffice it to say that there was a bottle of fabulous red wine, an assortment of cheeses, a French baguette, a cigar, and a raised deck with 210 degree view of water with no direct line of sight from the neighbors. Get the picture?

Romance: We Have to Have It

You newbies out there — yeah, I’m talking to you. You just listened to Brandon’s webinar and are at the moment are a bit confused about how easy or not it is to do what he does. Well, let me set you straight – it’s harder than freaking hell! The amount of crap he and I have had to eat in order to arrive someplace better than where we were is unreal.

Related: How To Survive When Your Spouse Doesn’t Believe In Your Dream

Brandon and Heather visited us in Lima last week; they are in the midst of a cross-country trip. You know why? ‘Cause for them, this is romance personified. Romance looks different to Patrisha and me, but the truth is the same — we work as hard as we do in order to live on our own terms as much as possible.

Thankfully, while neither Brandon nor I have made it to where we’re going yet, we’ve made sufficient progress so that we no longer have to count pennies. And you know what? Real estate is doing it; creative finance and nothing down real estate…

Furthermore, eating crap for 10 years has resulted in intellectual worth that now opens doors to much bigger and better opportunities today!

Remember

Romance personified is the destination, but the road is uncommonly full of, as they say, “crappy compromises.” Keep your vision in direct view at all times, and be prepared to work like hell.

You can do this!

What role do romance and relationships play in your investing endeavors?

Let me know with a comments!

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