Always Living Large
June 28, 2019 by MarkHaroldsen
Filed under blog
So, I’ve been having a bit of a stressful but exciting week as I work on a big real estate deal. Yes, sometimes, even though I’ve been doing this for decades, making deals can be a little taxing but as Mitt Romney, former GOP candidate for President once said to the graduating students at Utah Valley University about experiencing a fulfilling and purposeful life,  “One thing you’re going to have to do is live a ‘large life’”. What great advice. That is something all of us need to pay attention to. We need to go out and do it and do it our entire lives. I wrote about this some 4 years ago, but I think it’s worth a rerun. So, here’s basically what I wrote in May of 2015:
So many times, we hesitate to “live largeâ€. Why? Because most of the time we fear that we will fail. “Failures don’t have to define who you are,” Romney had gone on to say in that Utah Valley University speech. “Through all my occupations, I have experienced successes and failures. I am asked what it felt like to lose to President Obama. Well, not as good as winning. Failures aren’t fun, but they are inevitable.”
How about you? Have you racked up a lot of failures or just a few? It seems to me, from my experience, that the number of failures I’ve had is in direct proportion to how large I’ve tried to live. So, yes, I’ve had a ton of failures but some of those have led to some huge successes. And the reason for those successes was that I learned so much from my failures.
I remember one huge loss that I learned a valuable lesson from which lead me to some very, very large successes. What happened was I decided to lend a large amount of money with a restaurant as collateral. Big mistake on my part! Why? Because I don’t know much about that kind of business so if it failed, I certainly wouldn’t know how to run it. And guess what? It did fail and I lost almost all of what I had loaned.
What did I learn? Well first I found out that restaurants have a very high rate of failure and second, I learned that I shouldn’t stray from what I know best. Not that I shouldn’t ever loan money but if I do, I should loan it on assets that I understand as well as being on improved real estate which, ideally, would also be income producing.
I forged ahead and made many millions of dollars’ worth of loans that were backed up by real estate and was very successful. Later I discovered that I could do even better by owning the right kind of income producing properties. I also, very successfully ventured into the development of condos and warehouses, where the profits were even bigger although they did come with increased risks but in that case, those were risks I was willing to take. And much, if not most of that success, came from lessons learned from my failures and my trying to “live largeâ€.
Romney’s words are not just for graduating students. They are wise words for us at any age!
Our Nation’s Opportunity
I think most of us are all thrilled that the election is over. So much talk and spinning and of course the endless political ads can drive a person crazy. Not to mention those all too often mean-spirited personal attacks on Obama and Romney. So of course, there will be some skewed views about our President that will persist for a while if not until the end of his term but that kind of focus won’t do our nation any good.
What can we do to put the bad taste of the election behind us and move towards a positive future? To start with, we all need keep focused on what needs to be done. I would like it if you would click on this link and read this very interesting, and I think very accurate, article on the outcome and who we really elected as president.
The problem with most of the hostile messages I read was that they were long on sweeping generalizations and very short on specific facts. I know there is a grand hope that is shared by the majority of Americans–that now with the election over, perhaps the two sides will act like adults and do what politics is all about. That being an opportunity to come to a compromise so that we can keep our slow recovery on track.
Our leaders need to realize they represent ALL OF US whether we voted for them or not, whether we are Democratic, Republican Independent or undeclared. This is not about competition. It’s about our country.
I hope you get something out of the attached editorial and maybe even share it with friends whether they were for or Obama or not.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/55227958-82/obama-republican-bush-tax.html.csp