Finding That Passion for Living

Last week I started telling you the story of my life. I wanted you to see how setting big goals started me off on the path that I am on even today. So here is the rest of my story with a little bit more about what I’ve done and how having big goals that keep me excited and challenged led to much of my success.

For one, I worked on bigger and bigger real estate investment deals. My work in the development side of real estate has been among my most profitable endeavors. I successfully developed large condominium complexes in Pennsylvania and Mississippi. I completed a 13-acre commercial development in the south part of the Salt Lake valley and a very successful condominium project on the beautiful North Shore of Kauai. Although I am less involved in real estate development today, I still have a few projects going with much of the work handed off to my children.

After finding success in real estate, I knew I wanted to something else big and something that could help others find the kind of success I did. So, I eventually developed and successfully ran a real estate investing seminar company that would set the standard for real estate investing seminars, conventions, and educational retreats throughout the world.

I not only became extremely successful in my seminar business and as a real estate investor, but I also got into writing books. I am now the author of four books on real estate investing including the book titled, How to Wake Up the Financial Genius Inside You, which has sold over two million copies. I also published the Financial Freedom Report, a real estate investing magazine, for over 20 years. Then after my so-called retirement, I published another book called, How to IGNITE Your Passion for Living. It wasn’t about real estate but instead I wrote about what keeps us chasing those dreams and those big goals.

You see, after I tried to retire, I felt very lost and depressed. It was then that I realized we human beings need to do more than just have one or two big goals to go after and to succeed at to be happy. We need to have something to work towards, something to keep us challenged and purposeful. So, I wrote that book and started this blog and I keep creating big goals like keeping myself super healthy and active.  

I have also learned to balance my life with my many passions. I love to travel, having visited well over 100 countries. I still love to write which is why I keep this blog going. I also love tennis and getting out to see my friends. All these passions are surpassed only by my devotion to my wonderful wife, Kimberly, and to my children and grandchildren.

So, as you see, I have kept my life full of things that I can work on and challenge myself with as well as enjoy. We need to always have a goal and a purpose and, especially, a passion for living.

Always Living Large

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 large”. 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 large”.

Romney’s words are not just for graduating students. They are wise words for us at any age!