Transforming Setbacks Into Success: 3 Personal Growth Lessons from My Real Estate Journey

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Setbacks are an inevitable part of every person’s real estate investing journey. The worst part is that these setbacks usually gut-punch you when you least expect it. 

For example, I found out my ex-husband was having an affair while I was eight months pregnant with my third child and running the day-to-day operations of my first RV park.

My life instantly flipped upside down. I was forced to question everything—I even thought about selling my business, packing up my kids, and moving back in with my parents.

In the moment, it can feel nearly impossible to recover from a setback like this. However, I was able to learn three priceless lessons that helped me turn that tragedy into over $30 million in real estate assets and make me a better woman for my family.

1. You’re Not Failing; You’re Just Giving Up Too Soon

It’s easy for anybody to assume that wildly successful investors with large social media platforms are more than human. Maybe they were born with talent. Maybe they got lucky. Or maybe they started with a trust fund.

But something happens when you meet those “larger-than-life” investors. You admire them from a distance, eventually shake their hand, and enjoy your conversation with them. Later, however, you see them clumsily spill a whole glass of water on themselves and realize they’re just normal people—the only difference is that they worked super hard and never gave up.

When you meet more people who’ve overcome setbacks, kept pushing, and succeeded anyway, you gather proof that you could overcome your setback and eventually be better because of it.

To practice this, attend your local real estate investing meetups, conferences, or retreats. Talk to as many people as you can, and don’t shy away from politely asking them about the obstacles they’re most proud of overcoming.

2. Try Something Else

Sometimes, refusing to quit isn’t enough. After using every tool you have, you still might not be able to overcome the problem at hand. This happened to me while going through the divorce.

I was faced with the decision to either sell the RV park I owned at the time or buy my ex-husband out, and I had no idea what to do. So I called my lender, told him about the situation, and he said, “Why don’t you refinance the property and pull some equity out? You can pay your ex-husband his percentage and use the rest to buy some more properties.”

Back then, I had no idea you could force appreciation, refinance to pull out your equity, and use that cash to scale. Now, this is more commonly known as the BRRRR method. That one conversation gave me the creative strategy I used to scale to over $30 million in real estate assets—all because I had to figure out a way to pay off my ex-husband in a divorce.

When none of your current tools work for the job, it’s time to get creative. Luckily, real estate investing has creative solutions to any problem. Even better, somebody has probably had that same issue and solved it before. 

So instead of reinventing the wheel by yourself, talk to other people. A problem that might seem unsolvable to you might be a no-brainer to someone else.

3. What Do You Have To Lose?

I was already going through a devastating divorce, eight months pregnant, and considering selling my business. What more could go wrong?

I figured out that the worst thing that could happen was selling everything and moving into my parents’ basement with my kids. This encouraged me to take action because, while I love my parents, I did not want to move back in with them. It also helped my mindset because it lowered the stakes. Instead of “risking it all,” I knew I was just risking the freedom of living without parental supervision in my early 30s.

From that point, the only direction I could go was onwards and upwards. So I doubled down on my RV park and started adding extra revenue streams like pizza kitchens, golf cart rentals, glamping tents, and more. That mindset was the key I needed to build an RV park that’s made me over $10,000,000.

I understand that not everybody can move back in with their parents. However, it can still be powerful to realistically ask yourself, “What’s the worst that could happen?” This is part of a mindset exercise called Fear Setting, and it’s especially useful in the midst of a setback.

Final Thoughts

Usually, a problem doesn’t become a setback until you’ve overcome it, and the best way to transform a problem into a setback is to implement these three lessons into your life. However, if you’re going through a problem right now and you can find the strength to say, “It’ll be all right—it’s just a setback,” that tells me you’ve already overcome that obstacle in your mind, and you have what it takes to transform any setback into a life full of success.

 

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