How to get spouse on board?

[Apryl Skahill]

Hey there!

I am very interested in real estate investments, and I’ve just started dipping my toes into information and I’m reading a beginners book on real estate investing.

I I believe that real estate investing is a wise way to create long-term wealth for the family and my husband agrees. However, he is very risk-averse, even more so than myself and the general public. He sees me as a dreamer, and not a doer, which to his credit is kind of accurate. However, he isn’t much of a dreamer which can often hold me back from pursuing business ventures or ideas. He is  content to earn income solely through a W-2. I still want to have a “regular” career for now, but know I have what it takes to successfully run a business- say in the form of real estate investing. I work for a flooring company as a designer and meet contractors and people who flip homes regularly so it has me flirting with the idea of doing it myself.

My question is, how did you get your spouse to be on board with real estate investing? Were they already interested? What was it that got them to agree to investing? And did you spearhead everything or did they end up sharing the reigns with you?

Thank you in advance for your advice! 

[Scott Trench]

Here's what I'd do: 

Create a Word Document or Google Document Titled "DRAFT: Life Vision" do not use a template, do not pay some guru for this. Just a blank sheet of paper.

By yourself, put together a first pass at what you envision for your wife and you 3, 5, or 7 years from now. Keep this to a single page. Ideas for some of the paragraphs: 

- Future Setting: where you live, what you see from your front porch or backyard, what your kitchen/gym look like. 

- Family: Kids? Dogs? Cats? Horses? What does the family dynamic look like? Are folks smiling? Developing? Traveling? Have tons of activities? 

- Weekday activities: What time do you wake up? What do you do? What does your fitness pattern look like? What do you work on? What do you do to relax at the end of the day? 

- Weekend activities: Where do you travel? Do you have a getaway? Do you have a sports team you follow with season tickets? Do you just staycation? Do you see friends? 

- Travel: Where do you go? 

Additional Categories: Charity? Church? Extended Family? Etc.? 

Just put on the page the things you think are important to you, that you want, and that you want for your spouse. And again, keep this to a single page, or at most a page and a half. A 10-page life vision is too much and too detailed. Be vivid about only the most important things. 

From there, ask your spouse to review the document with you. Make sure that they review the document with you when they are at their "peak" in terms of happiness. For many, if not most, this is likely to be after a workout, coffee, and around 10:00 AM in the morning on a weekend day or on a vacation day. Do not have this conversation at 8:00 PM on a weeknight after a long day. Do not have this conversation hungover. Do not have this conversation after a fight. This conversation should be scheduled for at most 30 minutes. 

Make sure the document is titled "DRAFT". Make sure that your spouse changes some of the items. If they leave the document entirely untouched, you do not have engagement or alignment. 

Remind your spouse that the "Vision" is not written in permanent ink. You can recast the vision at any time, completely reimagining what you want. But, as my wife and I have done this over the past 5 years, we have found it moves less and less each time, and that we are essentially living the life we envisioned 5 years ago when we started this process. 

After this conversation and having an agreed upon vision, save it as a "Version" of the vision on that particular date. 

It should be relatively straightforward to begin discussing the goal-setting and planning process necessary to begin transitioning from current state to future state. 

Review this periodically - 3-4 times per year, and UPDATE it. Do not leave it completely static. If you aren't changing at least one small detail you are probably doing it wrong or not fully engaged, in each update session.