The Investor Failure Journal

[Joseph Medina]

Hello, 

I am Joe and a new investor, an Army Veteran, and I am also a PhD (ABD) in Psychology. I am starting this Journal to help both new investors and seasoned investors alike with Failures that arise in our chosen field. 

See, the field of psychology is an amazing field and some of the most memorable people on the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcasts talked about the mind e.g. Chris Voss, Patrick Bet-David, and James Clear to name a very few. Psychology, like every other science, is based on BOTH the successes and failures of the practitioners prior. 

One of the more frustrating things in psychology is what I call the Dark Side of Psychology. When a fellow PhD has research they want published they can only submit research that was successful, so when one reads a journal article it is only successful research. All research that fails either gets thrown away or gets lost in the dark. 

However, someone could argue that some of the most life altering inventions were discovered by pure accident or by consistent failures e.g. Perry Spencer and the microwave, Thomas Edison and the lightbulb, and Alexander Graham Bell and the Telephone (not trying to incite a debate).  

So, with all of that being said I would like to create this post for everyone to share their FAILURES. The post can be on deal analysis gone wrong, dealing with contractors, failures with tenants, or anything you feel would help the next person down the line either avoid or things to do. 

For example, one of my favorite guest from the BP podcast is Bryce Stewart and he told how he messed up when he had a contractor work on one of his properties and they got hurt. His insurance agent got upset and asked why he did not have the guy sign a Workers Comp Waiver Form. Bryce's failure has taught me to have all my contractors sign a WC Waiver Form. His failure and my lesson.

The BP Podcast is full of people expressing their successes and maybe only a few questions regarding their failures; however, we did not learn to walk by not falling down first.