LIMITING BELIEFS: Which ones have you struggled with?

Question

I was raised in poverty. The kind of thing you only really see in America today in families with trauma and mental-health issues, traditionally where the pop refuses to get help and the mom refuses to stop enabling him. A big part of this was the belief that there simply wasn't any way out of the situation I was in except maybe a very narrow educational out to the middle class.

The first rule of life for me was to HAVE RICH PARENTS. If you broke that first rule, well...what could you expect?

I never thought I would someday laugh at this idea, as I do now. And that educational out, you know, where you get a degree that offers you upward job mobility, where you move into a big house, and you drive an expensive, late-model car? I know that can be a trap for many now, because, to put the shame of their impoverished pasts behind them, they take on oversized mortgages and car payments and loads of lifestyle expenses that keep them living paycheck to paycheck forever.

What have you had to unlearn along the way to achieving your own goals? What limiting beliefs surprise you the most when you see them in others?

Nathan Gesner · Answer

I also grew up poor. Dad died when I was six and left my 26-year-old mom to raise four kids in a 600 sq. ft. trailer. I honestly thought middle-class was the best I could hope for and it would take decades to get there. I'll spare you the details, but I had a good 21-year career in the military because it provided a decent paycheck. I had no idea I was capable of more and I didn't even try. I just rolled with the tide. Looking back, I honestly believed I had more than I deserved.

I eventually got into real estate, more out of desperation than anything. I saw people with a few investments and assumed they must have been handed down by their wealthy families. The only thing my family will leave me is debt (not a joke). The guy with 40 rentals? I couldn't fathom how that happened and knew for certain it would never happen to me.

I bought my first rental and felt like a Rockefeller. I had exceeded anything my family or peers had accomplished. I didn't deserve anything more. As I got to know more investors, I learned many of them were regular people that worked hard, saved up, and invested. It took many years before I realized I was lying to myself. I was capable of much more.

I'm on my way, and feel I have only started.

Ron Brady · Answer

I have had to learn how to balance three things:

1. Respect for others, which I always want to have.

2. Realizing that I have far higher expectations for myself than most people do for themselves.

3. Realizing that most people will overstate what they offer rather than understate it, whereas I do the opposite.

The first of these, I think, was imbued in me as part of my Roman Catholic upbringing. Because of this, I have spent too much time listening and deferring versus politely pushing back and asserting myself. As I have begun to push back more, I have discovered just how many professionals take short cuts, over sell and under deliver and/or convey inaccurate information.

I mistook the need for mutual human respect to imply that others were as good and honest and diligent as I would be if I was in their role. As I have unlearned this, I have gone further. Don't get me wrong, I am no genius, but the number of limited professionals masquerading as competent, or worse yet, expert, is staggering.

Jim K. · Answer

This is an uncomfortable thread for me, and I wish I could bring myself to comment more thoroughly on it, because I think it's important to talk about these things.

@Ron Brady

I naturally believed as a child that everyone who was doing something and getting paid for it was reasonably competent at it, just like you. And I also can definitely point to what you would call my Orthodox Catholic upbringing for that. Humility was a core teaching that was quietly repeated every week at Sunday school, as an altar boy, in my readings about Christianity.

And just as you, adulthood has been a neverending process of disappointment. How much posing, pretense, and bluster take the place of capable competency in the world, especially among men, it's incredible.

@Nathan Gesner

Forty rentals doesn't look quite the same now, does it? What I remember so distinctly about acquiring the first rental is how there were a lot of documents and signatures, but no actual money at the closing. It was all promises and paperwork, but hey, suddenly the house was ours.

@Drew Sygit

My dad was...a weird guy, propped up by this enormous misplaced pride and self-confidence in his intellect coupled with this cheap self-pity and hypochondria. He couldn't laugh at himself. My mom had her own view of the world, but she was 11 years younger than he was and he married her right after she dropped out of college. My father's view of the world and of his place in it was like a stranglehold on my childhood. And it really took years to understand how monumentally wrong about so many things he was, and to allow myself to say it. I'm not sure he would approve of the way my life has gone to date but really, his opinion doesn't matter any more.@Jay Hinrichs

I know your story, and I've heard it in person and taken it to heart. Sure, leveraging in real estate cab be a wonderful wealth-building tool. But security and paid-off properties are better. I just watched "A Man in Full" and the image of the bankers laughing at the mogul because they now own his knee...that's going to stay with me a while.

@Dave Van Horn

My father worshipped the word "serious." Nothing had value unless it was "serious." He always intoned the word in English with great gusto in his Greek accent, "Eef yuu wan' to bee (pause as he reverently breathed in) SERIOUS..." Looking back, it was terrifying how easily he could be manipulated (and was) by anyone who understood his desperate need to be associated with all things serious in every way possible. The more serious he was the more successful he would be. Millionaires don't laugh. It was utterly depressing at times. Not a pot to piss in during the worst of them, but my father desperately trying to be a SERIOUS person, a SERIOUS businessman, someone to be taken SERIOUSLY.

Drew Sygit · Answer

@Jim K. had to unlearn blue-collar poor upbringing of, "get a good job and work hard to be successful".

Parents meant well, but had limited education and they grew up poor working in factories.

Anything better than that - meant success to them.

Another thing I learned was that this saying stops a lot of people, "it take money to make money".

The saying is incomplete in my opinion, so I've now learned there's a 2nd part, "but, it doesn't have to be your money"!

V.G Jason · Answer

The biggest hurdles, obstacles, and challenges in life that limit your belief and mental structure in no particular order:

1)Thinking where you start is where you finish.2)People resting or stopping in the middle, not at the end. 3)Prioritizing instant gratification rather than delayed gratification4)The controversial mark twain  quote or not quote--It ain't what you don't know that gets you in trouble, it's what you know that ain't so.5) The lack of an ability to move on.6) Not appreciating the power of delegation.

There's probably 2-3 others I am missing, but over time these have rang so true in any instance I have faced in life. Divorce, investing, W2 job, small business entrepreneurship, grade school through college. I did not grow up poor, but probably lower end middle class. Was not afforded all the possibilities I can provide now, or even a 1/100th of it but mental capacity and understanding time is what separates the truly successful and the next homie.

Jay Hinrichs · Answer

my family situation had a lots of ups and downs.. lost a house drove a beat up volkswagon with no back seats for me and brother.

But my dad also encouraged me to get into real estate he was always preaching that commissions is the way to go.. So no formal education for me got my RE license at 18. and stumbled into a few deals  had a natural knack of salesmanship.  And just rode the wave of RE through all sorts of different RE ventures.. Got absolutely wiped out in 08 to 2010 and had to start over basically.

But here we are doing Ok  and living to fight another day.. RE can be very resilient and rewarding it can also humble and take away. For me personally I learned that I want to very much limit debt I would rather only have a handful of assets that are very nice but they are paid for.. as opposed to 100 rentals with max debt and all the work that comes with it..

Carlos Ptriawan · Answer

my dad told himself that sky is the limit, I think I am having the same attitude.

our parent doesn't matter at the end , it is our mind that shapes everything

I think in my case however I can forecast thing pretty good and strategizing for the future lol

Jim K. · Answer

So does that have anything to do with you? Did you have to jettison any beliefs you had in the past in order to succeed? I wasn't asking for Ben Carson's story and your hamfisted implications that racism in America is a myth and black folks are all stupid whiners.

Dave Van Horn · Answer

@Jim K.

My story is similar to some on this thread as my dad left my mom when I was 8 with 6 kids. There were many limiting beliefs from my depression era family largely due to scarcity mindsets. One was that it takes $$ to make $$. I figured if I worked more I’d have more, so I had two jobs, 2 kids, a RE portfolio and my wife worked part time, looking back it was ludicrous. There was no focus or specialization ( like working in my unique ability) and the word leverage, and I’m not just referring to capital here, never entered my mind. Wish I knew then what I know now, hey I think that’s a song!  :)

LIMITING BELIEFS: Which ones have you struggled with?

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