What is your RE Why?

Have you ever been sitting down in your cube and wondered to yourself why am I here? If so then you might be an entrepreneur, more specifically a real estate investor. Those thoughts have steered me into the world of real estate investing and now two properties and three doors later, I am focused on acquiring the next one. I am so focused on growing my portfolio that sometimes I don't even remember why I am doing all of this, so today I want to discuss my whys and hopefully, you can relate. So what is my why? Why do I dedicate so much time to podcasts, books, and attending meetups? Well, I have a few reasons, let's dive into them.

Escape the cubicle farm

One of my whys for investing in real estate is to one day be able to quit my job. I am actually on a 10-year plan to be able to walk away, now don't get me wrong I do not hate my job, if I did those 10 years would be long and arduous. I love my job but it doesn't give me the flexibility that I need to be able to live the lifestyle that my family and I would like to live. The amount of time that I have to trade for income at my job is unsustainable. I do not believe that it is mentally healthy to work 40+ hours a week, every week with maybe 1-2 weeks vacation a year. But yet that is the model that has been programmed in our brains and we all followed it with no questions asked. Real estate investing allows me to work toward the goal of not needing to trade time for money but instead, I can put assets in place to bring in the income passively while I choose to do what I want with my time.

A big misconception in the real estate investing world is that you don't have to do any work, you can just go to the beach, grab a pina colada or a mai tai and watch the checks come in, well I can tell you that is not the reality. You will have to put in the time to be successful and to be able to enjoy the fruits of those assets and sometimes that may involve working a lot of hours to get a project off the ground however you can choose when you want to work in real estate whereas in the cube farm your boss expects you to clock in at a certain time from Monday-Friday; yikes that is not fun at the age of 62. Furthermore, once you have all of your processes in place, the number of hours that you have to work in real estate is reduced depending on how hands-on you want to be.

Spend more time with family

I grew up in a single-parent household and I barely got to see my mother. I remember only seeing her briefly at night before I went to bed when she came home from work and that also included the weekend. It seemed normal to me at the time, so I would just keep myself busy by spending time playing video games or hanging out with friends but looking back now I ask myself the question, why was my mom working so hard? oftentimes working a double shift and coming home at 7am in the morning. well, it was to take care of us, keep a roof over our head, food on the table, and to give me the things that most kids wanted in their childhood; video games, sports equipment, etc. I never felt poor but as I got older I realized we were poor or maybe you can call it lower middle class, I do not think there is a difference as the margin is thin. The sad part is, my mother who is in her mid-50s is still working to this day to support herself, that may seem normal to our society but I do not believe that should be the case.

Spending time with my family is the main reason why I chose to be a real estate investor. I do not want to be the father that is always working in the office because he has to support his family but yet never has enough time to spend with them because there is only so much time to go around. I never want to hear my child say to anyone, that my dad was always working so I don't remember him growing up because we never saw each other that much. When I walk away from my job 10 years from now, I will have the opportunity to spend as much time as I would like with my wife and kids and to me, there is nothing above that. I want to be there at every soccer practice, play recital, or movie night because once those adolescent years go by, you can never get them back. It's not feasible to be truly present as a parent when you have to put in 40+ hours in for someone else’s future.

Pursue your true passions

If I did not have to work at my day job, I would choose to travel around the world and try all the different cuisines that I possibly could. I love food and I love to explore different cultures around the world, unfortunately, there is only so much PTO that I can save at my job to take a decent trip overseas. This is one of my why’s that I share with my wife deeply. We both love to travel and try new cuisines. As real estate investors, this is something that we could do, stress-free without having to worry about when we have to go back to the matrix to clock in. every time we watch one of those travel shows on Netflix of folks who travel the world eating food, we think to ourselves, that should be us.

Recently my wife and I were in Colombia for her grandmother's birthday and it was my first time in that part of the world, I loved it and I could not hold my excitement. The whole time I was there, I kept thinking of all the different places that I wanted to go see, in Colombia, maybe we should stay here for a month or two and explore more of this beautiful country but as you can probably guess, that was out of the picture because we had to go back to work, we could only afford the time to stay for a few days. There is only so much PTO that you can save in a year and thus if we wanted to go backpacking in South America or spend a few months in Asia, it would be really difficult. Our passion as a family is to travel and explore the different parts of the world. real estate investing will allow us to do that and this is another reason why I am on this path.

Empower others

My last why for investing in real estate, is that I can empower others. I can empower my friends, family and whomever else is in my circle to break free from the norm. Break free from living paycheck to paycheck or just being satisfied with a job that is making somebody else wealthy while you receive just enough to get by. I am by no means an expert in real estate but I am further in my journey than other individuals of my sphere and thus my goal is to empower them to take that first step. I have had a few friends from college and even my family approach me about what I am doing and I am always ecstatic to talk to them and teach them what I know so that they can get started.

I believe we all can win in the real estate space, we all can grow together and break free from the rat race. This why, is very fulfilling for me because I love to help people achieve their goals to get where they need to be on their journey. We have to be the ones to sacrifice and break the generational cycle of just working 9-5 all of our lives. We have to create wealth so that we can pass it down to our kids and so that they can do the same tor their kids and I believe Real estate investing is the avenue to do that. if you do not remember anything from this article, remember this; take the time to reflect on your WHYs and remember why you are going to the meetups, crunching numbers late at night, making those offers, or simply reading that next real estate book. Taking the time to remember your WHY will allow you to reset your focus whenever you get too distracted or lost in the path of the journey you set out on. 

Good luck Hunting!