All Forum Posts by: John Gilligan

I'm a huge fan of The ONE Thing by Gary Keller/Jay Papasan.  I have a paper copy and the audiobook, and am very bullish on fully adopting this framework and using it to govern my life.

When I finished the book the first time, I felt compelled to immediately brainstorm about my ONE Thing. Turns out, for me it was actually pretty challenging to boil down my ONE Thing.  Luckily, the author’s knew this and produced a free PDF guide called Discover Your ONE Thing Now; Three Simple Steps to Uncover your Purpose and Realize Your Goals. This guide is helpful and I highly recommend it for anyone seeking to take action after reading the book.

Even with the help of the guide, I still struggled with the compatibility between the concept of a ONE Thing and the multidimensional aspect of our lives. By multidimensional, for example, as the book breaks them down: Spiritual, Physical, Personal, Key Relationships (loved ones), Job, Business, Financial. I struggled with the concept of finding multiple ONE Things… in a way it seems counter-intuitive to the overall concept of having ONE Thing. At the same time, it didn’t make sense to dive into one single area. So I initially went through the sheet seeking a ONE Thing for my Job. After that, I went and created a spreadsheet where I went through the exercise for all areas of my life.

It is still a work in progress to actually complete the exercises in the guide.  I am very purposefully making sure I carefully evaluate each step.

Wondering if anybody else has used this PDF guide and/or has any tips/tricks they've used to unearth their ONE Thing?

@Steve Walczak Not sure exactly where we are going to invest yet.  This question is certainly at top of mind.  There are a couple of components to this for us... 1) our kids have been in the same school district since Kindergarten, and we don't want to transfer them, so if we keep house hacking as a criteria then our radius is limited to our township.  2) if we give up the idea of house hacking, then we can expand our search but we would still look within 1 hour radius max.

Thanks @Brendan Markle.  Will keep your offer in mind.

@Zachary Paul - yeah really love the podcasts... even the ones I don't think will be of interest (based on the title) are always fascinating and I am glad I didn't skip over them after.  I appreciate the info - this is good for me to hear even though it's not good news per se.

@William C. really appreciate the offer!  I may have to take you up on that - will let you know.

Thanks @Dave Visaya, @Thomas Danak for the welcome and advice.

Nice to see another developer on here, @Harry C.  Thanks for the welcome.

@Michael James ... Hello to you too.  I like The Book On Rental Property Investing quite a bit so far.  It's my first pure real estate book and I am a huge fan of @Brandon Turner so I may be a bit biased.  I do plan to read Rich Dad, Poor Dad at some point.  So many good books out there.  I am also a huge fan of Biographies from which I tend to draw inspiration.

Also cheers to all the lurkers. :)

Greetings Bigger Pockets Community!

My name is John Gilligan. I have only ever purchased one property: my primary home. We moved in 9 years ago and I still live in it with my wife and two sons. About 3 years ago I began to get the itch to learn more about real estate. I consumed a lot of content on this wonderful site and kind of walked away not feeling ready at the time. I didn't feel ready because I was focusing on paying down other debts and maximizing our 401k contributions. Ultimately, I turned away from the site. I left feeling intrigued (and a bit overwhelmed!), convinced that RE investing was a someday but not right now thing.

Fast forward to the beginning of this year and I completed my debt pay down goals. My only outstanding debt is my mortgage at 3.75% and a small private student loan at 3.8%. I am now paying the minimum payment on each of them.  Upon achieving this, my itch to dive back into learning about and eventually investing in real estate is back in a BIG way.

A small bit on my current momentum... I have recently been massively inspired by The ONE Thing and am in the process of implementing it in all seven areas of my life.  I am addicted to BP podcasts and am currently reading The Book on Rental Property Investing.

At this juncture, my wife and I want to invest in multi-families.  The dream is to house hack to acquire our first one.

By day, I am a full time web programmer and have been programming for 18 years.  I actually love my job.

Bigger Pockets is such a great site/service/community/lifestyle and I truly feel privileged to call myself a member.

Thank you for reading! I look forward to crossing paths again soon.

John