This Saturday I awoke early, and got in my car to start my 1 1/2 trip to Philadelphia. Ron LeGrand, the millionaire real estate investor was set to speak. My Real Estate education goes as far as some courses and books, no Real Estate deals. I heard this big name was going to be speaking and I was so excited to see what I could learn.
I sat down in the conference room, and listened to numerous conversations between investors. These guys and gals were talking about convoluted real estate strategies, as I sat there bamboozled. These people seemed to have all the knowledge in the world about real estate, and I was prepared to hear them state they made thousands on their last deal. To my surprise, 95% of these investors were still holding dead end jobs trying to get by.
I was frustrated, because I had just listened to dozens of investors who said they've been in real estate for years. They were talking about concepts that sounded like they were part of a physics equation. If these people who've been doing real estate longer than I've been alive can't get a deal, how can I? Despite the great information Ron shared with us, I went home angry and discouraged. How? How can someone know that much about real estate and still not be successful? Maybe they're just not smart enough to do real estate, maybe I'm not smart enough to do real estate I concluded.
After days of rumination, I came to an insight that will affect my investing career and any other action I decide to take in my life. Knowing is not enough. You WON'T make millions off what you KNOW, you'll make MILLIONS of what you DO with what you know. See, these people knew all kinds of strategies that could set them on a path to financial freedom. But, listen closer to them and you see that none of them implement these strategies. They're stuck in "analysis paralysis". Some of them actually have done deals but a couple went bad so they just got discouraged, and decided to hit the books again. But most of these investors ended up staying there and haven't done a deal since.
This idea of applying what you know extends beyond real estate. You can read 100 different books but if after reading those books, 100 things haven't changed in your life then you just wasted $15+ on a book. A lot of us just get satisfaction from knowing a lot of stuff, it's never enough. I'd pick the investor who only knows 2 strategies and applies them both, rather than the investor who knows 15 and applies none. You must learn, and then take action.
It takes courage to get out there and do deals, regardless of how much you know. Mistakes will be made, but you'll lose more money sitting at your computer just reading about real estate every day and not going out there and doing the damn thing! Don't judge yourself as a real estate investor on how much you KNOW, judge yourself on how much you actually DO with what you know. But hey, what do I know. I'm just some 18 year old kid trying to make it big in real estate. I do know that I won't put my pride in how much I know, but rather how much I do with what I know.
Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
