How do you become rich? In this lifetime? In Michigan? A politically incorrect guide by Mark Ijlal
Step 1: Find One Selfish Reason
Most people never become rich because they don’t have enough reasons to be rich.
If you are content with everything you have in life right now – the $50,000 a year job, a four bedroom home in the suburbs, two cars, once a year vacation to Disney with the family, a 30 year hike toward retirement, a little nervousness toward your Yo-Yo 401K account but not enough for you to do anything and pretty much happy with the idea that after retirement you will get to watch a lot more television, maybe in Florida in a retirement community and play golf 4 days a week.
These are not enough reasons for you to be reading this or for that reason anything that has to do with making money in real estate investing in Michigan.
Why bother?
If you read success stories at MarkIjlal.com or meet someone who has done it in Michigan real estate, making $10,000 or $30,000 per month flipping foreclosures in Michigan and you are intrigued to may be looking around and see what is out there in the biz of buying and finding Michigan foreclosures.
That envy of other people’s money is not enough.
That curiosity of what they are doing is not enough.
Tim Ferris wrote about his brilliantly in his book The Four Hour Work Week
On the other hand, Tim says, if he is planning a trip to the Greek Islands with four of his best friends that involve them, a sail boat, and lots and lots of red wine well you can imagine he will walk on read hot burning coals to get over any obstacle.
There are reasons that we tell polite company our ambitions:
I want to put my kids through college.
I want to travel with my spouse.
I want to start a family foundation.
I want to mentor less fortunate kids in my city.
I want to play more golf or go fishing seven days a week.
I want to pay my house off.
I want to have security when I retire, knowing my bills will be paid.
I want to leave an inheritance for my grandchildren.
I want to buy a boat and sail around the Caribbean’s with my spouse.
Yada! Yada! Yada!
I yawn when I hear this chatter at parties.
Decent reasons but not good enough reasons to become rich in Michigan.
I say you should have a huge selfish reason to become rich.
Worry about yourself and your happiness.
Better still be completely selfish about your happiness and what you want to have out of investing in Michigan real estate.
Better still, have one huge, big, gigando selfish reason – something you want to have, or become or be doing – just for yourself – that will require money that you presently don’t have.
That is the first step toward becoming rich, in this lifetime, out of Michigan real estate investing.
Here is my selfish goal for the next five years – buy a $5,000,000 vineyard and a historic villa in Tuscany, Italy and pay cash for it. I did my math already – most vineyards go out of business if a bad harvest occurs because they are so heavily leveraged. Most amateur wine makers like yours truly buy these beauties by putting almost nothing down (most cases 10% or 20% down payment can buy you whatever you want) but it also puts a large payment and less profit in your bank account.
And Yes! I do want to make money doing this although I have no intention of selling this wine retail. I have other radical ideas. But if your villa / vineyard has no mortgage – it is completely free and clear well the numbers change. The bad harvest does not matter and you can afford to actually do whatever the heck you want. If you want to see what my big selfish reason looks like - click here to feast your eyes on some dreamy real estate in Chianti.
I have other (smaller) selfish reasons too (hey once you start making a list…) but this one is the biggest reason, the reason I would walk on fire, do deals, learn continuously about the game, improve myself mentally so I can put more money in the bank account faster and with much ease so in five years I can write that big check without touching my family finances or other things that I am doing.
But it is what drives me. Drives me to find deal after deal. Is the force behind building relationships with other Michigan real estate investors and players in the game to make the game easier for me. It is worth everything when I am driving to my bank to deposit a check because every deal, every check; every seed planted in Michigan brings me closer to me having attained my totally selfish goal.
What do you want in life?
In your heart?
Not what your spouse wants you to say or your dad would be proud of you to say?
But really what do you really want to have? Or do? Or become?
You should have one selfish reason. You should research the cost of it. I can bet you that you will be surprised that it actually does not cost as much as you thought it would. But since it is selfish and just for you – you can not take the money meant for bills and put it toward it and most likely your day job is not pulling in enough cash to pay for it anyway otherwise you have bought it by now.
No, in order to get it – you have to learn about real estate investing in Michigan and do deals to put checks in the bank account. That is the only way you can get your selfish goal.
One big selfish reason.
One huge big selfish reason.
The rich have reasons. That is why they did what they did when they started a business, bought a piece of real estate, read a book (Jim Rohn famous quote – the rich have libraries, the poor have big screen televisions – is true.) or went to a seminar about how to run a business virtually with the help of the Internet.
Whatever the reasons may be… the rich have reasons.
The poor stay poor because they have no reasons. There is no shortage of resources in USA – you can go to a library, they all have free computer access, free books, and websites like mine, which are open to general public.
When I was working at my first job in USA – stacking videos and cleaning bathrooms – there was a time between 9pm and midnight when the store closed where we were dead apart from the occasional guy who would walk in looking to rent a porn tape.
I typically had one person who closed with me. I closed every night. Seven days a week. You got to work lots of hours in 2-3 jobs or one job to make a living at $5 per hour. But the store had computers (which I couldn’t afford to buy one for my apartment) and Internet access (AOL version 2.0) – so I surfed the web, every night, three hours every night, week after week, learning about well everything I could find about starting a business, investing in stocks, investing in real estate, self improvement, how to write goals, how to stay motivated in a depressing negative environment.
I was confused but excited knowing one day the time will come. I didn’t understand half of the things I was reading on the Internet (what the hell is a mortgage? What is a margin call? Why are people participating with mice and running a rat race?)
But I read anyway. Waiting for opportunity to come my way. And it did. I was ready.
The other person who was working with me all these hours, during the night shift were getting paid the same $5 as me; saw me doing this, every night, seven nights per week. For all practical reasons we were fellow travelers on the poverty highway but not even once they ever asked me what was I doing, night after night, hour after hour, on the computer although the PC was sitting right between us. They typically picked up the phone (this was before cell phones) and bitched and moaned about life, their spouse, lack of money, lack of gas in their car etc to their similarly broke friends.
So the poverty excuse is what it is – an excuse.
You got to find reasons. Preferably one big selfish reason on why you want to be rich and that should be the true North Star for your ambition.
Recently I threw a party for couple of my friends on Labor Day – for some weird reason everybody who was in town and showed up were successful Michigan entrepreneurs. For the record I do have friends who are wage slaves for the Big 3 (their words; not mine) but there were out of town. I bought the Selfish Reason principle up as I was making food for all of them (it turned out to be a very successful party – the food was splendid as it should be when I make it) and a big grin broke on all of their faces.
They all had ONE that they have never told anybody till that night.
That night after finishing the third bottle of wine, we did all open up and shared our reasons with each other. It was fun to hear. And yes they are all rooting for me to buy the vineyard in Chianti so they can come over and hang out with me.
The rich have reasons for becoming and staying rich.
What is your “reason for wanting to become rich”?
Find it. Got to have it. Don’t tell anybody about it. Ever. They are not going to get it. So don’t waste your breath. But do understand that this is Step 1 toward becoming rich.
Nothing is going to change in your life without it.
