March 8, 2022

Budget…it is such a horrible word sometimes and, to many, this is as tough as going for a dentist appointment. Maybe worse!

These days, we live in a world where credit is abundantly available and it seems that everywhere we look, you can ‘buy now and pay later’. Don’t get us wrong, we love credit and credit cards. In fact, we can have a whole course on WHY credit and credit cards are awesome WHEN YOU KNOW how to use them to your advantage. So this is not one of those “CUT OFF YOUR CREDIT CARD” or “ONLY USE DEBIT or CASH” conversations. Rather, this is to get you to simply honour your long-term financial goals, and build the proper tracking habits to help you get there.

One of my friends said it once — “I try to make my budget every month and try to stick to it. But the reality is — I never really stick to it. I go back to review it once in a blue moon and then I realized that I’m just really tracking my expenses.” Regardless of where you are in your financial journey, I think it’s a really good starting point as “tracking” — aka. developing some sort of awareness of what’s happening — is definitely the first step. And the second step is the discipline to execute on your budget plan. Well, because ‘talk is cheap’!

Many of us here at Trust Your Talent have different ways to ‘budget’ but I want to share my personal experience and how I did (and still do) it. I hope that you enjoy this little read as much as I enjoy sharing it with you.

First thing first, we are going to focus on personal budgeting today. Many of the same principles apply when you’re doing budgeting for business and investment properties. That will be covered at a later date.

Let’s take a look at the 2 basic elements of ‘budgeting’ — you make your money (revenue or income) and you spend your money (expense). The budgeting part often refers to the ‘spending/expense’ portion of this equation. However, if you’re in sales, work more than one job or, for whatever reason, your income is not steady or predictable, this definitely applies to both sides of the equation. For now, we’re just going to focus on the expense side.

Before we start, like everything else, you need to set a goal for why you even want to (or need to) budget in the first place. To take the guess work out, and to avoid making you go “oh gosh, here we go about goal setting again”, it’s actually quite simple here — is your goal to have a surplus, to break even or to minimize loss?

This may shock you a bit, but when I first started budgeting, my goal was simply to break even — being very careful with the allocation of every penny I had. Why? In 1999, when I first moved to Canada as an international student, I was not legally allowed to work in the country at the time. As a result, I relied on my parents to send me money for survival and tuition. And no, I’m not one of those “born with a silver spoon in my mouth” Asians. I came from a very financially humble background. That’s the reason why I had to budget (and eventually want to find better ways to make money even when I sleep). I couldn’t afford to spend more than what I had or I’d be in a great deal of bad debt. Before the start of every semester, I was responsible for sending my parents a figure — and that figure would represent the dollar amount that I would need to cover my tuition, books and all my living expenses. I would give them a number ahead of time so that they had enough time to get the money ready and, ideally, aim for a good exchange rate.

A quick side note on this is that I didn’t realize how valuable this experience was for me until I started running my own business. I learned to forecast expenses, exercise my discipline to stick to the budget I had, and be creative with what I got. More to come on that front later when we take this to the next level.

A detailed breakdown of my expenses at the time would include items like: tuition, books, rent, utility bills, internet, cellphone, car insurance, gas, grocery, health, dining out, entertainment, personal care, and a small contingency fund.

Tuition and text books were easy as those numbers were given to me and I had little to no room to negotiate. Of course, I would try to get 2nd hand books by lining up for hours at the university book store a week before school started. (Keep in mind that this was the year of Y2K so all the modern resources we have today were not around yet. Blackberry was not mainstream and the iPhone was not even invented yet for another 8 years!). The less I spent on the books, the more leftover I would have from that to apply to something else like maybe going out for a movie night with friends later on. Ok, I kid, not a huge movie goer myself, we would pay $7 dollar for 5 hours of karaoke (1 soda included — great deal!).

When it comes to living expenses, my rent was also fixed from the lease I signed. I would normally aim for a 2-bedroom place and bring in a roommate as splitting a 2-bedroom place often times worked out to be more cost effective than paying for a studio unit by myself, especially when you add in all the utilities. Of course, you could always find a 5-bedroom house and share with more roommates to cut down expenses — the same concept would still apply.

After that, it’s time to maintain myself — first thing first, this includes keeping myself fed (and hopefully relatively well-nutritioned). I learned how to coupon and look for deals and plan my grocery shopping accordingly. My friends and I even scouted out a few places around town with ‘value meals’. Also, for our favourite places, we practically memorized their daily promotions and happy hour menus in order for us to enjoy dining out more frequently than if we were to go during regular prices. By the way, this is why I still can’t eat har-gow (you know, those steamed shrimp dumplings) at a dim sum restaurant because of the $1.99 special. I had SOOOO much of it back in the days. Too much.

Now that the basis are basically covered as a professional student, the rest sort of became variable costs. Expenses like buying dish soaps, shampoo, face wash, garbage bags, getting a hair cut, buying new clothes, going to concerts, to volunteering-related expenses like attending seminars and conferences — these seemed a lot trickier to budget initially until you sort of get into the groove of things. Some would argue that some of the things on this list are necessities and some would have a totally different opinion. The easiest way to get some initial idea of how much you’re spending on these things would be to just look back at the last 12 months (if you have that data available).

The bottom line is — figure out why it is that you want to do a budget. I shared earlier that I wanted to break even as a student. The real reason is because I know my expenses were a huge weight on my parents’ shoulders and I did not want to ask for more than I really needed. I budgeted reasonably and the rest is up to me when the money comes into my bank account. Through that experience, I really learned to play with what I had — sort of like making an elaborate Halloween costume on a small budget, but somehow, it always works out! I learned to be creative and ‘allocate’ my resources on things and experiences that would truly bring me meaning and joy. For example, I’d shop for discounted grocery items either through combing through the flyers ahead of time or capitalize on soon-to-expire items when I can as long as I knew I was going to cook them that night. (Again, this was the pre-smartphone age. No help from any apps whatsoever. It was done the old-fashion way!). This allowed me to buy CDs because I love music as it’s my soul food. I would say NO to dining out a couple of times to get a new t-shirt. The biggest example I have is this. Truthfully, I’m not overly proud of how this sounds, so please focus on the lesson and the merit of the story here — I ate instant noodles and bought cheap groceries for a while, didn’t shop for anything I didn’t ‘need’ so that I could trade my car in for a nicer car with a larger monthly payment. Again, there was no added effect to my parents, but I got everything I wanted still. The side lesson there, which I see in all mankind these days is: if you want something bad enough, you’ll do whatever it takes to make it happen. If not, you’ll find excuses to avoid it.

The skills and the lessons I got from all those years carried over to where I am now as a person, as an investor and as a business owner. When I decided to be financially free, it was cutting expenses as quickly as I could while building passive income at the same time. By lowering my expenses diligently and quickly, I was able to hit my goal a lot faster as well.

It’s the habit, the ability to be creative, and more than anything else, the satisfaction to know that I can exercise my own discipline and financial knowledge to create the life that I want and have today that I’m grateful for, and want to share with you all.

Today, on my personal budget sheet, it’s still very straight forward — expenses for mortgage payments, utilities, car, internet and cable, pet expenses (yes, I still have a fur a baby), medication, dining out and entertainment and personal expenses like supplements, haircuts and the occasional shopping. Not much has changed on that front, but the business side of things are bananas!

Now, it’s your turn. Use the questions below as prompts to create a personal budget for success. Hold yourself accountable. You are a micro economy to yourself. Master this first so you can take it to the next level!

Questions –

1. Why do you want to create a budget? Is it simply to create a better financial habit?
2. What’s your goal to create a budget — to have surplus, breakeven, or know how much in the hole you currently are?
3. Use the sample worksheet (my Mom created this for me in 1999, and I just modify the expense items these days), start to fill out your income sources and BUDGET expenses.

5. Examine the numbers you’ve put in. Are you happy with these numbers?

6. Now, start to put in your actual expenses — if you can, go back to the last 2 months and record them. Measure them against your budget.

Examine the numbers again — this time, pay attention to the DIFFERENCES. Anything jumps out?

If yes, does this number contribute to your larger financial goal?

If no, what differences would you like to see?

To be continued…

March 15, 2022

(WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE. I also recommend that you have pen and paper handy or some sort of a note taking apparatus before you start reading.)

So you want to learn how to invest? And you want to leverage real estate as your investment vehicle? WHY? Of all the investment tools, options, ‘vehicles’ (as I like to call them), why real estate? Better yet — why invest, period?

Having been the product of financial education myself and (sometimes) over-the-top advocate for financial education, there are many reasons why I can share with you real estate investing is a great way to build multiple income streams and long-term wealth.

If you’re following the thread, then you know this one comes after Personal Budgeting 101 from last week. I hope you’ve had the chance to download or at least take a look at the Excel shared with you. I’ve already gotten many feedback: “This is great, so easy!” “What is this? It’s so elementary!” “Just inputting my own numbers is already giving me insight on why I feel trapped…financially.” Like everything else in life, haters are gonna hate so I’m just going to put this out there now: “The things that are easy to do are also easy not to do.” Wisdom by Jim Rohn — one of my all time favourite motivational figures. So the choice is yours. Because, if that didn’t get you moving to do something different, perhaps you’re not truly ready to receive financial abundance yet.

Naturally, if you’re still with me, you’re good. I applaud you for not letting the title of this article deter you. Because we are about to get a little touchy-feely, a little emotional and a little fluffy for some of you. Yet, it’s ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY necessary to go there. And yes, I went there, too.

One of the most important aspects to success in real estate investing is the belief that you can actually leverage it as an effective tool to create multiple sources of income and long-term wealth. In short, you can use it as a tool to create the life that you truly want. This belief in yourself must be strong enough to endure setbacks, rejections, and even the occasional ‘failures’. This comes from the TRUST that you have in yourself — your ability, your desire, and your commitment — to change. That trust combined with a clear why or a deep sense of purpose can help carry you through the ups and downs in not only your real estate investing journey, but in life. When the reason why you embarked on ANY journey is solid, overcoming obstacles both mentally, emotionally, physically and professionally all becomes that much easier.

Identifying Your ‘Why’

It’s easier said than done as most things that take courage and time. So, I’m hoping to guide you a bit here on how to identify your why, or a sense of purpose — starting from who you are, and where you are in life. (Heads up: I get it, you’re here for real estate investing learning and the how-to’s. Those WILL COME. Trust the process.)

Your ‘why’ is your primary motivation, your emotional anchor and your guiding light. It’s the reason why you’ve decided to better your life in the first place. Constantly keeping this motivating reason in viewing distance (literally and figuratively) can become the much needed fuel to keep pushing you forward to achieving your goals and dreams.

How to Actually Identify Your ‘Why’

There are many methods suggested and practiced by many. To sum up, here are the steps that I have personally used and leveraged to help others identify theirs:

1. Self work: Recall the times when you were ‘in the zone’. Really focus on the mission and the task, and most importantly, the energy that you felt, when you were getting things done. Now, write down WHAT you were getting those things done and WHY you were doing them in the first place.
2. Ask for help: Choose 3 people that know you very well or someone you have spent a lot of time with in the last while (parents, relatively, best friends, colleagues, significant others, etc.). Ask them if they noticed when was the last time you were so focused on something (ie. achieving a goal) that you forgot to stay in contact, or forgot to eat or sleep. Sometimes, we do not see through our own blind spots. This is why it’s valuable to seek others’ perspectives and observations. Remember, the words are perspectives and observations, not opinions. Even if you feel that you’ve done a bang-up job in your self work, you are still encouraged to do this step.
3. Magnifying glass time: Once you have collected enough data from the first 2 steps, write them all down on a giant piece of paper. I am old school and visual, so I like physically writing all these things out as much as I can. If you’d like to go digital or substitute this method with one that’s more effective to you, be my guest. The point is the next step here: do you notice any patterns? Any reoccurring ideas, themes, drivers, factors, situations, or even emotions you found amongst everything? List them out.

At this point, I’d like to share some personal experiences and perspectives on the steps above.

Right now, I believe that my ‘why’ is bigger than me and it has to be to get me out of bed. Many books and successful people out there will either TELL you the same thing or implicitly communicate that through their glorified public stories. I’m going to suggest that you keep it, just initially, as SELFISH as you possibly can. I’m a believer that you cannot pour from an empty glass. Fill yourself up first so that you can overflow and GIVE. That way, when you GIVE, you give without hesitation. You give without anticipation and you give without expectation of anything in return.

Some of you might be thinking: Great! What does that even mean?

It simply means that you do not have to declare that you want to end world hunger (yet), you do not have to advance science so that there’s no cancer (yet), and you do not need to donate to support world peace (yet).

What matters to you the most? YOU! Yes, YOU! If your answer is anything but you, think again. Are you in the best physical shape of your life? Do you have the financial capacity to support the lifestyle that you truly desire? Do you feel that you are living authentically — unafraid and unaffected by other people’s opinions and judgements of you?

Here are some of the reasons, or people’s initial ‘why’ when they first started that I felt are truly authentic:

• I see all my friends posting on social media of the great times, great vacations, expensive hotels, business class seats and fancy shopping trips…why am I not able to afford all that like them?
• Somebody (could be a parent, a friend, an ex-spouse — as they tend to be, a former boss) didn’t think that I could achieve something bigger and I’m going to prove them wrong. (Dark, I know. However, I first learned the term “backward motivation” from a manager at work. Ouch!)
• Ever since I was a kid, I was always jealous of my friends (or cousins or even some stranger on social media) for having so much more than I did. That jealousy ate me up inside and I am going to get me what I want now, and I am willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen.
• I always grew up being the shortest person amongst my friends and family. That made me feel inferior, and then I heard this super wealthy guy say: I’m shorter than everyone I know, that’s why I learned how to make money. So, when I stand on all my money, I’m taller than everyone else. That really stuck with me.
• I do ok at work and I make an ok income. But, my kid came home one day and told me about his school friend’s winter break on a fancy vacation with their family, and ask me if we could go one day. I knew then that I owe it to myself to make that happen.
• I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. I’m 52 this year and my 2 kids are about to go to university and I’m going to have to re-mortgage the house to pay for their tuition. I thought I did better than that in life.
• Working for nearly 30 years, my spouse and I have done ok financially. We took the typical middle-class path and will retire relatively comfortably. Depending on how long we continue to live, we know that our lifestyle is going to be relatively boring if we want our retirement to last. I feel very insecure and even ashamed about the idea of that.
• My brothers and sisters never did as well in school as I did. Somehow, they are doing so much better in life than I am. That doesn’t sit well with me.

I hope you’re getting the idea. To tell the truth, it’s getting a little tough to keep listing these examples out. As you can see, all of it mostly comes from a place of feeling like “I’m not enough”. At the risk of making it somewhat depressing, I will say, if that’s how you’re feeling right now, you’re there. Stay there for just a few minutes longer…and start writing down what’s making you feel like you’re not enough right now. (Use a separate sheet of paper, your journal, or just the white space on this workbook.)

Now that you’ve gone through some emotional turmoil, let’s turn that into some much needed emotional anchor and fuel you need to keep going. If you’re finding that you’re stuck, make sure you reach out to one of the Strategy Coaches to guide you through these steps again.

The next step is to take ownership over EVERYTHING that you’ve just experienced, felt and become alarmingly aware of. Now, say to yourself: “This is it and I am satisfied.” Really do it. Tell yourself out loud that you are satisfied with everything on that list. (If you are anything like me, you’re kicking and screaming now. Maybe even holding back tears and only letting out swear words. It’s ok, I’m a big boy, I can take the heat. I started writing because I wanted to create a change — so I’m going to tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear.)

Remember: your life is your own to live. No one else can live it for you, nor can you live someone else’s life for them. You MUST take ownership of your chosen path — the decisions you make and the tasks you’ll have to carry out to lead you to the life you wish for. This means you now have to commit. Commit to living a better life. To do that, you have to first commit to CREATING a better life.

I once learned: a commitment is a choice that I surrender to. (Read that a few times until you really get it.)

The word here is choice. To briefly elaborate on this point: the fundamental difference between a choice vs a decision is data. Data of prior knowledge. Data helps us make decisions. Choices are made with or without considering data. Consider this:

“I’m choosing chocolate ice cream over strawberry ice cream today because I’m in the mood for it. I can’t explain it. I just want chocolate ice cream today.”

“I’m choosing chocolate ice cream over strawberry ice cream today because I remember the last few times I had strawberry ice cream, it wasn’t very good.”

Now, tying it all back to you — deciding to use real estate investing as a business vehicle/tool to create better/more income streams and long-term financial success. Starting any type of business is challenging and can be daunting. This is no different. There will be times where you just ‘don’t feel like it’, but taking ownership over your identified ‘why’ will help you get through those times. After all, again, your life is your own to live. Just like no one else can live it for you, no one else can do the tasks you need to do to create the life you want. It’s that simple.

Now, take the next 7 days to complete this exercise: for every items on your list that you want to change, write down how you’d like to alter your own reality. REALLY PICTURE and let your imagination run wild. Even after you’re done with the exercise now or within the 7 days, I’d like to invite you to revisit this often in the next few days here (and may modify your list) while Part 2 continues next week.

To leave you with another quote by Jim Rohn that has stuck with me since the first time I heard it: “Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems, wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenge, wish for more wisdom.”

And to my keeners reading this, here are a couple of book suggestions you may consider reading: Start with Why by Simon Sinek, and The Saint, The Surfer and the CEO by Robin Sharma.

March 22, 2022

My ears have been burning all week and I thank you for it. I thank you because I know you’ve done the work for yourself and that lots of emotions and energies were stirred up going through the given ‘homework’ from last week.

As human beings, we are ultimately largely controlled by our emotions first and foremost. Have you heard of the saying: people won’t remember exactly what you’ve done to them, but they’ll always remember how you’ve made them feel? It’s even MORE powerful when you’re the cause of your own emotions. And our why’s, our purposes and our self-identified value of existence become the BEST emotional anchor for why we do what we do. As kids, we asked the WHY questions all the time. As we grow up, we’ve learned to box ourselves in — thinking that the less ‘why’ questions we ask, the wiser we’ve become somehow. That, to me, has always been instinctually incomprehensible. I sincerely hope that you recognize that fact and share in the same perception moving forward to start questioning behaviours, facts and motives — especially those that come from ourselves. After all, I’ve been saying that adults are just kids with bills to pay.

Speaking of ‘bills to pay’, that’s now the trap.

This quote tends to hit home for many that I’ve encountered over the years especially if you’ve been in the work force for some time. That usually means that we’re getting to the roots of some of the old money mindset that’s no longer serving us. Most commonly — scarcity. That’s the idea that holds us back. And that idea could’ve been as easily created by hearing our parents complaining about not having enough money to pay the bill ONCE. ONCE! That’s how easy these fearful ideas and take roots. Hence, many of the examples given in Part 1 come from a place of “not having enough”. Yet, “not having enough” often times get translated into “not being enough” when our ego gets in the way. Remember, we are human BEINGS first and foremost. Stop letting materialistic possessions and century-old societal limitations tell you that you’re not enough. YOU ARE ENOUGH. It’s the simple idea that you believe in that statement that’s brought you here and made you read this.

WE ARE BORN ENOUGH. We just need to acquire better tools as we go through life to deal with different challenges that come our way. That — is the hard truth.

I often say to my students that, at the end of the day, what they’re learning (as I have and am doing my darnedest to pass down) is ultimately financial education. Financial education = how money works. Taking it one step further: investing = how money works itself to create more money. We simply choose to leverage real estate investing strategies as the main tool to demonstrate the principles here.

To quickly latching onto where we left off, here’s what you can do next: have your list in front of you. This list should now contain the new “altered reality/desired outcomes” you’d like to be living in. That’s now the new starting point. If you haven’t done it yet, do this now: DREAM out loud on every item on that list. I’ll give you a few examples:

• In 2 years, I would like to take my entire family to Disney World on a no-expense-spared vacation for the kids’ spring break. We’re going to stay at the Grand Floridian — Concierge level with VIP tickets to bypass lines for rides. We will also be doing their premium dining package so we don’t have to worry about going to Costco and Walmart to haul groceries back every other day. (I’m not paid for using Disney as an example. Full disclosure, I do have 4 Disney timeshare properties if you’re interested in chatting about that.)
• Next year (in 15 months), I want to be able to update our beater cars and have the cashflow from 2 properties cover the monthly payments.
• I would like to be able to donate $1,000/month to my favourite charity (this is where you come in and insert the name of your favourite charity) using my passive income.
• I would like to tell my boss to pound sand in exactly 30 months from today because I’ll have achieved financial freedom #2. If you need some support for what that means, you can watch this video and have a conversation with a Strategy Coach about how to get there. (Side note: this is important as many of our WHYs will evolve over time as we reach each new goal.)

• I want to be able to pay for my 3 kids’ university education while growing and preserving assets properly. (Less specific and nonetheless powerful.)
• I want to prove to many people that I didn’t fail school. The education system failed me and I’m right to follow my intuition and trust my own ability to create a better life for myself — one that doesn’t follow the typical path.
• I want to be able to go on a 12-month around-the-world cruise with my wife/husband and not have to worry about money.
• I want to support my parents in their old age.

As you witnessed here, some pictures are very vivid and deadline driven, and some are purely emotional. No right or wrong here (and you’ll hear me say that A LOT in almost everything I put out there.). The point is that you honour your true self. Notice how the last few statements all start with “I want”? Dig and dig deeper. Let it come from a place where it’s truly what you desire.

Here are also some guiding principles to help you (as they’ve helped me) further crystallize your picture:

• There may come a time in your pursuit for better financial wellness (aka — make more money and have more financial resources) where you experience a negative event or setback. (You will hear about how I lost $1M overnight in 2016 and went into negative net worth at a later time and how I made it back many times over in a short amount of time). The point is — this can be a common occurrence for most businesses. However, learning to adapt to these occasions will be key. Understand that these sorts of things happen and are to be expected is the first step. The second step NOW is to also realize WHY we do this mindset bit first. For example, people who want to get in better shape. If the fundamental purpose of getting in good shape is one that matter, one that — if not achieved — would be unbearable, unthinkable and completely undesirable. When that happens, they won’t let excuses such as: “well, I had to order something from the unhealthy menu when I was out with friends last weekend even though nothing on the menu would contribute to my goal.” Or, “I’ve been traveling for work non-stop for 3 weeks straight and there was just no time to exercise or look after what I was eating.” Or, “It was the holidays”, “I was on vacation”, “But I don’t have that much of it”, or “It made me happy at the time” (the most dangerous of it all). Frankly, exercise and diet is an easy target combo to demonstrate this point. And that point is PRIORITY. The sub-point here is DISCIPLINE.

A couple of my favourite quotes on these 2 words that I’ve heard (hard to pin point exactly who said them FIRST) that I’d like to share here:

PRIORITY — if it’s important to you, you’ll find a way. If not, you’ll find an excuse.

DISCIPLINE — it’s choosing what you want most over what you want now.

• We are not the first to leverage real estate investing to build a business. This fact alone should provide motivation, confidence and the belief that this can be done, and by you. The proof of concept has already been proven. The best example I can think of is Roger Bannister — the man who ran a mile in under 4 minutes when NOBODY thought it was humanly possible. The cool part about that is that, 6 weeks later, that record was broken by John Landy. I’m completely floored just by sharing the fact over and over again. And, while my name has not been printed all over mainstream media (and I’m happy to keep it that way), my personal dream is to help as many people achieve financial freedom as I have. If an immigrant from Taiwan moving to a completely foreign country with little to no English at 17 can eventually create financial freedom in 25 months and end up with a 8-digit net worth by simply following the footsteps of others before him, so can you. (This is only the 2nd time I have shared the net worth thing publicly to demonstrate 2 things: One — when done right, leveraging “real estate investing is never a get rich quick scheme, it’s a get rich for sure plan”. I have Ryan Carr on the Trust Your Talent Academy team to thank for that quote. Two — it’s utterly uncomfortable to share something like this. However, I’m asking you to be completely authentic with yourself as you journey through my articles, it would be unfair and simply hypocritical to dilute the truth or adapt the ‘lie by omission’ approach. It may continue to grow, it may not. It’s powerful knowing that it’s entirely up to me. I started wanting time and money freedom. It was never about chasing after a certain level of wealth. However, the happy side effect is the financial resources you’ll build. Either way, I’m not Elon Musk nor Jeff Bezos, or one of the Sharks or Dragons on TV, or maybe even one of your rich relatives. If that number inspires you, thank you. If it doesn’t, thank you. I’m still me.
• Most people’s reason behind getting started as an investor is to provide more time freedom in their lives — more time to spend with family and friends and less time spent in meaningless activities. Real estate investing can provide a path in which you get to choose how much time you spend working or being away from home. As I’m writing this, we’re living in peculiar times. Particularly talking about the end of COVID…that ‘forced’ us to spend a lot of time with our families. It’s one answer that I hear lots when I asked them “WHY do you want to learn how to invest in real estate?”. COVID proved that it’s not the amount of time we want to spend with our family, but the quality of the time we spend together that matters the most. I’ll just leave it at: quality over quantity still applies here and “quality” tends to come with a price tag.

With all that, here are the action items for this week on this subject:

1. Create a dream board (or vision board). YES, I’m old school. This is where you get to go back in time and treat yourself like a 6th grader for a show and tell. Except that the only audience and the biggest fan of this project is YOU. Find images of your “desired outcomes” — in magazines, online, on Instagram, etc., and print them out and put the on the board. (Quick notes: you don’t have to fill the entire board right now if you don’t have enough. The purpose is to start getting you to visualize in a very real way. EVERY picture you put up there should at least bring a smile to your face, if not make you completely emotional and even break out into tears. That’s how powerful these images need to be!)
2. Next, put a price tag and deadline next to each image. YES, this sounds crass to some of you. However, this is what we are dealing with here, aren’t we? Money is, after all, the most commonly used measurement and currency to exchange services and goods in the modern world. For example, if you’re wanting to take a family vacation (whatever the images you choose to use), do a guestimate or you can price everything out now online if you want to go the extra mile. I’ve had many students do that. Or — if you’d like to drive a certain car — go for a test drive, sit down with the sales person to discuss purchasing options and then bring that number back and put it on your vision board.
3. Watch the videos suggested (link included here again) and speak to a Strategy Coach.

We will be wrapping up the ‘mindset’ portion after Part 3 and there will be lots more coming as we dive into more financial education content and leveraging real estate investing to help your dream board come true!

March 29, 2022

Congratulations — you’ve made it this far. This means that you are coachable and ready to grow.

After the last article, as usual, got some nice messages and got some not-so nice messages about my thoughts and processes. Particularly, about a number I shared — net worth.

Real wealth is measured by TIME. TIME, not the amount of money.

The logic behind the math is simple. Here’s a quick illustration:

If you have an average monthly household expense of $5,000 and are worth $1,000,000, the moment you stop having income coming in, you have 200 months left in your wealth. Of course, we are discounting any additional monthly funds you may have through your personal effort or government support here. Those tend to be eroded by inflation anyway. 200 months = shy of 17 years. No wonder so many people are wondering if they will outlive their ‘retirement’.

Now, if you are worth $5,000,000 and your average monthly household expense is $25,000 (as they often are for people at that level), you have 200 months left in your wealth. Neither calculations have taken inflation into consideration.

Most people, upon first glance, would think that $5,000,000 should last much longer. It could not be further from the truth. At the end of the day, it has nothing to do with how much you make but how much you keep. This is the main reason why, while learning about real estate investing strategies is essential, learning about asset and income protection is the true mark of financial education. I’ve seen way too many people that buy properties for the sake of buying them only to end up broke, even less happy than those without a property portfolio, and have more day to day headaches from attempting to self-manage everything.

This is why I’m forever pro-cashflow. Don’t let anybody else tell you any different.

The logic once again is simple: would you buy a businesses knowing that it’ll be losing money every month, and ‘will most likely’ increase in value over time? I’m sure most (if not all) would say “hell no!”. Yet, somehow, when investing in real estate, people are willing to gamble.

With that said, cashflow is also what pays the bills so that we can have options. Option to physically live better — better houses, better/more nutritious foods, better/safer vehicles, better vacations/more quality time. Option to mentally and emotionally live better — not having to cave into office politics or kow-tow to a tyrant boss for a paycheck; being able to put common money troubles to rest — household bills, supporting our children and/or our aging parents adequately; resources to treat ourselves to proper outlets to release stress — gym memberships, spa, vacation retreats, etc. I know many people have said this before, but the first time I heard it was from a friend’s mom: If it’s something money can solve, you don’t really have a problem. That was a ridiculously giant ah-ha moment for me.

The knowledge and application to create cashflow is the beginning step to create a better and stronger financial future. There’s a saying in Chinese: Wealth does not last beyond three generations. That’s mainly because, when passing down money and wealth without the knowledge and skills to sustain it, most of us would end up spending more than making.

If one of your reasons why you want to embark on increasing your financial intelligence is to leave the legacy, let me do you a solid: put your children through financial education as well. It really shouldn’t be any different than passing down good knowledge, wisdom and habits like personal hygiene or treating others with respect. The sad truth is, that’s not what our education system focuses on. NONE. Okay, maybe I have not traveled around the world and personally witnessed every education system myself yet. However, I’ve certainly seen enough of an example from having met and taught people from every continent in the last 8 years. That has got me a general sense that ALL traditional school systems continue to train us to end up being employees.

The word employee typically comes with this formula:

1. Go to school
2. Study hard and get good grades
3. Get a good job = decent pay, medical benefits, company stock options, pension contribution, retirement savings funds, etc.

Then what? As stated in Part 2, this is how the formula typically completes:

4. Buy liabilities — house(s) & cars

5. Pay bills

6. Work so you can keep buying liabilities and pay your bills

7. Retire and maybe have some resources to enjoy life a bit

8. Bid the world and our loved ones good bye

Is this the formula you’re trapped in?I know I was.

Ifthat formula rattled you in anyway, now is your chance to revisit the vision board you’ve created yourself. Fears and doubts will creep in from time to time. However, as the saying goes: Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than it. (Too many renditions to quote one person.) This is also why I focus on the word COURAGE and personally despise the word FEARLESS. As it’s humanly and physiologically impossible. Besides, we need fear. We want the fear — to keep us sharp, to keep us alert and to keep us on the course of evolution. Change truly is the only constant in life.

At this point, I’d invite you to watch a few more episodes of My Daily Dose with Tim. More specifically, Season 1, episodes 21–28.

Should you feel the urge to share your vision board with me, you can email it (take a picture) to tim@trustyourtalentacademy.ue1.rapydapps.cloud. I’m always so happy when people share the visions of their lives with me. Maybe we can even have to conversation about it!

At this point, while it seems like this is the ‘final’ part on finding/defining your true purpose, just know that there will be times when we reference back to this 3-parter as we move along. Our whys, our purposes and our values of existence are like our physical shell — they age, mature and evolve. After all, the only constant we know is change.

I just really wish that we all choose to change for the better! That’s why, one of my biggest WHYs these days is to spread financial education in hopes to help others create better lives. I had the good fortune so far to alter my own and many other people’s lives, and I believe that this work will continue. I’m the boy in this short video ❤️

(Written partly in the air and completed in Cincinnati, OH.)

April 5, 2022

Sorry, and not sorry for the intended pun!

Since we started in personal budgeting and went through 3 weeks of ‘mindset’ focusing on finding emotional anchors (or ‘defining our purpose in life’), this is the fittest next step to take: understanding the Wheel of Wealth. Many so-called real estate investors (mostly property collectors, or people who only have taken training on buying 1 or 2 types of properties, or people who simply were never exposed to financial education) DO NOT achieve the results they thought they would despite the extra time, effort and money spent.

The Wheel of Wealth (or the circle of wealth — somehow, I have the opening song of The Lion King playing in my head now) is a brilliant way to recognize where the holes are to patch if we want a smooth financial journey in life. You may wonder: what exactly is it? Here’s a quick illustration for you.

It’s comprised of 3 income buckets: earned, passive and portfolio.

If you’d like, you can also call earned income “active income”. This is where the most commonly known saying of “time is money” comes from. The phrase is simply to depict the “trading hours for dollars” routines for many who have not been properly financially educated otherwise. Exhibit A — single source of earned income from a job. Or, as I’ve had the misfortune to witness before: 3 jobs.

Just like earned income, you can also call portfolio income “equity income” or even “capital income”. However, this is the income bucket that can get tricky. For many, if it grows, it’s like the piggy bank that you don’t want to open until you absolutely have to break it. And, when you do, there is this thing called the ‘capital gain tax’ that will take a good chunk of it out. Contrarily, for some, it’s literally the piggy bank you cannot open — ie. home equity from a principle residence that has gone up in value by so much, yet you don’t have the sufficient qualification to utilize any of it. The most common seen portfolio income streams include: home equity that has grown over time, stock portfolio, retirement funds, savings and other investment vehicles (perhaps previous metals like gold and silver or some new-age options like NFTs).

Now, I’m not an accountant. But, I will tell you — there tends to be some grey areas differentiating earned vs portfolio incomes at times. It does largely depend on who (or better yet, what legal entity) is conducting the investment activity and transactions. With that said, in case you’re already wow’d by this concept and want to credit me for introducing you to something new or just a different perspective, don’t! I didn’t come up with the 3 income buckets — our beloved tax authorities did. It’s simply the big umbrella terms of how the governments decide to tax the hard earned dollars we make. This is why we offer Asset & Income Protection as part of the Mentorship Programs at Trust Your Talent Academy. At the end of the day, “it’s not how much you earn, but rather, how much you keep that matters.”

Lastly, most real estate investors’ favourite income bucket: passive income. Some view it almost interchangeably as residual income. For now, I’m going to say they are NOT the same. Also, at the risk of sounding like a boring best man’s speech, passive income is simply defined as “income that requires minimal effort to earn and maintain”. Alright, I’m just joking.

For educated investors, passive income actually requires massive effort upfront to earn and minimal effort to maintain. Why? Simply because educated investors learn to deploy different strategies when looking at a real estate investment opportunity. That means a typical process of:

1. Validating the viability of a potential opportunity (does it fit our financial goal to begin with — remember the last few articles?)
2. Conducting proper due diligence (gathering and verifying all available information)
3. Analyzing the numbers — from worst to best case scenarios and everything in between

The main difference here is that educated investors take calculated risks in every deal.

(Quick side note: what separates a deal from an opportunity is the 3-step process I just mentioned above. Don’t ever let ANYBODY sell you on a deal when it’s really just a listing (aka. an opportunity to buy). Educated investors have clear goals and business plans to achieve. Blindly acquiring properties is for the amateurs. That is also the ultimate difference of how educated investors can achieve the same results as the amateurs in a much shorter timeframe. Plus, we haven’t even started on the acquisition process yet!)

Back to the main topic: the Wheel of Wealth. An average person typically would somehow fill the earned and, if diligent, the portfolio buckets. This is what it looks like:

• The earned income bucket comes from a paycheque that’s delegated to paying bills. Part of the bills can include either mandatory or voluntary contribution to building a portfolio income.
• The portfolio income then includes savings, government pension plans, private retirement funds, etc.

What is missing here?!

Passive income. Unless you’re the voice of Darth Vader or Mufasa, this is probably not an income source that a regular Joe (or Jane) has. Wait a minute…I thought we said that they are not the same. In this case, I actually do think they are given the definition I gave earlier. Regardless, I personally believe that effort and expenses are spent somewhere and on someone so that Mr. Earl-Jones can continue to collect these income streams.

The point is: many of us go through life with a giant gap in our ‘wheel’ of wealth and we wonder why it’s so tough to catch a break or get ahead despite how hard we work our butts off!

Fortunately (and I hope you’ll see it as I did 12+ years ago), through real estate investing strategies, we all have equal opportunity to patch up our own wheels. (By the way, another side note: I personally do not believe that there’s a “one-size-fits-all” solution when it comes to each person’s quest to financial success. This is the main reason why I wanted to create a financial education academy that covers as many strategies applicable to our market places as possible.)

We will now look at a list of hard strategies:

1. Distressed Properties & Flip (physical buy and sell of a property)
2. Wholesale & Assignment (paper buy and sell of a property)
3. Lease Options (physical or paper buy and sell of a property)
4. Short-Term Rentals: vacation, executive, student and rooming houses
5. Private Lending & Creative Financing
6. Income Properties: single family
7. Income Properties: multi-unit residential
8. Income Properties: commercial, mixed use and industrial
9. Infills and Land Development

Here’s a list of soft strategies:

1. Asset & Income Protection
2. Business Fundamentals: business planning & goal setting, bookkeeping, systemization, networking, etc.
3. Portfolio Management: tenant management & management of the physical asset
4. Raising Capital
5. Creative Financing: small to large scale partnerships

Maybe you’re looking at this and feeling excited. Or, maybe you’re looking at this and feeling exhausted and scared. I know I fell into the first group there. In the beginning of 2010, I had just lost ALL of my savings. Working for an average 80 hours a week, that was incredibly devastating. (Now, you might wondering: didn’t he also mention something about losing $1M overnight in 2016? Yes, you’re absolutely right about that!) This might be a good time to share 2 things here with you all:

1. In 2009, I had pulled out all my money from all my deadbeat investments — savings account, private retirement funds (RRSP if you’re Canadian, 401K if you’re American, Superannuation if you’re Australian, and ‘individual defined contribution’ if you’re Japanese), and company stock options. All of them plummeted in value — some quickly and some gradually. Despite the ‘matching program’ my employer had at the time, nothing beats a downward market with forces beyond anyone of us — other than my CEO. When the company declared an annual loss of $360M, he gave himself a $8M bonus that same fiscal year while all middle management had their bonuses cancelled. (It’s a fact now I share, the energy is no longer there in case you’re wondering.) Long story short, like many people, after GFC (global financial crisis), I took out all my money from all the traditional investments that my parents and society told me were good, and into a real estate development deal. Well, as fate would have it, the developer took everyone’s money and ran. From that, witnessed 70 year-olds crying and yelling in a law firm boardroom: “That was my entire life’s work, how am I going to live? How am I going to put food on the table? I might as well go jump off a bridge!!!” Without a doubt, that had to be one of the top 3 most heartbreaking moments in my life so far. I realized then that, if I didn’t know what I was doing with my money, this could happen to me — 20, maybe 30, years down the road, too, after I’ve busted my hump working long hours for decades. I decided to take my financial future into my own hands and learn. That’s why, when I learned how many ‘strategies’ there are for professional investors, I lit up like a Christmas tree and the pain of losing my savings all of a sudden became very small. I realized that I gambled. I realized what I did was “letting the blind leading the blind”. Most importantly, I took full responsibility of my loss and said “this ends here”. On that note, this is why I often joke to my classes: what you’re learning from me really is a collective ‘what not to do’ so that you don’t lose the money like I did. Real estate investing is great and lucrative when you know what you’re doing. The other side of the coin also stands: if you don’t know what you’re doing, it can be detrimental to your financial future. Like any asset class, really.
2. In 2016, a partner company had a lot of internal issues that they were not transparent about. In short, they filed for bankruptcy without even a heads-up and we were left picking up the pieces. By the time it was all said and done, we were just over $1M in the hole. This is fun story — will share in more details later on. The real lesson I want to share is this: I’ve been reading and following many successful entrepreneurs for many years — both living and historic. One of the things that always intrigued me that they all seem to have in common is something like this: “I know if I lost it all tomorrow, I’d be able to make it all back…and then some.” Not until this incident happened to me, I had a hard time believing it. Trust Your Talent Academy is exactly born out of this confidence and experience. I realized that my financial education (and the one that I so passionately and desperately want to share with the world) is the foundation that NOBODY will ever be able to take away from me. Businesses may come and go. Properties may peril. The economy can shift and the world can shut down (wait, all of these happened and still happen on a daily basis!). Even the most clever thief cannot steal what’s in the 6 inches between my ears.

Above all strategies, many people (myself included) have found tremendous value in having mentors holding my hands through not just my first deal, but my journey in real estate investing. As I’d like to say, I don’t know everything and I’m ok with admitting that. At the same time, I’m willing to share everything I know.

In the next article, I will share with you how you can start leveraging each strategy by categorizing them into the 3 income buckets. If you’re too impatient to wait, here are 2 ways you can fast track your learning:

1. Attend the free Bootcamp Trust Your Talent Academy is putting on this weekend (April 9 and 10) from 12–6pm EDT, or
2. Speak to a Strategy Coach now to start getting some tailored suggestions.

Last but not least, here’s a quick video to also give you a jump start!

See you next time!

Ps. Thank you for your suggestion. To stay connected, you can:

• Follow me on Instagram using @theTimTsai
• Follow me on Facebook @theTimTsai and @theOnlyTimTsai
• Email me with feedback & questions directly at Tim@TrustYourTalent.ca

(Written at the Fairmont Chicago, Millennium Park.)

April 12, 2022

First off, I want to share a quick example on WHY understanding the Wheel of Wealth is so vitally important for anyone who wants to go PRO in the world of real estate investing.

I have worked with many students that were worth so much more than me when they come to me for help. They’ve simply done really well by following the basics: get good jobs, make high incomes, control expenses and buy properties. Properties that initially never cash flowed until market rents caught up. Even then, the cash flow amounts were pathetic (their word, not mine) because they were waiting for the big cash out once the mortgages are fully paid down…in 20, 25 or 30 years.

Very quickly, through one on one discussions and seeing how they handle opportunities that come their way, it’s ‘habitual’ for them to just ‘buy’. These also tend to be the people that have told me “somedays, I/we feel like slaves to our jobs, our properties AND our tenants. We pay them to be there because we don’t make any money until the very end.” They have this uncontrollable need to BUY and COLLECT. Before you know it, two, three and maybe even four decades have gone by. That’s great if that’s what you’d like and are able to put up with decades of stress like that. These are the people (I really don’t call them investors) that only feed into 2 buckets still: earned and portfolio. To me, those are the two income buckets that any average person has been taught to do growing up as discussed in Part 1. This is interesting to me because it’s like putting a driving coach in a car with someone who’s been driving for 20 years. Even with a good clean driving records, the driving coach can typically pick out “bad habits” that are blind spots to the long-time driver within seconds.

For many, it’s about rewiring our thought process and financial blueprint. Again, don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing bad about retiring with a buttload of portfolio income. It’s just that, one of my mentors in my early days asked me this question that really stopped me cold: do you want to be young and rich or old and rich? The key word here is not rich. It’s TIME.

The concept of time needs to be the first concept for all investors to learn and fully comprehend before anything else matters.

Onthat note, let’s come back and look at the hard and soft strategies again first:

1. Distressed Properties & Flip (physical buy and sell of a property)
2. Wholesale & Assignment (paper buy and sell of a property)
3. Lease Options (physical or paper buy and sell of a property)
4. Short-Term Rentals: vacation, executive, student and rooming houses
5. Private Lending & Creative Financing
6. Income Properties: single family
7. Income Properties: multi-unit residential
8. Income Properties: commercial, mixed use and industrial
9. Infills and Land Development
10. Asset & Income Protection
11. Business Fundamentals: business planning & goal setting, bookkeeping, systemization, networking, etc.
12. Portfolio Management: tenant management & management of the physical asset
13. Raising Capital
14. Creative Financing: small to large scale partnerships

Frankly, this list is not exhaustive, yet. In different countries/jurisdictions, there are many more available. However, for the sake of demonstrating the concept, we’ll keep this list for now.

From this point forward, typically we have 2 main steps on how to complete the Wheel of Wealth with the 14 listed strategies:

First — understand which income bucket each strategy goes into, and

Second — understand how to use it to our advantage to accomplish our financial goals.

Distressed Properties & Flip (physical buy and sell of a property)

This hard strategy falls under earned income for most especially when the clear ‘exit’ is to sell it once the value-add process is done. However, one thing to note is that distressed properties really is the foundational strategy of all property-first deals. As a result, many people have heard of the BRRRR process. BRRRR stands for Buy, Renovate, Rent, Refinance, and Repeat. It’s also important to know that BRRRR is NOT a strategy in itself as we BRRRR all property types (even businesses!). Amateurs who want to sound fancy will often times refer to this as a strategy. Please do not sound like one after reading this article — you’re better than that 🙂

I would personally put this strategy in all 3 income buckets if the exit strategy isn’t to sell immediately after the value-add (aka renovation) is done. Why? Because of one very crucial thing pointed out earlier — it is the foundational strategy of all property-first deals. Whether it’s a small single family, a 12-unit apartment building or 1,000-unit apartment building complex (or even commercial and industrial units), you will BRRRR them. And when you decide to keep them for cashflow, you now have passive and portfolio income for the long haul. While not directly in the passive and portfolio income buckets, it definitely is a main contributor for both.

Wholesale & Assignment (paper buy and sell of a property)

This hard strategy falls under the earned income bucket. Simple. Be the personal shopper in the real estate investing industry is what I call a wholesaler — doesn’t that sound fun?!

Lease Options (physical or paper buy and sell of a property)

Oh boy, this one is gonna be fun. Like distressed properties, this one contributes to all 3 — earned, passive and portfolio — income buckets. Unlike distressed properties, it can do it in a very direct ways. It’s worth noting that lease options can be used as both acquisition and exit strategies in real estate transactions. Frankly, for my readers who do day trading, you simply don’t need anymore explanation on this one.

Short-Term Rentals (STRs): vacation, executive, student and rooming houses

Definition matters in the world of investing. How we define short-term rentals is simply by the length of a typical tenancy which is 12 months. STRs can be either earned OR passive+portfolio income depending on one main factor: are you the active manager dealing with your tenants and bookings? If you are, then it’s likely an earned income bucket strategy for you. If you are hiring out the day-to-day management, then it’s simply passive+portfolio on properties that you have in your portfolio.

Private Lending & Creative Financing

First thing first, if you’re not licensed to trade in loans and mortgages, tread carefully on how you allocate this strategy into your income buckets. For example, mortgage brokers are legally licensed to trade in loans and mortgages. Most private investors aren’t. Amongst your close circles, you are able to leverage this strategy and feed all 3 — earned, passive and portfolio — income buckets. Certain creative financing methods will feed into your passive+portfolio income buckets only.

Income Properties — all kinds

Income Properties, by definition, is making you income every month so it definitely checks off the passive income bucket box. However, when done right and well, all income properties should feed into your portfolio income bucket as well. There are certain formula and key performance indicators as our north star to make sure both buckets are fed properly. Otherwise, we are no better than the example in the opening story.

Infills & Development

Perhaps the strategy that has the widest spectrum as you can build whatever you want here! Once again, to keep things simple, infills and development is what I would describe as distressed properties on mega steroids (except that maybe there isn’t an actual piece of dwelling sitting on the land sometimes and it’s just…land). As a result, if you sell it once it’s built, it’s definitely goes into your earned income bucket. If you hold on to it, it turns into an income property and thus feeding into your passive and portfolio income buckets.

Taking a turn here, ALL soft strategies go into all 3 income buckets. That makes it easy. Whew!

Now that we’ve gone through that, let’s make it a bit more relevant and start speaking everyday English, shall we?

Let’s say: if your why for investing is because you’d like to —

• Have better vacations with the fam every year
• Your job is “stable” — meaning your hours and stress levels and earning potential are predictable and capped
• You want to pick up a lucrative side hustle without the extra tax bills

You might be perfect for a mixture of distressed properties & flip, wholesale & assignment, and lease options.

Let’s say: if your why for investing is because you’d like to —

• Secure your retirement because, frankly, every time you look at your quarterly statements from whatever it is your money is in, you lose a few nights of sleep
• Make sure you don’t become 100% dependent on the government or, worse yet, become a burden to your children

You might be perfect for a mixture of lease options, income properties (types of property dependent upon your personal risk tolerance) and private lending & creative financing.

Let’s say: if your why for investing is because you’d like to —

• Have time and money freedom and enough to fire your boss one day (date TBD)
• Build and live a life by design and with purpose

You might be perfect for a mixture of lease options, income properties, STRs, private lending & creative financing.

Of course, there are many ‘it depends’ in every scenario. However, I hope that the essence of the thought process here is captured and understood.

Toconclude the whole concept of WHY it’s important to understand and complete your own Wheel of Wealth: you will never have to ask which market(s) to go into ever again. One of my mentors said this to me: build your own wheel so you never have to chase markets. Across the world right now, changes are happening everywhere — rising interest rates, governments capping rent increases, higher than ever before-seen property values, highest inflation rate and climbing every quarter, etc. Change is the only constant. When you round out your own Wheel, you never have to worry about what the market is doing. For instance, we started building (infill & development) in 2017 long before the amateurs are flocking into developing new properties because they just learned that there’s an overall shortage of housing in the country. I learned that when I was building my passive income, there were already people developing. And that precisely IS the point here: we are all at different stages of our wealth creation plan. When you have built yourself a safety net, it doesn’t matter what’s happening to the world. You’re financially independent and free first before you take on more (calculated) risk.

Inthe next article, I will share with our personal investing philosophy and, more importantly, process. It has been my guiding light for the last 7 years. Yes, 7 out of the 12 years since I started learning and applying because I finally figured out a formula that can be duplicated. A formula that will compliment the Wheel of Wealth and has the potential completely alter how you look at real estate as an investment tool.

For my dedicated readers, I thank you for your support and feedback. If this is the first time you’re reading one of my publications, I hope you’ve enjoyed it and learned a thing or two.

For those of you who prefer watching videos, here is the YouTube channel where some of my work (very raw) has been shared.

April 19, 2022

This one is arguably the ‘giving away the farm’, the ‘secret sauce’, and the ‘peek behind the curtain’ of how I’ve been able and continue to create the financial results today. It’s simple and yet not easy to hold onto (full disclosure here). It’s also one that’s central to all of Trust Your Talent Academy’s training curriculum. It’s a process, a formula, a mantra or simply my investing philosophy. And it is proprietary.

This process has been my guiding light for the last 7 years (since ~2015). Yes, 7 out of the 12 years since I started learning how to become a professional investor in real estate. Like some, I jumped in once I started learning about the different strategies. Lease Options, in particular, is one that provided me with the initial financial freedom I was looking for. Unlike many, I wanted to make sure that my new found “time & money freedom” is one that lasts. So, every step of the way, I looked for patterns and methods to create systems that are duplicatable.

1st SMP = Strategy — Market — Property.

And yes, in that exact order.

A strategy for an investor is a way to determine how we make money and how much money we make BEFORE we get into any deals. Read that again.

That is the whole point of why someone wants to start investing wisely and ‘strategically’. First of all — having a strategy contributes directly to your income and financial goals. It is, after all, why you are even reading these articles in the first place— to create and gain more financial resources to build the life that you want and deserve. Secondly, having the right strategies is like having the right tools — you get things built much more effectively and efficiently. Time is everything as we’ve discussed in the past.

From the Wheel of Wealth, we’ve learned some of the currently available and popular strategies that real estate investors use (in North America). Those strategies are only meaningful and USEFUL when your ‘why’ has been translated into goals, and those goals translated into a money figure. Now, it’s time to let your properly determined goals decide the strategies you should embark on.

For example, my goal was to quit my corporate job within 3 years so that I could free up the time to take care of my health, and later create a “career” that I would love and not have my livelihood depend on it. As a result, I chose Lease Options as my first strategy to focus on given the assessed resources I had at the time during my first mentorship with a real estate investing mentor. From my 1st class (January 2010) to the day I declared financial freedom (July 25, 2012), I focused on only this one strategy.

Calling Edmonton, Alberta home had its advantages at the time because I was able to leverage this strategy right in my home market. Although it’s not a must nor does it provide the best return, after an exhaustive process of listing pros and cons and market selections, that’s what we decided would make the most sense.

Then we would look at the properties that would support this strategy.

And there you have it:

Strategy(-ies): Lease Options (tenant-first)

Market(s): Edmonton & surrounding areas, AB

Property(-ies) Type: Single Family Home

The reason why this process is so powerful is because it’s pretty much the exact opposite of how most amateurs or real estate investor wanna-bes operate. It’s what we’d call the Buy Rent & Pray. The most successful investors of our time, Warren Buffet, is famous for his contrarian way of making investing decisions. In essence, do the opposite of what the majority is doing strategically and we can all create financial successes in life.

Let’s quickly break down the Buy Rent & Pray process so that you are clear about WHAT NOT TO DO:

BUY —

Inevitably, you have to acquire properties to make money from them, right?! In short, yes. However, it depends on how you define ‘buying’ in this case. We will cover that in another article down the road. For now, we’ll look at the behaviours amateurs exhibit during the buy part of this process:

1. Get onto realtors’ mailing lists (likely in their home market) and attend open houses to look for properties. These properties are probably within their affordability. They also tend to be emotionally involved in the buying process or easily swayed on what to buy just “to get into the market”.
2. Sign up for alerts on pre-construction from developers. These properties are likely within their affordability. And they are convinced that the property value has nowhere to go but up.
3. Join investing clubs or conferences and get lots of ideas and opportunities about properties and markets. These ‘ideas and opportunities’ tend to support the amateur’s existing confirmation bias. This is an interesting one for me personally. To me, it’s like joining the alumni association without every attending the school prior. It’s buying an expensive country club membership without ever learning how to swing a golf club properly. It’s also like wanting to build a bridge with a marketing degree (that was my degree).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying any of the above 3 things are bad. I’m just saying that they are a BAD FIRST STEP in the process of leveraging real estate investing to create financial wellness — in both the short- and long-term.

RENT —

Once the property’s acquired, here’s generally what happens:

1. Do the advertising and start showing the property to potential tenants.
2. Take the time to do showings. Most of the times amateurs will self manage because it’s in their home market to save some money. That right there is symptomatic and against the fundamental investor mindset. An investor is one that focuses on ‘how much is it going to make me’ vs ‘how much is it going to cost me’ — this spells the ROI (return on investment) mindset.
3. Overestimate revenue and underestimate budgets because they either didn’t know how to do a proper deal analysis or misguided by the wrong people who just wanted to sell them the property in the first place.

PRAY —

Forget about the first 2 steps for a while. This is really the focus of this process for many amateurs. Now that they’ve acquired the property and rented it out, they simply pray that:

1. The tenants always pay rent on time and don’t cause troubles;
2. The tenants always take care of the property well;
3. The physical asset (aka the property itself) doesn’t have too many defects and issues over time that will call for a lot of time, money and energy to fix.

In the perfect world, this process could work. In the perfect world.

Professional and educated investors take calculated risks. Again, investing inherently has risks. All we are doing here is arming ourselves with the tools and strategies to:

1. Predetermine the viability of every deal and the range of profit we will make BEFORE committing to the ‘purchase; and
2. Have multiple exit strategies should we choose to exit them and move on for whatever reason.

Side note: notice how I said ‘for whatever reason’? That’s because I’ve attended countless real estate investing courses and meet-ups over the years and one of the common ‘regrets’ I hear people say is this: I regret selling my properties. What is so bad with that? For starters, properties are like people. The older we get, the costlier it gets to maintain. From a financial performance standpoint, it typically means that the profit level goes down at the year goes by regardless of how much equity has been built. Like people, there’s no point being the wealthiest person in a cemetery. There’s also little to no point having a portfolio with the most equity. Also, with the highest inflation rate in 40+ years, money is devaluing faster than usual. True financial education in real estate investing means that your money needs to at least outrun inflation. Unfortunately, most amateur investors weren’t taught to think that way. And, to be honest, I didn’t in the beginning either.

So, here’s the difference with my personal and initial SMP:

Strategy: Lease Options (tenant-first)

I know that I will cashflow from Day 1 once I’ve acquire the property (or within a few short days of possession). I know that an average deal will cashflow $800-$1,200 per month before I even make an offer on a property. There’s no guessing here when the proper steps are carried out. By the way, how many of these deals do you need to not have to worry about life expenses?

Market: Edmonton & surrounding areas, AB

I know that this market has a lot of the right tenants (we actually call them tenant-buyers in this case) that can use the help through this strategy to become homeowners as they’ve dreamed and planned for. The market itself also provides a healthy range of options in price that make sense for the end buyers.

Property Type: Single Family Home

I know that this is what most people (tenant-buyers) want to get into so the demand is there. “We buy for demand” vs “we buy properties” is also another way to look at it.

One of my favourite quotes by Zig Ziglar is this:

This strategy not only contributed to my personal goal, but, better yet, can create such a positive impact in so many people’s lives.

2nd SMP = Support — Mentorship — Program/Steps.

This one is much more comprehensive and serves as an ingredient list for sustainable success in all areas. However, since we are focusing on financial education through real estate investing, this is how we’re going to use it.

Having support from like-minded people is HUGE especially when you’ve had zero role model in your life who has achieved what you want to achieve. Knowing that there are others (while not many) out there yearning for the same thing (better life standards, more resources, less financial stress) and are on the same journey is invaluable. A community like that is one of the key ingredients.

Mentorships in life for most of us happen from the day we’re born. Our parents (at least the ‘good’ ones) are our first set of mentors. However, a mentor really is someone who not only wants the best for you, but have already achieved what you want to achieve so that they can show you the way. I remember how against it my parents were when I asked them to support some of my tuition in financial education (remember I had just lost my life savings when I discovered financial education through real estate infesting?). They promptly rejected the idea and my ask. Instead, they offered for me to go back to get my MBA (Masters of Business Administration) and they would be happy to go into more debt to pay for that. I had to quickly get a hold of my own frustration and remind myself to look at the situation objectively. My parents, middle middle-class at best at the time, are telling me not to get educated to create a better financial future for myself. What? That seems to go against everything they’ve taught me and wanted for me. Then I realize that it’s because they don’t know what they don’t know. There’s no disrespect here because that is the simple truth. Fortunately, once I made up my mind that I was going to have a mentor (and many more as I grew as a person, as an investor and as a mentor to others) to help me, all that frustration and anger just subsides.

Program/Steps. “Success leaves clues.” This is why we often see people joining programs and follow the steps to achieve certain results we want. Be it physical health or financial health, the concept is the same. While not all programs are created equally even for financial education, it’s important to know that this is a core ingredient for success.

For my dedicated readers, I thank you for your support and feedback. If this is the first time you’re reading one of my publications, I hope you’ve enjoyed it and learned a thing or two.

For those of you who prefer watching videos, here is the YouTube channel where some of my work (very raw) has been shared.

(Written at the Four Seasons Whistler Residences)

April 26, 2022

Before we go any further, my goal this week is to clarify a few things here and leverage it as the foundation for what’s to come.

Way too many misconceptions and misinterpretations exist out there in the world today — particularly implemented by ignorant marketers who are not financially free, worse yet — financially educated, themselves.

Admittedly, from the very beginning, I could’ve click baited everyone with buzz-word driven titles and I chose not to (and will continue to choose not to). Helping others create a new blueprint for a better financial future is a higher calling, a serious undertaking and I take it seriously.

I often say: when it comes to someone’s finances and financial future, I don’t f**k around. It’s like what Uncle Ben said to Peter Parker (Spiderman): With great power comes great responsibilities. As much as I value ‘freedom’ in almost all aspects of life, this is the one area where I personally believe that definitions matter. They matter in the sense that it can help us set clear goals and paths initially. It also helps us weed out unnecessary and wasted efforts while devoting ourselves to building a healthier and stronger financial future.

As a continuation to the Wheel of Wealth articles, financial freedom comes ONLY from the passive income bucket. With that said, there are 3 levels of financial freedom usually:

1. Financial Freedom #1 — when there’s enough passive income to cover all of our basic expenses.

Remember the expenses that you recorded during Personal Budgeting? If you haven’t done so, now’s a good time to go back and review your list of expenses. While doing that, you also want to trim down all the unnecessary expenses (this exercise is extremely personal because we all have different definitions and personal circumstances that dictate what’s necessary and unnecessary). For example, I live with 5 autoimmune disorders daily. In addition to managing my symptoms, mobility and pain levels through diet and exercise, I am using a biologic prescription drug. It’s an injection that happens once per month on average (and yes, I have to jab myself with a needle every month). This drug runs ~$1,700/month. Living in Canada and Alberta in particular, I’ve purchased 2 health insurance policies that would add up to $245 per month and it would cover 100% of this prescription. As a result, $245 is part of my current basic expenses. (I say ‘current’ because I’m hopeful that I can ween myself off it one day.)

If you’re currently looking at your personal budgeting worksheet as provided, really examine your expenses. Some fixed expenses may be difficult to change or cut. This is where you’ll need to really differentiate ‘needs vs wants’ for yourself. I remember having to move out of our 2,600 sq. ft. house and into a 1,350 sq. ft. one. That was an easy decision based on numbers — I was cutting down on my expenses maintaining a liability. In reality, it was a hard one on my ego and personal sanity. I hated the smaller space, the lower ceiling and how crammed everything felt. I also hated being judged by my friends and family who didn’t understand why we’d downsize. The natural assumption was that “I’m not doing well financially” and my very basic human reaction is to my myself feel either angry, misunderstood or lesser-than. Thankfully, I had several role models and mentors supporting my decision.

In reality, I never compromised too much on my living standards in the first 5 years of my investing career — never lived in a shack nor drove a beater car, or ate sub-standard foods. However, I did make sacrifices elsewhere — particularly in the beginning. Less traveling and made budget-driven travel decisions. Clipping coupons, collecting loyalty points from necessary expenses as much as I could, and measuring all expense-prone activities (such as usage on internet, cellphone, landline, home securities, home utilities and other subscription-based services).

The point is, Financial Freedom #1 is when you have enough income coming from the passive income bucket ONLY to cover all your basic expenses. This means that you do not have to go get a job for the pay checks just to pay bills. Most people HAVE TO work to survive. When you’ve achieved Financial Freedom #1, you effectively have freed yourself from having to: get up (at least Monday to Friday), go to work for 8 hours (or more including commute time), collect a pay check once every so often to pay for your bills. You have now freed up at least 40+ hours a week to do what you’d like to do with your time (and life!). Imagine what you can do with that time.

This number varies from person to person, family to family as you can probably tell. The goal is to truly understand what this number is for you before you can move forward with the S-M-P process.

So, what’s your Financial Freedom #1 right now? Are you able to make that number easier to achieve?

2. Financial Freedom #2 — when there’s enough passive income to cover your active job income.

This is really where most people want to be when they first embark on the journey to financial freedom. Our jobs — and for argument sake, I’m just going to use it as a dirty word right now — usually stand in the way of what we really want to do with our time.

Time on vacation to enjoy the beautiful scenery and food around the world. Time spent with our loved ones. Time to build healthier habits — body, mind and soul.

However, we are often trapped (or feeling trapped) because these jobs tend to pay us just enough to pay our bills and afford ourselves a bit of a lifestyle. As a result, the time we want to spend doing what actually want to do get shrunk and, for some, become non-existent over time. This is why we also call a job “just over broke” or the classic “golden handcuffs”. We have been trained to think that this is the norm and it’s just part of life. The truth couldn’t be further from this soul-sucking ideology passed down to us from the Industrial Age!

So, what’s your Financial Freedom #2 right now?

3. Financial Freedom #3 — the do whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want, with whomever you want and for as long as you want.

Mouthful? I know! However, I just wasn’t sure how most people would react to the term “F U Money” here.

In all honesty, I have never met anybody personally that has said “Oh, I’ve achieved financial freedom #3”. Yet, I see it in their way of living. More importantly, in their way of being.

The logic and reality, in essence, is that you know how to reach Financial Freedom #2 and #3 if you’ve learned and applied to achieved #1. Most of the heavy leaning and lifting is in the beginning stage. Creating more income and wealth through real estate is a process of duplication. Yes, we can always do bigger deals (and there’s hardly an end to the size of a deal), but does it serve you and contribute to your goals directly in the most efficient way possible?

As I’m writing this article, I’m sitting in the den in our Four Seasons Whistler Residence where we are for a week on this leg of the trip. I’m sharing not to brag nor to impress you. From the Four Points to the Four Seasons, the journey seemed long but it really isn’t. These days, I travel approximately 4–6 months every year. They are partly for work and mostly for fun. The line’s really blurred now and I LOVE IT. It’s something that I’ve spent the last 12 dedicating my resources to create for myself. I’m ‘working’ and I’m not. I’m also on vacation and I’m not. The fact that this is the 3rd Four Seasons Resort stay in the last 10 weeks (1st in Belevery Hills to check off a bucket list, 2nd in Ko Olina, Hawaii simply because Disney Aulani next door was booked full) is also an ah-ha moment for me. I once heard this from my mentor: if you can’t buy it twice, you couldn’t really afford it in the first place. That lesson really stuck with me. The lesson here is discipline. The discipline to delay gratification. Here is one of my all-time favourite quotes on discipline:

To conclude the definition of financial freedom, it basically means that all the income sources need to come from the passive income bucket. It’s then a matter of how much passive income you want to create over what amount of time. Or rather, which Financial Freedom # you want to achieve.

Know the difference

Incontrast, Financial Independence is easily defined based on the Wheel of Wealth: you have enough income streams coming in from BOTH the active and passive income buckets without relying on any single source of income to survive and thrive.

Here, I’ll use ‘job’ as a positive word. This is actually my true belief these days now as “nothing inherently has meanings; all meanings are assigned”. I don’t quite recall where I heard that brilliant line from and yet it’s so applicable in almost everything. In this case, for many of us, we actually don’t hate our ‘jobs’. We only hate them WHEN we feel restricted: want to go on a longer vacation and get denied our full access to our allotted vacation time; need to go to a wedding or a funeral and only can get a limited amount of time off; want to buy a nice place, vacation, car, cellphone or computer (or just something nice or nicer in general) only to realize that there’s not enough. For so many people that I’ve witnessed over the years — especially the ones that have built a career (meaning that they’ve spent the time, money and resources going to school to trained for a certain skills based on their identified interest and maybe even passion) — we actually don’t hate our jobs. We just hate them when we are not feeling enough. This is one of the main reasons why I’m perpetually excited to teach and share and help people create better financial resources in life. Again, money isn’t everything. It just affects everything we do everyday. It’s just an effective tool for measurement and transactions for all mankind.

It’s been said that the average millionaire has 7 sources of income. When leveraging real estate as an investment vehicle, anyone can easily create more than 7 sources of income. However, the point and my personal belief that I want to share is this: true financial security, freedom, happiness and sustainability is built on multiple streams of income. Period. Having been in negative net worth twice — both before and after financial education (sounds funny to say after but the cutoff is 2010 here for me), this is probably the BEST advice and share I have today.

For my dedicated readers, I thank you for your support and feedback. If this is the first time you’re reading one of my publications, I hope you’ve enjoyed it and learned a thing or two.

For those of you who prefer watching videos, here is the YouTube channel where some of my work (very raw) has been shared.

(Written partly at the Four Seasons Whistler Residences, and partly at home in Edmonton, AB)

May 3, 2022

Imust confess. To this day, I still have a hard time walking into a Walmart , any Walmart— for a few different reasons. One of them is knowing that most of these greeters don’t ‘choose’ to work. They still have to work and most of them are seniors. In the rare times that I do, for some weird reason, I have Warren Buffett talking in my ear: “if you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until the day you die.” Truthfully, I don’t have any qualms about the latter part as long as I love doing what I love every single day. Even if it’s considered work.

Learning how to invest and financial education has been an incredibly fun and rewarding journey so far. And I’m still learning everyday. It’s almost as if the more I learn, the less I know. And for a while now, that’s ok. I’m no longer worried about not getting 100% at a test and getting scolded. Or, worse yet, getting questioned on how much effort I’ve put into my work. I know that , if I’ve given what I want to do 100% of everything I got right now, I’m ok with the outcome — whatever it may be. If the outcome is not ideal, it simply means that I need an adjustment or improvement somewhere. In mindset, in knowledge level or in my skill level.

What does that have anything to do with this topic, you ask? Simple. And here’s the thought process:

• Most of us have the tendency to work harder when we want ‘more’. More money to be specifically.
• Investing is learning how money works for itself.
• Many people and ‘investors’ (I will use that term loosely here), once they acquire a property, it’s like set and forget. It’s likely one of the worse things to do as an educated investor.
• The calculations of ‘returns’ on investment deals is an important process. And the numbers represents how hard our money is working for us.

If we are willing to work hard, why wouldn’t we make sure our money works harder than us?

The answer to this question, as I’ve witnessed over the years, has separated people who just added long-term wealth (through inflation mostly) and people who achieve sustainable financial freedom.

Many ‘investors’ and sales people in the financial planning industries seem to use these terms incorrectly and interchangeably. Understanding the difference between the two terms have helped me in making buying and selling decisions of real estate investment deals more effectively and efficiently. After all, it’s all about making sure our money is working hard(er) for us so we can free up more time and energy (and money) to pursue the things we really want to do.

What is Cash on Cash Return (CoC)

Dictionary.com defines cash-on-cash return as…wait, wait, wait! Don’t go yet. I’m just kidding! Like a Best Man’s speech that nobody wants to listen to, I’m not about to take that approach…yet. However, acknowledging that I’t know everything, I may have borrow some definitions from time to time to prove a point.

I will say this though: my favourite ‘dictionary’ these days is www.Investopedia.com when I learn a new term related to investing or money. So, guess what, Investopedia defines “A cash-on-cash return [as] a rate of return often used in real estate transactions that calculates the cash income earned on the cash invested in a property.” It would be good to note that this refers to pre-tax income.

However, the way I learned it is simply this: the CoC is basically like the interest rate you earn. For example: if the bank is promising you 2% a year (year right 😅…) on your money in a savings account. Your CoC is 2%. Of course, if we were to get a bit more technical, then this typically would refer to simple interest.

As a result, CoC is commonly used in any sort of income properties — single family, multi-unit residential, commercial, serviced accommodations, etc. In addition, many private lending deals are dealt in simple interest so the interest rate offered by the lender (or borrower) is a directly CoC return — not counting any additional fees the lenders may impose.

CoC is a straightforward and simple measuring stick for us to know how hard our money is working for us on an annual basis. This really should serve as an indicator for investors who understands fundamentally how to leverage real estate as an investment tool. When the CoC goes down (and it typically does) to a certain point, it may be time to ‘trade up’. At this point, there’s usually some equity built up as well.

What is Return on Investment (ROI)

On the other hand, ROI is a way to measure the overall investment performance when there’s a clear start and a clear end. To compare apples to apples and borrowing Investopedia’s definition: Return on investment (ROI) is a performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency or profitability of an investment or compare the efficiency of a number of different investments.

As a result, ROI is typically tied directly with strategies like Flips and Lease Options. These strategies are known to have clear start and end dates.

Just like not all deals and not all strategies are created equally, these two terms also aren’t. They exist for a reason. To me, the reason is to support us in making better and faster decisions when searching for and comparing deals at hand.

The lesson here remains: real estate is just our vehicle in investing. The goal is to create better financial resources and blueprints for ourselves, and hopefully generations to come. Making sure our money is working hard for us at all time is, in my opinion, the highest level of the art of investing.

If you’re intrigued by this article, I would also suggest a topic for you to dig deeper into also: the velocity of money. You can read up on it or watch videos.

Tomy dedicated readers, I thank you for your support and feedback. If this is the first time you’re reading one of my publications, I hope you’ve enjoyed it and learned a thing or two.

For those of you who prefer watching videos, here is the YouTube channel where some of my work (very raw) has been shared.

(Written at home in Edmonton, AB)

May 10, 2022

Truly, the best part about what I get to do these days is share my education and experiences with others who have the same goal of achieving financial freedom (and didn’t think it was possible or attainable) as when I first started going down the path less traveled.

When this journey officially began in 2010, I remember sitting in a hotel ballroom during my initial Bootcamp weekend. While learning the foundation of how to leverage real estate investing strategies to create a high performing portfolio that would contribute to my personal goal of financial freedom, I was also inspired by the trainer that weekend. At one point, I turned to my husband, pointing at the trainer on stage, and said: “one day, I want to be just like him.” His level of energy, positivity and the idea that we live in a world of abundance — more specifically, financial abundance — was not only inspiring, but refreshing. I felt like my soul was cleansed and any negative views and unkind ideas about money that I grew up with started to vanish that weekend.

In 2014, my dream came true. This was a dream because I actually didn’t set a deadline for it so it wasn’t a goal (definitions matter sometimes, remember?!).

Since declaring our own financial freedom on July 25, 2012 (and I hope to hear your date at some point), I continue to build our portfolio. However, admittedly, I started getting ‘bored’. Yes, as a 30-year-old, it was my egotistic way of wanting more challenges in life. Yet, the idea of doing anything else (ie. working for someone else) seemed unappealing and, quite frankly, a little idiotic. After all, didn’t I just bust my ass off for the last 2 years — learning and applying and building my portfolio — so I wouldn’t have to do that again?

My “better half” had the foresight. He continued to stay employed. And if you asked, he would tell you that he was simply following the trainer’s suggestion: when you are financially free, it can simply mean that you work because you want to, not because you have to. You work because the work you choose to do can now serve a purpose — whatever that is to you. He wanted to stay employed to further his skills and because he loves the social environment. It certainly didn’t hurt that he always learned fast, excelled at what he did and most of his pay checks reflected his effort.

I, on the other hand, had to really battle through that idea. This is also one of the reasons why I continue to say: I’m not the smartest person in the room ever! And, I pray that I don’t ever put myself in a room like that. Growth is so vitally important to my very being today. This has become the reason why I believe in the concept and active engagement of mentorship (of any kind) with all my given and earned wisdom to date.

In this article, I share the top 3 qualities that I look for on how to choose a mentor for you in your real estate investing journey. They are the combined perspectives of myself being a mentee many times in the last 12+ years and a mentor in the last 8.

The Top 3 Qualities I look for in a real estate investing Mentor:

1. They have achieved what I want to achieve.

This ‘quality’ is twofold: One — as the title suggested: they have paved the way for me to follow to create the results I want for myself. Two — it helps me collapse my timeframe. The latter is definitely the more important factor. Even to this day, whenever I get the chance to teach a Financial Education Bootcamp (we view this as the foundation for building a successful and sustainable real estate portfolio), I always ask people to complete this sentence: Time is _______. Unsurprisingly, almost without exception, 100% of the times, that blank is filled in with the word money. When, in fact, looking at time closely, TIME is EVERYTHING! These are 2 of my favourite quotes about time that I’d like to share:

When you ask around to see if anyone’s invested in a mentor in their lives, you’ll find out that the answer is most likely yes —

Yes to having a dance tutor.

Yes to having a piano teacher.

Yes to having a football coach.

Yes to having a personal trainer.

Yes to having a personal growth coach.

Yes to having a mentor in pursuit of higher education and degrees.

The list goes on. Aside from any natural notion of ‘going with the flow’ at any age or for whatever reason (I’ve been told that having a designated mentor when you’re getting a PhD is a must), most would say that these are conscious and welcoming decisions they happily made.

The mentors get to share their knowledge and experience, and we get to drink it all up like a jello shot at a party! Ok, maybe not the best analogy, but I think you get the idea. It’s easy, fun and the effect is often quite immediate.

With that said, the SMP Philosophy has applied quite well for everyone on this journey. I stand for leveraging real estate investing strategies to achieve financial freedom because that was my goal and is my passion. I know some others may choose a mentor based on a single strategy, a market or a certain type of property. The importance is that you and your potential mentor align on your goal.

2. They have my best interest at heart.

Itgoes without saying that life can be difficult and downright sucky at times. During those times, the comfort and solace we find in a bear hug from our loved ones, or maybe even just some consoling words may be what we crave the most. Yet, is it what we need the most?

Even with goal alignment, I want a mentor who is unapologetically straight with me. After all, my FIRST reason to have a mentor is to grow, and in ways that I may not even know I’m capable of (read that last line again). For example:

• When I am stuck, they guide me through the thought process rather than just giving me the answer. They want me to truly learn how to fish so I can eat for life rather than giving me a fish right now. However, rest assured, they are there to cheer me on and holding my hands when I’m wobbly in the process.
• They tell me what I need to hear and not what I want to hear (even if it’s hard for them to say). I’m fully aware of the fact that they are not here as my friends (at first). We are not buddies (at first). This is all with the purpose to help me grow. I grew up in Taiwan and had plenty of experiences of “teachers” yelling at and beating me (physically — yes, I’m from that era and that culture). The tough love is DEFINITELY NEEDED sometimes even as a grown man. A long-term friendship may develop organically over time but it’s not the focus.
• They don’t give up on me as long as I’m showing effort. This one probably hits home for me the most especially after the last point. As a real estate investing mentor for just over 8 years now for people from around the world, I can proudly say that I have NEVER missed anyone’s effort to stay connected and to get reconnected when they needed help — regardless of how long it’s been. However, I do make it very clear that the premise is “as long as they are making an effort” to learn and grow. I’ve simply come to embrace the fact that both timing and time are equally important. Having benefited from rebuilding long lost relationships (or just the ones that maybe got parked because life took a detour), I believe that this relationship is no different. One of my favourite quotes is this:

I’ve learned a few lessons the hard way over the years: “you can’t help those who don’t want to be helped” and “people don’t place value on something they get for free”. As much as I wholeheartedly believe that EVERYONE can achieve financial freedom, I’ve encountered, countless times, folks who don’t want it as badly as I want it for them. It’s simply not going to work. This is where also I would personally appreciate getting rejected by a potential mentor. They’re basically just telling me that I’m not ready to receive yet.

3. They are open about their failures.

Ipersonally LOVE the word “failure” — now. Growing up, failing meant a stern talk if not full out scolding was in the near future. That is, if I was lucky enough to not get beat when my test results were bad. Failing also meant looking bad. And I believe we all learned this lesson over and over again from our upbringings all the way to our day-to-day life now, too.

Failure is a blessing. Failure is a stepping stone. Failure is success in progress. As mentioned in Part 2 of Mindset, losing $1M overnight by far is the biggest failure I’ve had to work through. However, without it, I wouldn’t have come back stronger and better, doubled my portfolio and tripled my passive income in half the time compared to the first time around, and found the courage to start Trust Your Talent Academy to make sure as many people as possible can learn to avoid the mistakes that I’ve made. Not only that, I’ve been told that one of my opening lines when I teach has been: “You are really all here to learn the collective lessons of what not to do from me and the investors that have also come before me in real estate investing.” After all, as one of my mentors put it: “You can make a lot of money in real estate investing if you know what you’re doing. And you can lose a lot of money in real estate investing if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

I know what we are teaching and how we’re guiding new and seasoned investors holds one of the core values at Trust Your Talent: sustainability. Staying power matters. Those who continue to bust through and learn from setbacks are the ones in it for the long haul. After all, a life without having to worry about financial issues is freeing and rewarding.

Here is a quick video that has inspired me for years and I’d love to share it with you: Famous Failures.

This is a topic that I can go on sharing forever — both as a mentee and a mentor. As evident as it may be, I will risk sounding like a broken record here. Everyone needs a (if not multiple) mentor on their real estate investing journey. Based on the SMP Philosophy, I’ve had many mentors in my journey so far and I know it will continue to be that way.

In the next article, I will also share some of my personal experiences with some of the qualities that are definitely deal breakers — meaning, even if you ‘mentor’ me for free, I wouldn’t take it.

Tomy dedicated readers, I thank you for your support and feedback. If this is the first time you’re reading one of my publications, I hope you’ve enjoyed it and learned a thing or two.

If you’re wanting to be a part of a community of real estate investors from around the globe, here is the T.A.L.E.N.T.ed Investors Facebook Group. It’s a place where people come together to share experiences, knowledge, successes and challenges, and money making opportunities!

For those of you who prefer watching videos, here is the YouTube channel where some of my work (very raw) has been shared.

(Written at home in Edmonton, AB)