How Early Success can be the your downfall
In life we usually take what is the easiest for granted, well your early success can be your greatest downfall. If we are honest most people take what is easy for granted, I have heard it over and over again, man he seems like a natural or that was not that difficult for me to achieve, the first venture I went into was easier than I thought. Take this from someone who purchased over 100 units in less than 4 years, the acquisitions was a lot easier that I anticipated, I had little to any knowledge of Real Estate, but the banks were letting me acquire all this Real Estate without any road blocks or bottlenecks. At first I thought I needed to know everything before the banks would let me acquire this tremendous portfolio of Real Estate, well much to my dismay the banks would as fast as I wanted a new property let me acquire them. At first it was easy, problems I could count on one hand. In my mind I was on my way to becoming the next Donald Trump, he went to The Wharton School of Business, I did not need any of that, I was well on my way to becoming the next big thing in Real Estate. I read an article back in the late 90’s about a very successful Real Estate Investor (Herb Strathers) and it stated that at one time he was the largest single minority tax payer in Detroit.
That was my first goal, knowledge and a good plan was secondary to me becoming this big cheese in record time. When I look back at my confidence I was seduced by the ease of entry and the early success I achieved. Most around me were impressed; man you did what in how short of a period of time. I would actually brag about the successes I had, and with the relative ease in which I achieved it. That was my downfall instead of striving to learn, increasing my knowledge base I thought I knew it all, my team was as naive as I was, what I did not expect was what happened over the next couple of years. As they say in show business all good things must come to an end, Well the honeymoon was over and now the problems started to arise daily, it got to a point I was afraid to answer the phone, in my mind if I did not answer the phone the problems would just go away without me having to attend to them, bigger mistake, that just compounded the situation. My failure was mainly due to my lack of knowledge, it had little to do with my acquisition, well maybe some of them, it was more based on my inability to make timely decisions. My knowledge level was limited so I just reacted most of the time, there was little to any preparation for obvious problems that if I had a great team around me I could have prevented many of my problems. After licking my wounds I learned a thing or two about what to do or not to do at any given time. I can walk into a completely chaotic situation and see exactly what can or can’t be done. There is an old say “Experience is your best teacher”, well if that is true, I have enough experience for you and me.
After researching numerous avenues to help me achieve the wealth I feel I deserve Real Estate to me is still one of the best avenues for the average Joe. You do not have to have any special skills, just the ability to really follow a proven system. I will say that is when I knew at that point that I wanted to make sure that I never experienced this type of failure again. Well in my search to find an organization that could assist me in reducing my mistakes giving me a roadmap to follow I found that there were not many that really were committed to me being successful.
It seemed as if they gave me only as much information as I could afford, nothing more, if I wanted more I had to pay for more, I have lost count of how much I have spent on seminars and courses to improve my knowledge base. Some were excellent and not to name names, but a lot of the name courses were more about the money than they were to help improve you as a real estate investor, in some cases it was just enough information to actually get you in more trouble, they would only give you steps A & B, all the rest would be on a need to PAY basis.
Well my commitment was to create a program or a club that would help not only the experienced investors but also the ones just getting started. I love to create a solid foundation for investors, that will give them something to build on, my foundation in the beginning was built on a shaky deck of card, with out any staying power, if the wind blew to hard the deck I built would fall over. I say all of this to say there is a way to achieve great wealth, can you do it over night, NO, but with the right mentoring program and ability to touch and fell the teachers your chances of success will be much greater. The Power to be Free is a movement more than just an association; yes it can give you the building blocks to build a successful Real Estate Portfolio , but it is more for you to obtain freedom, Freedom from having your life dictated to you each and every day, it is time to take control and the leaders of The Power to be Free are committed to you to help you every step of the way. We want to have success after success of investors that have achieved the freedom that more deserve but have not found the right vehicle to get them there.
Sincerely
Darrick H Scruggs
CEO
The Power to Be Free
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