#it has to be obsession. if visions are a product of ambition then delusions are products of obsession. ripping and tearing.

[aromanticasterisms]

got most of the way through emilie's story quest before maintenance started and ough. it was made for me

[1921designs]

Find your beach

ACROSS THE WAY from our apartment—on Houston, I guess—there’s a new wall ad. The site is forty feet high, twenty feet wide. It changes once or twice a year.

Whatever’s on that wall is my view: I look at it more than the sky or the new World Trade Center, more than the water towers, the passing cabs. It has a subliminal effect. Last semester it was a spot for high-end vodka, and while I wrangled children into their snowsuits, chock-full of domestic resentment, I’d find myself dreaming of cold martinis.

Before that came an ad so high-end I couldn’t tell what it was for. There was no text—or none that I could see—and the visual was of a yellow firebird set upon a background of hellish red. It seemed a gnomic message, deliberately placed to drive a sleepless woman mad. Once, staring at it with a newborn in my arms, I saw another mother, in the tower opposite, holding her baby. It was 4 A.M. We stood there at our respective windows, separated by a hundred feet of expensive New York air.

The tower I live in is university accommodation; so is the tower opposite. The idea occurred that it was quite likely that the woman at the window also wrote books for a living, and, like me, was not writing anything right now. Maybe she was considering antidepressants. Maybe she was already on them. It was hard to tell. Certainly she had no way of viewing the ad in question, not without opening her window, jumping, and turning as she fell. I was her view. I was the ad for what she already had.

But that was all some time ago. Now the ad says, Find your beach. The bottle of beer—it’s an ad for beer—is very yellow and the background luxury-holidayblue. It seems to me uniquely well placed, like a piece of commissioned public art in perfect sympathy with its urban site. The tone is pure Manhattan. Echoes can be found in the personal growth section of the bookstore (“Find your happy”), and in exercise classes (“Find your soul”), and in the therapist’s office (“Find your self”). I find it significant that there exists a more expansive, national version of this ad that runs in magazines, and on television.

In those cases photographic images are used, and the beach is real and seen in full. Sometimes the tag line is expanded, too: When life gives you limes . . . Find your beach. But the wall I see from my window marks the entrance to SoHo, a district that is home to media moguls, entertainment lawyers, every variety of celebrity, some students, as well as a vanishingly small subset of rent-controlled artists and academics.

Collectively we, the people of SoHo, consider ourselves pretty sophisticated consumers of media. You can’t put a cheesy ad like that past us. And so the ad has been reduced to its essence—a yellow undulation against a field of blue— and painted directly onto the wall, in a bright pop-art style. The mad men know that we know the SoHo being referenced here: the SoHo of Roy Lichtenstein and Ivan Karp, the SoHo that came before Foot Locker, Sephora, Prada, frozen yogurt. That SoHo no longer exists, of course, but it’s part of the reason we’re all here, crowded on this narrow strip of a narrow island. Whoever placed this ad knows us well.

Find your beach. The construction is odd. A faintly threatening mixture of imperative and possessive forms, the transformation of a noun into a state of mind. Perhaps I’m reading too much into it. On the one hand it means, simply, “Go out and discover what makes you happy.” Pursue happiness actively, as Americans believe it their right to do. And it’s an ad for beer, which makes you happy in the special way of all intoxicants, by reshaping reality around a sensation you alone are having. So, even more precisely, the ad means “Go have a beer and let it make you happy.” Nothing strange there. Except beer used to be sold on the dream of communal fun: have a beer with a buddy, or lots of buddies. People crowded the frame, laughing and smiling. It was a lie about alcohol—as this ad is a lie about alcohol—but it was a different kind of lie, a wide-framed lie, including other people.

Here the focus is narrow, almost obsessive. Everything that is not absolutely necessary to your happiness has been removed from the visual horizon. The dream is not only of happiness, but of happiness conceived in perfect isolation. Find your beach in the middle of the city. Find your beach no matter what else is happening. Do not be distracted from finding your beach. Find your beach even if—as in the case of this wall painting—it is not actually there. Create this beach inside yourself. Carry it with you wherever you go. The pursuit of happiness has always seemed to me a somewhat heavy American burden, but in Manhattan it is conceived as a peculiar form of duty.

In an exercise class recently the instructor shouted at me, at all of us: “Don’t let your mind set limits that aren’t really there.” You’ll find this attitude all over the island. It is encouraged and reflected in the popular culture, especially the movies, so many of which, after all, begin their creative lives here, in Manhattan. According to the movies it’s only our own limited brains that are keeping us

from happiness. In the future we will take a pill to make us limitless (and ideal citizens of Manhattan), or we will, like Scarlett Johansson in Lucy, use 100 percent of our brain’s capacity instead of the mythic 10. In these formulations the world as it is has no real claim on us. Our happiness, our miseries, our beaches, or our blasted heaths—they are all within our own power to create, or destroy. On Tina Fey’s television show 30 Rock, Jack Donaghy—the consummate citizen of this new Manhattan—deals with problems by crushing them with his “mind vise.”

The beach is always there: you just have to conceive of it. It follows that those who fail to find their beach are, in the final analysis, mentally fragile; in

Manhattan terms, simply weak. Jack Donaghy’s verbal swordplay with Liz Lemon was a comic rendering of the various things many citizens of Manhattan have come to regard as fatal weakness: childlessness, obesity, poverty. To find your beach you have to be ruthless. Manhattan is for the hard-bodied, the hardminded, the multitasker, the alpha mamas and papas. A perfect place for selfempowerment—as long as you’re pretty empowered to begin with. As long as you’re one of these people who simply do not allow anything—not even reality —to impinge upon that clear field of blue.

There is a kind of individualism so stark that it seems to dovetail with an existentialist creed: Manhattan is right at that crossroads. You are pure potential in Manhattan, limitless, you are making yourself every day. When I am in England each summer, it’s the opposite: all I see are the limits of my life. The brain that puts a hairbrush in the fridge, the leg that radiates pain from the hip to the toe, the lovely children who eat all my time, the books unread and unwritten.

And casting a shadow over it all is what Philip Larkin called “extinction’s alp,” no longer a stable peak in a distance, finally becoming rising ground. In England even at the actual beach I cannot find my beach. I look out at the freezing forty-degree water, at the families squeezed into ill-fitting wetsuits, huddled behind windbreakers, approaching a day at the beach with the kind of stoicism once conjured for things like the Battle of Britain, and all I can think is what funny, limited creatures we are, subject to every wind and wave, building castles in the sand that will only be knocked down by the generation coming up beneath us.

When I land at JFK, everything changes. For the first few days it is a shock: I have to get used to old New York ladies beside themselves with fury that I have stopped their smooth elevator journey and got in with some children. I have to remember not to pause while walking in the street—or during any fluid-moving city interaction—unless I want to utterly exasperate the person behind me. Each man and woman in this town is in pursuit of his or her beach and God help you if you get in their way. I suppose it should follow that I am happier in pragmatic England than idealist Manhattan, but I can’t honestly say that this is so. You don’t come to live here unless the delusion of a reality shaped around your own desires isn’t a strong aspect of your personality. “A reality shaped around your own desires”—there is something sociopathic in that ambition.

It is also a fair description of what it is to write fiction. And to live in a city where everyone has essentially the same tunnel vision and obsessive focus as a novelist is to disguise your own sociopathy among the herd. Objectively all the same limits are upon me in Manhattan as they are in England. I walk a ten-block radius every day, constrained in all the usual ways by domestic life, reduced to writing about whatever is right in front of my nose. But the fact remains that here I dowrite, the work gets done.

Even if my Manhattan productivity is powered by a sociopathic illusion of my own limitlessness, I’m thankful for it, at least when I’m writing. There’s a reason so many writers once lived here, beyond the convenient laundromats and the take-out food, the libraries and cafés. We have always worked off the energy generated by this town, the moneymaking and tower-building as much as the street art and underground cultures. Now the energy is different: the underground has almost entirely disappeared. (You hope there are still young artists in Washington Heights, in the Barrio, or Stuyvesant Town, but how much longer can they hang on?) A twisted kind of energy radiates instead off the SoulCycling mothers and marathon-running octogenarians, the entertainment lawyers glued to their iPhones and the moguls building five “individualized” condo townhouses where once there was a hospital.

It’s not a pretty energy, but it still runs what’s left of the show. I contribute to it. I ride a stationary bike like the rest of them. And then I despair when Shakespeare and Co. closes in favor of another Foot Locker. There’s no way to be in good faith on this island anymore. You have to crush so many things with your mind vise just to get through the day. Which seems to me another aspect of the ad outside of my window: willful intoxication. Or, to put it more snappily, “You don’t have to be high to live here, but it helps.”

Finally the greatest thing about Manhattan is the worst thing about Manhattan: self-actualization. Here you will be free to stretch yourself to your limit, to find the beach that is yours alone. But sooner or later you will be sitting on that beach wondering what comes next. I can see my own beach ahead now, as the children grow, as the practical limits fade; I see afresh the huge privilege of my position; it reclarifies itself. Under the protection of a university I live on one of the most privileged strips of built-up beach in the world, among people who believe they privileged strips of built-up beach in the world, among people who believe they have no limits and who push me, by their very proximity, into the same useful delusion, now and then.

It is such a good town in which to work and work. You can find your beach here, find it falsely but convincingly, still thinking of Manhattan as an isle of writers and artists—of downtown underground wildlings and uptown intellectuals—against all evidence to the contrary. Oh, you still see them occasionally here and there, but unless they are under the protection of a university—or have sold that TV show—they are all of them, every single last one of them, in Brooklyn.

[essay-istic]

There is a kind of individualism so stark

that it seems to dovetail with an existentialist creed: Manhattan is right at that crossroads. You are pure potential in Manhattan, limitless, you are making yourself every day. When I am in England each summer, it’s the opposite: all I see are the limits of my life. The brain that puts a hairbrush in the fridge, the leg that radiates pain from the hip to the toe, the lovely children who eat all my time, the books unread and unwritten.

And casting a shadow over it all is what Philip Larkin called “extinction’s alp,” no longer a stable peak in a distance, finally becoming rising ground. In England even at the actual beach I cannot find my beach. I look out at the freezing water, at the families squeezed into ill-fitting wetsuits, huddled behind windbreakers, approaching a day at the beach with the kind of stoicism once conjured for things like the Battle of Britain, and all I can think is what funny, limited creatures we are, subject to every wind and wave, building castles in the sand that will only be knocked down by the generation coming up beneath us.

When I land at JFK, everything changes. For the first few days it is a shock: I have to get used to old New York ladies beside themselves with fury that I have stopped their smooth elevator journey and got in with some children. I have to remember not to pause while walking in the street—or during any fluid-moving city interaction—unless I want to utterly exasperate the person behind me. Each man and woman in this town is in pursuit of his or her beach and God help  you if you get in their way. I suppose it should follow that I am happier in pragmatic England than idealist Manhattan, but I can’t honestly say that this is so. You don’t come to live here unless the delusion of a reality shaped around your own desires isn’t a strong aspect of your personality. “A reality shaped around your own desires”—there is something sociopathic in that ambition.

It is also a fair description of what it is to write fiction. And to live in a city where everyone has essentially the same tunnel vision and obsessive focus as a novelist is to disguise your own sociopathy among the herd. Objectively all the same limits are upon me in Manhattan as they are in England. I walk a ten-block radius every day, constrained in all the usual ways by domestic life, reduced to writing about whatever is right in front of my nose. But the fact remains that here I do write, the work gets done.

Even if my Manhattan productivity is powered by a sociopathic illusion of my own limitlessness, I’m thankful for it, at least when I’m writing. There’s a reason so many writers once lived here, beyond the convenient laundromats and the take-out food, the libraries and cafés. We have always worked off the energy generated by this town, the money-making and tower-building as much as the street art and underground cultures. Now the energy is different: the underground has almost entirely disappeared. (You hope there are still young artists in Washington Heights, in the Barrio, or Stuyvesant Town, but how much longer can they hang on?) A twisted kind of energy radiates instead off the soulcycling mothers and marathon-running octogenarians, the entertainment lawyers glued to their iPhones and the moguls building five “individualized” condo townhouses were once there was a hospital .   

Zadie Smith, “Find Your Beach” in Feel Free: Essays, Penguin Press 2018.

[sbroderickteam]

7 real estate investing lessons we can learn from Steve Jobs

I recently read the book "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson. As brilliant as Steve Jobs was, I came away from the book not with a sense of awe about the man who Steve Jobs was, but how despite his incredible success, how idiosyncratic and deeply flawed a human being he really was. Yes, he was a certifiable genius, although in some ways "certifiable" as well. Yes, we'll never see anyone else exactly like him, although Apple's stock price has done quite well since his death Yes, in American business, he will live in the pantheon of Edison, Einstein, and Ford, and he really thought he belonged there. Yes, he did leave an indelible mark on our society - in fact, totally revolutionizing five separate industries nearly simultaneously...but he deeply hurt many people on the way in his rise to near mythic status. Despite his greatness, he made tons of mistakes, cruelly alienated lots of people including his own daughter, and did some curiously unethical things in his relatively brief time on this earth. No doubt, the further you probe into the true personal lives of your "heroes" oftentimes the more you find, the less you like. I came away from reading the book in a word - exhausted, but exhilarated at the same time. In fact, it was refreshing in a way to know that although Jobs was "Steve Jobs the icon", he's just a guy like you and me. I realized that you don't have to be perfect to be great. And although there are many traits of Jobs I would never emulate in my own life, I felt like there were so many brilliant lessons that can be learned from him not only as a businessman and real estate investor, but as many lessons in what not to do as a father, a husband and a human being. The bottom line is this: you, I and anyone can be great. There are multiple paths to ultimate success in life and in real estate investing, and there are multiple lessons Steve Jobs can teach the real estate investor and which can be learned by you. The Top Seven Real Estate Investing Lessons Steve Jobs Taught Us 1. Fear Not Jobs was plagued by strange idiosyncrasies. His diet, his odd personal habits, his driving without a license plate, his parking in handicapped zones just to name a few. But one thing he was blessed with was a total and utter lack of fear. Lack of fear comes from many things; self-confidence, optimism, even delusions of grandeur (checkmarks on all three for Jobs here). One thing's for sure, he had enormous amounts of self-confidence. He felt he was special and that he was put on this earth to do great things by creating the technical marvels which ultimately influenced and bettered the lives of millions of people. Those innovations still affect us all each and every day. Even in the face of terminal pancreatic cancer, he seemed to have an almost irrational sense of self-confidence and lack of fear. His self-confidence was so great; he actually thought that he could cure himself with oddball diets and rituals, while shunning traditional medicine - medicine that just may have saved his life. Incredibly, he seemed to have a complete absence of fear of the one thing that most of us are deathly afraid of...death itself. It's terrifying to buy your first house flip, for sure. But is it as fearful as death? Keep things in perspective in order to control fear. Think of the worst case scenario if you do what you're fearful of. If you can handle the worst case pain and aggravation, then do it. If Steve Jobs could fearlessly stare down death, you can do the same. If you're just starting, then make your first real estate purchase. If you've been around the block a few times, try a new investment strategy you've never done before. When you face your fears and do what you fear most, you end up controlling your fears. 2. Pick Yourself Up Even After Your Failures Can you imagine the humiliation of being fired by the guy you picked to run your company? In one of the most public firings in corporate history, Steve Jobs was fired. This was big news when it happened, sending shockwaves throughout Silicon Valley and the rest of the corporate world. Jobs did wallow for a short period of time, sure. But he picked himself up and created a new company that was ultimate bought by the company and the successor he was fired by. If you are new to real estate investing and you lose a few thousand on your first deal because you overestimate your ARV, didn't stick by the 70% Rule or failed to tightly manage your general contractors, then provided the few thousand didn't bankrupt you, pick yourself up and try again. It's not how many times we fail; it's how many times we get back up after failure that counts most. 3. Marry Art and Functionality Many of us have iPhones. If you have one nearby while reading this or on the desktop beside you, pick it up. Feel the weight, notice the elegant stainless steel wrapping, the Gorilla glass screen, the smooth back. Swipe a few apps from side to side, browse the Internet, touch an app and see how they all gently jiggle to be deleted or modified. If you think all these enhancements and subtle artistic nuances of the device (since copied by the Google platform) are random, think again. Jobs dissected each of these features and weighed them for weeks and months prior to being introduced by Apple. And each feature indelibly bears his thumbprint - his signature. He married art and functionality to create everlasting products and innovation that will affect generations to come. There are lots of posts on this website that discuss the "steps" to real estate investing, house flipping, wholesaling, you name it. Follow these steps here and learn as much as you can. But then, put your own thumbprint on each of them - just like Steve Jobs did with each of his creations. Is there only one way to rehab a house for maximum resale? No way. Is there only one way to round up funding for your next apartment building? Not a chance. Virtually anyone can become a real estate investor as long as they have the desire and the ambition, but to become a massive success, it's going to take more than just what you learn from others. Its going to require you to put your own indelible stamp on every deal you do. Think like Steve jobs in how you can make your flip or rental a little bit different, enhanced or beautiful...marry art with functionality. 4. Listen to Your Inner Voice When you are new to real estate investing, you have no voice in your head. If you do have one, that voice is usually screaming to you "don't do it!" However, the more deals you do, a different inner voice starts to appear. This is the voice of experience. Maybe you are thinking about becoming a real estate investor and there's something that has stopped you from doing it. You went to school, you got a good job in finance or sales or maybe you're a doctor or a dentist - but there's something missing. When we don't listen to our inner voice, we mail it in, we do what we do on autopilot. You're reading this blog most likely because you want something more. You want to create the life you've always wanted. THAT is the inner voice calling you. Ignore it at your own peril. Jobs' inner voice screamed "change the world" - a pretty dramatic vision and a pretty big voice. He built computers to do it. That was his plan. What's yours? One thing that's abundantly clear with Jobs is that despite his many imperfections, he lived his life with very few regrets. He followed his inner voice. Whatever that voice is telling you, it would be smart to listen to it.  Even if it tells you to quit your job, become a full-time real estate investor, move to Tibet or become a gourmet sushi chef, listen to it. Live life with no regrets. 5. Expect More from Yourself and From Others Jobs was a real prick sometimes. He would berate people. He would yell at people. He would throw little temper tantrums. He was a totally obsessive control freak. And of course, he was an absolute perfectionist. He demanded this from himself and he demanded the same from everyone who worked for him. I am not saying that the WAY Jobs did it was right, far from it. He seemed like a real jerk to work for. But one thing's for sure, he pushed people to places where they never thought they were capable of going. He expected this of himself and he expected it from everyone who worked for him. Do it in your own way and do the same thing in your real estate investment career. If you need to get upset, do it. Don't overdo it or you will find nobody will want to work with you, so be careful. But shoot for perfection and settle for excellence at the very least. Jobs built products that revolutionized the world using this philosophy and he did it in his own way...so you do it in your own way. But don't try to be him. Be yourself and expect a lot from everyone and most importantly expect the absolute most from yourself. 6. Surround Yourself with the Most Talented People You Can Find Steve Jobs gets all the credit when you think of the legacy of greatness at Apple. Sounds good, but it's simply not true. Yes, Jobs made the ultimate decisions in all matters Apple from the type of sandstone used in Apple stores to the kind of glass used on iPhone screens. But what's less known is that he surrounded himself with some brilliant minds that simply made him and Apple better. Jobs surrounded himself with serious talent: the true mastermind behind the iPhone and iPad design Jony Ive, now CEO Steve Cook, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Toy Story creator John Lesseter, just to name a few. These super-talented people (not the faceless minions kowtowing to Jobs every whim as we may want to believe) don't get the credit they rightfully deserve. In real estate investing, surrounding yourself with an incredibly talented and knowledgeable team, including lawyers, real estate agents, general contractors, etc. - people in many cases who know far more than you - is just as important in real estate investing as it was in building one of the great companies of our generation. Steve Jobs realized that he couldn't do anything without great talent around him. How about you? 7. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish Success in anything in life is consistently looking to improve, to grow, to build and also to have fun. If you're going to do it for the majority of the time you have in any given day, shouldn't it be fun too? Jobs summed up this philosophy of innovation, creativity and fun in his memorable 2005 Stanford commencement address (check it out on YouTube if you haven't):     "When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960′s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.     Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.     Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." We can be just as special as he was and although we may not all build the next Apple; we can build excellence in what we do every day as real estate investors. As was previously reported on this blog, we as real estate investors not only enrich the lives of thousands of people every year with quality housing, but we create jobs and opportunities to the tune of $9.2 billion per year as well. What we do as real estate investors matters. Jobs would agree that is a worthy dream to pursue. And we all can learn much from him - both the good and the bad. But best of all, you don't have to be perfect in to be wildly successful like Steve Jobs. In fact, anything's possible in life if you continue to follow the simple lessons laid out above. Author: Mike LaCava Mike's Website: http://www.houseflippingschool.com

[rickthompsonteam]

7 real estate investing lessons we can learn from Steve Jobs

I recently read the book "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson. As brilliant as Steve Jobs was, I came away from the book not with a sense of awe about the man who Steve Jobs was, but how despite his incredible success, how idiosyncratic and deeply flawed a human being he really was. Yes, he was a certifiable genius, although in some ways "certifiable" as well. Yes, we'll never see anyone else exactly like him, although Apple's stock price has done quite well since his death Yes, in American business, he will live in the pantheon of Edison, Einstein, and Ford, and he really thought he belonged there. Yes, he did leave an indelible mark on our society - in fact, totally revolutionizing five separate industries nearly simultaneously...but he deeply hurt many people on the way in his rise to near mythic status. Despite his greatness, he made tons of mistakes, cruelly alienated lots of people including his own daughter, and did some curiously unethical things in his relatively brief time on this earth. No doubt, the further you probe into the true personal lives of your "heroes" oftentimes the more you find, the less you like. I came away from reading the book in a word - exhausted, but exhilarated at the same time. In fact, it was refreshing in a way to know that although Jobs was "Steve Jobs the icon", he's just a guy like you and me. I realized that you don't have to be perfect to be great. And although there are many traits of Jobs I would never emulate in my own life, I felt like there were so many brilliant lessons that can be learned from him not only as a businessman and real estate investor, but as many lessons in what not to do as a father, a husband and a human being. The bottom line is this: you, I and anyone can be great. There are multiple paths to ultimate success in life and in real estate investing, and there are multiple lessons Steve Jobs can teach the real estate investor and which can be learned by you. The Top Seven Real Estate Investing Lessons Steve Jobs Taught Us 1. Fear Not Jobs was plagued by strange idiosyncrasies. His diet, his odd personal habits, his driving without a license plate, his parking in handicapped zones just to name a few. But one thing he was blessed with was a total and utter lack of fear. Lack of fear comes from many things; self-confidence, optimism, even delusions of grandeur (checkmarks on all three for Jobs here). One thing's for sure, he had enormous amounts of self-confidence. He felt he was special and that he was put on this earth to do great things by creating the technical marvels which ultimately influenced and bettered the lives of millions of people. Those innovations still affect us all each and every day. Even in the face of terminal pancreatic cancer, he seemed to have an almost irrational sense of self-confidence and lack of fear. His self-confidence was so great; he actually thought that he could cure himself with oddball diets and rituals, while shunning traditional medicine - medicine that just may have saved his life. Incredibly, he seemed to have a complete absence of fear of the one thing that most of us are deathly afraid of...death itself. It's terrifying to buy your first house flip, for sure. But is it as fearful as death? Keep things in perspective in order to control fear. Think of the worst case scenario if you do what you're fearful of. If you can handle the worst case pain and aggravation, then do it. If Steve Jobs could fearlessly stare down death, you can do the same. If you're just starting, then make your first real estate purchase. If you've been around the block a few times, try a new investment strategy you've never done before. When you face your fears and do what you fear most, you end up controlling your fears. 2. Pick Yourself Up Even After Your Failures Can you imagine the humiliation of being fired by the guy you picked to run your company? In one of the most public firings in corporate history, Steve Jobs was fired. This was big news when it happened, sending shockwaves throughout Silicon Valley and the rest of the corporate world. Jobs did wallow for a short period of time, sure. But he picked himself up and created a new company that was ultimate bought by the company and the successor he was fired by. If you are new to real estate investing and you lose a few thousand on your first deal because you overestimate your ARV, didn't stick by the 70% Rule or failed to tightly manage your general contractors, then provided the few thousand didn't bankrupt you, pick yourself up and try again. It's not how many times we fail; it's how many times we get back up after failure that counts most. 3. Marry Art and Functionality Many of us have iPhones. If you have one nearby while reading this or on the desktop beside you, pick it up. Feel the weight, notice the elegant stainless steel wrapping, the Gorilla glass screen, the smooth back. Swipe a few apps from side to side, browse the Internet, touch an app and see how they all gently jiggle to be deleted or modified. If you think all these enhancements and subtle artistic nuances of the device (since copied by the Google platform) are random, think again. Jobs dissected each of these features and weighed them for weeks and months prior to being introduced by Apple. And each feature indelibly bears his thumbprint - his signature. He married art and functionality to create everlasting products and innovation that will affect generations to come. There are lots of posts on this website that discuss the "steps" to real estate investing, house flipping, wholesaling, you name it. Follow these steps here and learn as much as you can. But then, put your own thumbprint on each of them - just like Steve Jobs did with each of his creations. Is there only one way to rehab a house for maximum resale? No way. Is there only one way to round up funding for your next apartment building? Not a chance. Virtually anyone can become a real estate investor as long as they have the desire and the ambition, but to become a massive success, it's going to take more than just what you learn from others. Its going to require you to put your own indelible stamp on every deal you do. Think like Steve jobs in how you can make your flip or rental a little bit different, enhanced or beautiful...marry art with functionality. 4. Listen to Your Inner Voice When you are new to real estate investing, you have no voice in your head. If you do have one, that voice is usually screaming to you "don't do it!" However, the more deals you do, a different inner voice starts to appear. This is the voice of experience. Maybe you are thinking about becoming a real estate investor and there's something that has stopped you from doing it. You went to school, you got a good job in finance or sales or maybe you're a doctor or a dentist - but there's something missing. When we don't listen to our inner voice, we mail it in, we do what we do on autopilot. You're reading this blog most likely because you want something more. You want to create the life you've always wanted. THAT is the inner voice calling you. Ignore it at your own peril. Jobs' inner voice screamed "change the world" - a pretty dramatic vision and a pretty big voice. He built computers to do it. That was his plan. What's yours? One thing that's abundantly clear with Jobs is that despite his many imperfections, he lived his life with very few regrets. He followed his inner voice. Whatever that voice is telling you, it would be smart to listen to it.  Even if it tells you to quit your job, become a full-time real estate investor, move to Tibet or become a gourmet sushi chef, listen to it. Live life with no regrets. 5. Expect More from Yourself and From Others Jobs was a real prick sometimes. He would berate people. He would yell at people. He would throw little temper tantrums. He was a totally obsessive control freak. And of course, he was an absolute perfectionist. He demanded this from himself and he demanded the same from everyone who worked for him. I am not saying that the WAY Jobs did it was right, far from it. He seemed like a real jerk to work for. But one thing's for sure, he pushed people to places where they never thought they were capable of going. He expected this of himself and he expected it from everyone who worked for him. Do it in your own way and do the same thing in your real estate investment career. If you need to get upset, do it. Don't overdo it or you will find nobody will want to work with you, so be careful. But shoot for perfection and settle for excellence at the very least. Jobs built products that revolutionized the world using this philosophy and he did it in his own way...so you do it in your own way. But don't try to be him. Be yourself and expect a lot from everyone and most importantly expect the absolute most from yourself. 6. Surround Yourself with the Most Talented People You Can Find Steve Jobs gets all the credit when you think of the legacy of greatness at Apple. Sounds good, but it's simply not true. Yes, Jobs made the ultimate decisions in all matters Apple from the type of sandstone used in Apple stores to the kind of glass used on iPhone screens. But what's less known is that he surrounded himself with some brilliant minds that simply made him and Apple better. Jobs surrounded himself with serious talent: the true mastermind behind the iPhone and iPad design Jony Ive, now CEO Steve Cook, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Toy Story creator John Lesseter, just to name a few. These super-talented people (not the faceless minions kowtowing to Jobs every whim as we may want to believe) don't get the credit they rightfully deserve. In real estate investing, surrounding yourself with an incredibly talented and knowledgeable team, including lawyers, real estate agents, general contractors, etc. - people in many cases who know far more than you - is just as important in real estate investing as it was in building one of the great companies of our generation. Steve Jobs realized that he couldn't do anything without great talent around him. How about you? 7. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish Success in anything in life is consistently looking to improve, to grow, to build and also to have fun. If you're going to do it for the majority of the time you have in any given day, shouldn't it be fun too? Jobs summed up this philosophy of innovation, creativity and fun in his memorable 2005 Stanford commencement address (check it out on YouTube if you haven't):     "When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960′s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.     Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.     Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." We can be just as special as he was and although we may not all build the next Apple; we can build excellence in what we do every day as real estate investors. As was previously reported on this blog, we as real estate investors not only enrich the lives of thousands of people every year with quality housing, but we create jobs and opportunities to the tune of $9.2 billion per year as well. What we do as real estate investors matters. Jobs would agree that is a worthy dream to pursue. And we all can learn much from him - both the good and the bad. But best of all, you don't have to be perfect in to be wildly successful like Steve Jobs. In fact, anything's possible in life if you continue to follow the simple lessons laid out above. Author: Mike LaCava Mike's Website: http://www.houseflippingschool.com

[rasorealty]

7 real estate investing lessons we can learn from Steve Jobs

I recently read the book "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson. As brilliant as Steve Jobs was, I came away from the book not with a sense of awe about the man who Steve Jobs was, but how despite his incredible success, how idiosyncratic and deeply flawed a human being he really was. Yes, he was a certifiable genius, although in some ways "certifiable" as well. Yes, we'll never see anyone else exactly like him, although Apple's stock price has done quite well since his death Yes, in American business, he will live in the pantheon of Edison, Einstein, and Ford, and he really thought he belonged there. Yes, he did leave an indelible mark on our society - in fact, totally revolutionizing five separate industries nearly simultaneously...but he deeply hurt many people on the way in his rise to near mythic status. Despite his greatness, he made tons of mistakes, cruelly alienated lots of people including his own daughter, and did some curiously unethical things in his relatively brief time on this earth. No doubt, the further you probe into the true personal lives of your "heroes" oftentimes the more you find, the less you like. I came away from reading the book in a word - exhausted, but exhilarated at the same time. In fact, it was refreshing in a way to know that although Jobs was "Steve Jobs the icon", he's just a guy like you and me. I realized that you don't have to be perfect to be great. And although there are many traits of Jobs I would never emulate in my own life, I felt like there were so many brilliant lessons that can be learned from him not only as a businessman and real estate investor, but as many lessons in what not to do as a father, a husband and a human being. The bottom line is this: you, I and anyone can be great. There are multiple paths to ultimate success in life and in real estate investing, and there are multiple lessons Steve Jobs can teach the real estate investor and which can be learned by you. The Top Seven Real Estate Investing Lessons Steve Jobs Taught Us 1. Fear Not Jobs was plagued by strange idiosyncrasies. His diet, his odd personal habits, his driving without a license plate, his parking in handicapped zones just to name a few. But one thing he was blessed with was a total and utter lack of fear. Lack of fear comes from many things; self-confidence, optimism, even delusions of grandeur (checkmarks on all three for Jobs here). One thing's for sure, he had enormous amounts of self-confidence. He felt he was special and that he was put on this earth to do great things by creating the technical marvels which ultimately influenced and bettered the lives of millions of people. Those innovations still affect us all each and every day. Even in the face of terminal pancreatic cancer, he seemed to have an almost irrational sense of self-confidence and lack of fear. His self-confidence was so great; he actually thought that he could cure himself with oddball diets and rituals, while shunning traditional medicine - medicine that just may have saved his life. Incredibly, he seemed to have a complete absence of fear of the one thing that most of us are deathly afraid of...death itself. It's terrifying to buy your first house flip, for sure. But is it as fearful as death? Keep things in perspective in order to control fear. Think of the worst case scenario if you do what you're fearful of. If you can handle the worst case pain and aggravation, then do it. If Steve Jobs could fearlessly stare down death, you can do the same. If you're just starting, then make your first real estate purchase. If you've been around the block a few times, try a new investment strategy you've never done before. When you face your fears and do what you fear most, you end up controlling your fears. 2. Pick Yourself Up Even After Your Failures Can you imagine the humiliation of being fired by the guy you picked to run your company? In one of the most public firings in corporate history, Steve Jobs was fired. This was big news when it happened, sending shockwaves throughout Silicon Valley and the rest of the corporate world. Jobs did wallow for a short period of time, sure. But he picked himself up and created a new company that was ultimate bought by the company and the successor he was fired by. If you are new to real estate investing and you lose a few thousand on your first deal because you overestimate your ARV, didn't stick by the 70% Rule or failed to tightly manage your general contractors, then provided the few thousand didn't bankrupt you, pick yourself up and try again. It's not how many times we fail; it's how many times we get back up after failure that counts most. 3. Marry Art and Functionality Many of us have iPhones. If you have one nearby while reading this or on the desktop beside you, pick it up. Feel the weight, notice the elegant stainless steel wrapping, the Gorilla glass screen, the smooth back. Swipe a few apps from side to side, browse the Internet, touch an app and see how they all gently jiggle to be deleted or modified. If you think all these enhancements and subtle artistic nuances of the device (since copied by the Google platform) are random, think again. Jobs dissected each of these features and weighed them for weeks and months prior to being introduced by Apple. And each feature indelibly bears his thumbprint - his signature. He married art and functionality to create everlasting products and innovation that will affect generations to come. There are lots of posts on this website that discuss the "steps" to real estate investing, house flipping, wholesaling, you name it. Follow these steps here and learn as much as you can. But then, put your own thumbprint on each of them - just like Steve Jobs did with each of his creations. Is there only one way to rehab a house for maximum resale? No way. Is there only one way to round up funding for your next apartment building? Not a chance. Virtually anyone can become a real estate investor as long as they have the desire and the ambition, but to become a massive success, it's going to take more than just what you learn from others. Its going to require you to put your own indelible stamp on every deal you do. Think like Steve jobs in how you can make your flip or rental a little bit different, enhanced or beautiful...marry art with functionality. 4. Listen to Your Inner Voice When you are new to real estate investing, you have no voice in your head. If you do have one, that voice is usually screaming to you "don't do it!" However, the more deals you do, a different inner voice starts to appear. This is the voice of experience. Maybe you are thinking about becoming a real estate investor and there's something that has stopped you from doing it. You went to school, you got a good job in finance or sales or maybe you're a doctor or a dentist - but there's something missing. When we don't listen to our inner voice, we mail it in, we do what we do on autopilot. You're reading this blog most likely because you want something more. You want to create the life you've always wanted. THAT is the inner voice calling you. Ignore it at your own peril. Jobs' inner voice screamed "change the world" - a pretty dramatic vision and a pretty big voice. He built computers to do it. That was his plan. What's yours? One thing that's abundantly clear with Jobs is that despite his many imperfections, he lived his life with very few regrets. He followed his inner voice. Whatever that voice is telling you, it would be smart to listen to it.  Even if it tells you to quit your job, become a full-time real estate investor, move to Tibet or become a gourmet sushi chef, listen to it. Live life with no regrets. 5. Expect More from Yourself and From Others Jobs was a real prick sometimes. He would berate people. He would yell at people. He would throw little temper tantrums. He was a totally obsessive control freak. And of course, he was an absolute perfectionist. He demanded this from himself and he demanded the same from everyone who worked for him. I am not saying that the WAY Jobs did it was right, far from it. He seemed like a real jerk to work for. But one thing's for sure, he pushed people to places where they never thought they were capable of going. He expected this of himself and he expected it from everyone who worked for him. Do it in your own way and do the same thing in your real estate investment career. If you need to get upset, do it. Don't overdo it or you will find nobody will want to work with you, so be careful. But shoot for perfection and settle for excellence at the very least. Jobs built products that revolutionized the world using this philosophy and he did it in his own way...so you do it in your own way. But don't try to be him. Be yourself and expect a lot from everyone and most importantly expect the absolute most from yourself. 6. Surround Yourself with the Most Talented People You Can Find Steve Jobs gets all the credit when you think of the legacy of greatness at Apple. Sounds good, but it's simply not true. Yes, Jobs made the ultimate decisions in all matters Apple from the type of sandstone used in Apple stores to the kind of glass used on iPhone screens. But what's less known is that he surrounded himself with some brilliant minds that simply made him and Apple better. Jobs surrounded himself with serious talent: the true mastermind behind the iPhone and iPad design Jony Ive, now CEO Steve Cook, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Toy Story creator John Lesseter, just to name a few. These super-talented people (not the faceless minions kowtowing to Jobs every whim as we may want to believe) don't get the credit they rightfully deserve. In real estate investing, surrounding yourself with an incredibly talented and knowledgeable team, including lawyers, real estate agents, general contractors, etc. - people in many cases who know far more than you - is just as important in real estate investing as it was in building one of the great companies of our generation. Steve Jobs realized that he couldn't do anything without great talent around him. How about you? 7. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish Success in anything in life is consistently looking to improve, to grow, to build and also to have fun. If you're going to do it for the majority of the time you have in any given day, shouldn't it be fun too? Jobs summed up this philosophy of innovation, creativity and fun in his memorable 2005 Stanford commencement address (check it out on YouTube if you haven't):     "When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960′s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.     Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.     Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." We can be just as special as he was and although we may not all build the next Apple; we can build excellence in what we do every day as real estate investors. As was previously reported on this blog, we as real estate investors not only enrich the lives of thousands of people every year with quality housing, but we create jobs and opportunities to the tune of $9.2 billion per year as well. What we do as real estate investors matters. Jobs would agree that is a worthy dream to pursue. And we all can learn much from him - both the good and the bad. But best of all, you don't have to be perfect in to be wildly successful like Steve Jobs. In fact, anything's possible in life if you continue to follow the simple lessons laid out above. Author: Mike LaCava Mike's Website: http://www.houseflippingschool.com

[ileanarodriguezrealtor]

7 real estate investing lessons we can learn from Steve Jobs

  I recently read the book "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson. As brilliant as Steve Jobs was, I came away from the book not with a sense of awe about the man who Steve Jobs was, but how despite his incredible success, how idiosyncratic and deeply flawed a human being he really was. Yes, he was a certifiable genius, although in some ways "certifiable" as well. Yes, we'll never see anyone else exactly like him, although Apple's stock price has done quite well since his death Yes, in American business, he will live in the pantheon of Edison, Einstein, and Ford, and he really thought he belonged there. Yes, he did leave an indelible mark on our society – in fact, totally revolutionizing five separate industries nearly simultaneously...but he deeply hurt many people on the way in his rise to near mythic status. Despite his greatness, he made tons of mistakes, cruelly alienated lots of people including his own daughter, and did some curiously unethical things in his relatively brief time on this earth. No doubt, the further you probe into the true personal lives of your "heroes" oftentimes the more you find, the less you like. I came away from reading the book in a word - exhausted, but exhilarated at the same time. In fact, it was refreshing in a way to know that although Jobs was "Steve Jobs the icon", he's just a guy like you and me. I realized that you don't have to be perfect to be great. And although there are many traits of Jobs I would never emulate in my own life, I felt like there were so many brilliant lessons that can be learned from him not only as a businessman and real estate investor, but as many lessons in what not to do as a father, a husband and a human being. The bottom line is this: you, I and anyone can be great. There are multiple paths to ultimate success in life and in real estate investing, and there are multiple lessons Steve Jobs can teach the real estate investor and which can be learned by you. The Top Seven Real Estate Investing Lessons Steve Jobs Taught Us 1. Fear Not Jobs was plagued by strange idiosyncrasies. His diet, his odd personal habits, his driving without a license plate, his parking in handicapped zones just to name a few. But one thing he was blessed with was a total and utter lack of fear. Lack of fear comes from many things; self-confidence, optimism, even delusions of grandeur (checkmarks on all three for Jobs here). One thing's for sure, he had enormous amounts of self-confidence. He felt he was special and that he was put on this earth to do great things by creating the technical marvels which ultimately influenced and bettered the lives of millions of people. Those innovations still affect us all each and every day. Even in the face of terminal pancreatic cancer, he seemed to have an almost irrational sense of self-confidence and lack of fear. His self-confidence was so great; he actually thought that he could cure himself with oddball diets and rituals, while shunning traditional medicine – medicine that just may have saved his life. Incredibly, he seemed to have a complete absence of fear of the one thing that most of us are deathly afraid of...death itself. It's terrifying to buy your first house flip, for sure. But is it as fearful as death? Keep things in perspective in order to control fear. Think of the worst case scenario if you do what you're fearful of. If you can handle the worst case pain and aggravation, then do it. If Steve Jobs could fearlessly stare down death, you can do the same. If you're just starting, then make your first real estate purchase. If you've been around the block a few times, try a new investment strategy you've never done before. When you face your fears and do what you fear most, you end up controlling your fears. 2. Pick Yourself Up Even After Your Failures Can you imagine the humiliation of being fired by the guy you picked to run your company? In one of the most public firings in corporate history, Steve Jobs was fired. This was big news when it happened, sending shockwaves throughout Silicon Valley and the rest of the corporate world. Jobs did wallow for a short period of time, sure. But he picked himself up and created a new company that was ultimate bought by the company and the successor he was fired by. If you are new to real estate investing and you lose a few thousand on your first deal because you overestimate your ARV, didn't stick by the 70% Rule or failed to tightly manage your general contractors, then provided the few thousand didn't bankrupt you, pick yourself up and try again. It's not how many times we fail; it's how many times we get back up after failure that counts most. 3. Marry Art and Functionality Many of us have iPhones. If you have one nearby while reading this or on the desktop beside you, pick it up. Feel the weight, notice the elegant stainless steel wrapping, the Gorilla glass screen, the smooth back. Swipe a few apps from side to side, browse the Internet, touch an app and see how they all gently jiggle to be deleted or modified. If you think all these enhancements and subtle artistic nuances of the device (since copied by the Google platform) are random, think again. Jobs dissected each of these features and weighed them for weeks and months prior to being introduced by Apple. And each feature indelibly bears his thumbprint - his signature. He married art and functionality to create everlasting products and innovation that will affect generations to come. There are lots of posts on this website that discuss the "steps" to real estate investing, house flipping, wholesaling, you name it. Follow these steps here and learn as much as you can. But then, put your own thumbprint on each of them – just like Steve Jobs did with each of his creations. Is there only one way to rehab a house for maximum resale? No way. Is there only one way to round up funding for your next apartment building? Not a chance. Virtually anyone can become a real estate investor as long as they have the desire and the ambition, but to become a massive success, it's going to take more than just what you learn from others. Its going to require you to put your own indelible stamp on every deal you do. Think like Steve jobs in how you can make your flip or rental a little bit different, enhanced or beautiful...marry art with functionality. 4. Listen to Your Inner Voice When you are new to real estate investing, you have no voice in your head. If you do have one, that voice is usually screaming to you "don't do it!" However, the more deals you do, a different inner voice starts to appear. This is the voice of experience. Maybe you are thinking about becoming a real estate investor and there's something that has stopped you from doing it. You went to school, you got a good job in finance or sales or maybe you're a doctor or a dentist - but there's something missing. When we don't listen to our inner voice, we mail it in, we do what we do on autopilot. You're reading this blog most likely because you want something more. You want to create the life you've always wanted. THAT is the inner voice calling you. Ignore it at your own peril. Jobs' inner voice screamed "change the world" - a pretty dramatic vision and a pretty big voice. He built computers to do it. That was his plan. What's yours? One thing that's abundantly clear with Jobs is that despite his many imperfections, he lived his life with very few regrets. He followed his inner voice. Whatever that voice is telling you, it would be smart to listen to it.  Even if it tells you to quit your job, become a full-time real estate investor, move to Tibet or become a gourmet sushi chef, listen to it. Live life with no regrets. 5. Expect More from Yourself and From Others Jobs was a real prick sometimes. He would berate people. He would yell at people. He would throw little temper tantrums. He was a totally obsessive control freak. And of course, he was an absolute perfectionist. He demanded this from himself and he demanded the same from everyone who worked for him. I am not saying that the WAY Jobs did it was right, far from it. He seemed like a real jerk to work for. But one thing's for sure, he pushed people to places where they never thought they were capable of going. He expected this of himself and he expected it from everyone who worked for him. Do it in your own way and do the same thing in your real estate investment career. If you need to get upset, do it. Don't overdo it or you will find nobody will want to work with you, so be careful. But shoot for perfection and settle for excellence at the very least. Jobs built products that revolutionized the world using this philosophy and he did it in his own way...so you do it in your own way. But don't try to be him. Be yourself and expect a lot from everyone and most importantly expect the absolute most from yourself. 6. Surround Yourself with the Most Talented People You Can Find Steve Jobs gets all the credit when you think of the legacy of greatness at Apple. Sounds good, but it's simply not true. Yes, Jobs made the ultimate decisions in all matters Apple from the type of sandstone used in Apple stores to the kind of glass used on iPhone screens. But what's less known is that he surrounded himself with some brilliant minds that simply made him and Apple better. Jobs surrounded himself with serious talent: the true mastermind behind the iPhone and iPad design Jony Ive, now CEO Steve Cook, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Toy Story creator John Lesseter, just to name a few. These super-talented people (not the faceless minions kowtowing to Jobs every whim as we may want to believe) don't get the credit they rightfully deserve. In real estate investing, surrounding yourself with an incredibly talented and knowledgeable team, including lawyers, real estate agents, general contractors, etc. – people in many cases who know far more than you – is just as important in real estate investing as it was in building one of the great companies of our generation. Steve Jobs realized that he couldn't do anything without great talent around him. How about you? 7. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish Success in anything in life is consistently looking to improve, to grow, to build and also to have fun. If you're going to do it for the majority of the time you have in any given day, shouldn't it be fun too? Jobs summed up this philosophy of innovation, creativity and fun in his memorable 2005 Stanford commencement address (check it out on YouTube if you haven't):     "When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960′s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.     Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.     Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." We can be just as special as he was and although we may not all build the next Apple; we can build excellence in what we do every day as real estate investors. As was previously reported on this blog, we as real estate investors not only enrich the lives of thousands of people every year with quality housing, but we create jobs and opportunities to the tune of $9.2 billion per year as well. What we do as real estate investors matters. Jobs would agree that is a worthy dream to pursue. And we all can learn much from him – both the good and the bad. But best of all, you don't have to be perfect in to be wildly successful like Steve Jobs. In fact, anything's possible in life if you continue to follow the simple lessons laid out above. Author: Mike LaCava Mike's Website: http://www.houseflippingschool.com

[cindybanksteam]

7 real estate investing lessons we can learn from Steve Jobs

I recently read the book "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson. As brilliant as Steve Jobs was, I came away from the book not with a sense of awe about the man who Steve Jobs was, but how despite his incredible success, how idiosyncratic and deeply flawed a human being he really was. Yes, he was a certifiable genius, although in some ways "certifiable" as well. Yes, we'll never see anyone else exactly like him, although Apple's stock price has done quite well since his death Yes, in American business, he will live in the pantheon of Edison, Einstein, and Ford, and he really thought he belonged there. Yes, he did leave an indelible mark on our society - in fact, totally revolutionizing five separate industries nearly simultaneously...but he deeply hurt many people on the way in his rise to near mythic status. Despite his greatness, he made tons of mistakes, cruelly alienated lots of people including his own daughter, and did some curiously unethical things in his relatively brief time on this earth. No doubt, the further you probe into the true personal lives of your "heroes" oftentimes the more you find, the less you like. I came away from reading the book in a word - exhausted, but exhilarated at the same time. In fact, it was refreshing in a way to know that although Jobs was "Steve Jobs the icon", he's just a guy like you and me. I realized that you don't have to be perfect to be great. And although there are many traits of Jobs I would never emulate in my own life, I felt like there were so many brilliant lessons that can be learned from him not only as a businessman and real estate investor, but as many lessons in what not to do as a father, a husband and a human being. The bottom line is this: you, I and anyone can be great. There are multiple paths to ultimate success in life and in real estate investing, and there are multiple lessons Steve Jobs can teach the real estate investor and which can be learned by you. The Top Seven Real Estate Investing Lessons Steve Jobs Taught Us 1. Fear Not Jobs was plagued by strange idiosyncrasies. His diet, his odd personal habits, his driving without a license plate, his parking in handicapped zones just to name a few. But one thing he was blessed with was a total and utter lack of fear. Lack of fear comes from many things; self-confidence, optimism, even delusions of grandeur (checkmarks on all three for Jobs here). One thing's for sure, he had enormous amounts of self-confidence. He felt he was special and that he was put on this earth to do great things by creating the technical marvels which ultimately influenced and bettered the lives of millions of people. Those innovations still affect us all each and every day. Even in the face of terminal pancreatic cancer, he seemed to have an almost irrational sense of self-confidence and lack of fear. His self-confidence was so great; he actually thought that he could cure himself with oddball diets and rituals, while shunning traditional medicine - medicine that just may have saved his life. Incredibly, he seemed to have a complete absence of fear of the one thing that most of us are deathly afraid of...death itself. It's terrifying to buy your first house flip, for sure. But is it as fearful as death? Keep things in perspective in order to control fear. Think of the worst case scenario if you do what you're fearful of. If you can handle the worst case pain and aggravation, then do it. If Steve Jobs could fearlessly stare down death, you can do the same. If you're just starting, then make your first real estate purchase. If you've been around the block a few times, try a new investment strategy you've never done before. When you face your fears and do what you fear most, you end up controlling your fears. 2. Pick Yourself Up Even After Your Failures Can you imagine the humiliation of being fired by the guy you picked to run your company? In one of the most public firings in corporate history, Steve Jobs was fired. This was big news when it happened, sending shockwaves throughout Silicon Valley and the rest of the corporate world. Jobs did wallow for a short period of time, sure. But he picked himself up and created a new company that was ultimate bought by the company and the successor he was fired by. If you are new to real estate investing and you lose a few thousand on your first deal because you overestimate your ARV, didn't stick by the 70% Rule or failed to tightly manage your general contractors, then provided the few thousand didn't bankrupt you, pick yourself up and try again. It's not how many times we fail; it's how many times we get back up after failure that counts most. 3. Marry Art and Functionality Many of us have iPhones. If you have one nearby while reading this or on the desktop beside you, pick it up. Feel the weight, notice the elegant stainless steel wrapping, the Gorilla glass screen, the smooth back. Swipe a few apps from side to side, browse the Internet, touch an app and see how they all gently jiggle to be deleted or modified. If you think all these enhancements and subtle artistic nuances of the device (since copied by the Google platform) are random, think again. Jobs dissected each of these features and weighed them for weeks and months prior to being introduced by Apple. And each feature indelibly bears his thumbprint - his signature. He married art and functionality to create everlasting products and innovation that will affect generations to come. There are lots of posts on this website that discuss the "steps" to real estate investing, house flipping, wholesaling, you name it. Follow these steps here and learn as much as you can. But then, put your own thumbprint on each of them - just like Steve Jobs did with each of his creations. Is there only one way to rehab a house for maximum resale? No way. Is there only one way to round up funding for your next apartment building? Not a chance. Virtually anyone can become a real estate investor as long as they have the desire and the ambition, but to become a massive success, it's going to take more than just what you learn from others. Its going to require you to put your own indelible stamp on every deal you do. Think like Steve jobs in how you can make your flip or rental a little bit different, enhanced or beautiful...marry art with functionality. 4. Listen to Your Inner Voice When you are new to real estate investing, you have no voice in your head. If you do have one, that voice is usually screaming to you "don't do it!" However, the more deals you do, a different inner voice starts to appear. This is the voice of experience. Maybe you are thinking about becoming a real estate investor and there's something that has stopped you from doing it. You went to school, you got a good job in finance or sales or maybe you're a doctor or a dentist - but there's something missing. When we don't listen to our inner voice, we mail it in, we do what we do on autopilot. You're reading this blog most likely because you want something more. You want to create the life you've always wanted. THAT is the inner voice calling you. Ignore it at your own peril. Jobs' inner voice screamed "change the world" - a pretty dramatic vision and a pretty big voice. He built computers to do it. That was his plan. What's yours? One thing that's abundantly clear with Jobs is that despite his many imperfections, he lived his life with very few regrets. He followed his inner voice. Whatever that voice is telling you, it would be smart to listen to it.  Even if it tells you to quit your job, become a full-time real estate investor, move to Tibet or become a gourmet sushi chef, listen to it. Live life with no regrets. 5. Expect More from Yourself and From Others Jobs was a real prick sometimes. He would berate people. He would yell at people. He would throw little temper tantrums. He was a totally obsessive control freak. And of course, he was an absolute perfectionist. He demanded this from himself and he demanded the same from everyone who worked for him. I am not saying that the WAY Jobs did it was right, far from it. He seemed like a real jerk to work for. But one thing's for sure, he pushed people to places where they never thought they were capable of going. He expected this of himself and he expected it from everyone who worked for him. Do it in your own way and do the same thing in your real estate investment career. If you need to get upset, do it. Don't overdo it or you will find nobody will want to work with you, so be careful. But shoot for perfection and settle for excellence at the very least. Jobs built products that revolutionized the world using this philosophy and he did it in his own way...so you do it in your own way. But don't try to be him. Be yourself and expect a lot from everyone and most importantly expect the absolute most from yourself. 6. Surround Yourself with the Most Talented People You Can Find Steve Jobs gets all the credit when you think of the legacy of greatness at Apple. Sounds good, but it's simply not true. Yes, Jobs made the ultimate decisions in all matters Apple from the type of sandstone used in Apple stores to the kind of glass used on iPhone screens. But what's less known is that he surrounded himself with some brilliant minds that simply made him and Apple better. Jobs surrounded himself with serious talent: the true mastermind behind the iPhone and iPad design Jony Ive, now CEO Steve Cook, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Toy Story creator John Lesseter, just to name a few. These super-talented people (not the faceless minions kowtowing to Jobs every whim as we may want to believe) don't get the credit they rightfully deserve. In real estate investing, surrounding yourself with an incredibly talented and knowledgeable team, including lawyers, real estate agents, general contractors, etc. - people in many cases who know far more than you - is just as important in real estate investing as it was in building one of the great companies of our generation. Steve Jobs realized that he couldn't do anything without great talent around him. How about you? 7. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish Success in anything in life is consistently looking to improve, to grow, to build and also to have fun. If you're going to do it for the majority of the time you have in any given day, shouldn't it be fun too? Jobs summed up this philosophy of innovation, creativity and fun in his memorable 2005 Stanford commencement address (check it out on YouTube if you haven't):     "When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960′s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.     Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.     Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." We can be just as special as he was and although we may not all build the next Apple; we can build excellence in what we do every day as real estate investors. As was previously reported on this blog, we as real estate investors not only enrich the lives of thousands of people every year with quality housing, but we create jobs and opportunities to the tune of $9.2 billion per year as well. What we do as real estate investors matters. Jobs would agree that is a worthy dream to pursue. And we all can learn much from him - both the good and the bad. But best of all, you don't have to be perfect in to be wildly successful like Steve Jobs. In fact, anything's possible in life if you continue to follow the simple lessons laid out above. Author: Mike LaCava Mike's Website: http://www.houseflippingschool.com

[2jackreiss]

7 real estate investing lessons we can learn from Steve Jobs

I recently read the book "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson. As brilliant as Steve Jobs was, I came away from the book not with a sense of awe about the man who Steve Jobs was, but how despite his incredible success, how idiosyncratic and deeply flawed a human being he really was. Yes, he was a certifiable genius, although in some ways "certifiable" as well. Yes, we'll never see anyone else exactly like him, although Apple's stock price has done quite well since his death Yes, in American business, he will live in the pantheon of Edison, Einstein, and Ford, and he really thought he belonged there. Yes, he did leave an indelible mark on our society - in fact, totally revolutionizing five separate industries nearly simultaneously...but he deeply hurt many people on the way in his rise to near mythic status. Despite his greatness, he made tons of mistakes, cruelly alienated lots of people including his own daughter, and did some curiously unethical things in his relatively brief time on this earth. No doubt, the further you probe into the true personal lives of your "heroes" oftentimes the more you find, the less you like. I came away from reading the book in a word - exhausted, but exhilarated at the same time. In fact, it was refreshing in a way to know that although Jobs was "Steve Jobs the icon", he's just a guy like you and me. I realized that you don't have to be perfect to be great. And although there are many traits of Jobs I would never emulate in my own life, I felt like there were so many brilliant lessons that can be learned from him not only as a businessman and real estate investor, but as many lessons in what not to do as a father, a husband and a human being. The bottom line is this: you, I and anyone can be great. There are multiple paths to ultimate success in life and in real estate investing, and there are multiple lessons Steve Jobs can teach the real estate investor and which can be learned by you. The Top Seven Real Estate Investing Lessons Steve Jobs Taught Us 1. Fear Not Jobs was plagued by strange idiosyncrasies. His diet, his odd personal habits, his driving without a license plate, his parking in handicapped zones just to name a few. But one thing he was blessed with was a total and utter lack of fear. Lack of fear comes from many things; self-confidence, optimism, even delusions of grandeur (checkmarks on all three for Jobs here). One thing's for sure, he had enormous amounts of self-confidence. He felt he was special and that he was put on this earth to do great things by creating the technical marvels which ultimately influenced and bettered the lives of millions of people. Those innovations still affect us all each and every day. Even in the face of terminal pancreatic cancer, he seemed to have an almost irrational sense of self-confidence and lack of fear. His self-confidence was so great; he actually thought that he could cure himself with oddball diets and rituals, while shunning traditional medicine - medicine that just may have saved his life. Incredibly, he seemed to have a complete absence of fear of the one thing that most of us are deathly afraid of...death itself. It's terrifying to buy your first house flip, for sure. But is it as fearful as death? Keep things in perspective in order to control fear. Think of the worst case scenario if you do what you're fearful of. If you can handle the worst case pain and aggravation, then do it. If Steve Jobs could fearlessly stare down death, you can do the same. If you're just starting, then make your first real estate purchase. If you've been around the block a few times, try a new investment strategy you've never done before. When you face your fears and do what you fear most, you end up controlling your fears. 2. Pick Yourself Up Even After Your Failures Can you imagine the humiliation of being fired by the guy you picked to run your company? In one of the most public firings in corporate history, Steve Jobs was fired. This was big news when it happened, sending shockwaves throughout Silicon Valley and the rest of the corporate world. Jobs did wallow for a short period of time, sure. But he picked himself up and created a new company that was ultimate bought by the company and the successor he was fired by. If you are new to real estate investing and you lose a few thousand on your first deal because you overestimate your ARV, didn't stick by the 70% Rule or failed to tightly manage your general contractors, then provided the few thousand didn't bankrupt you, pick yourself up and try again. It's not how many times we fail; it's how many times we get back up after failure that counts most. 3. Marry Art and Functionality Many of us have iPhones. If you have one nearby while reading this or on the desktop beside you, pick it up. Feel the weight, notice the elegant stainless steel wrapping, the Gorilla glass screen, the smooth back. Swipe a few apps from side to side, browse the Internet, touch an app and see how they all gently jiggle to be deleted or modified. If you think all these enhancements and subtle artistic nuances of the device (since copied by the Google platform) are random, think again. Jobs dissected each of these features and weighed them for weeks and months prior to being introduced by Apple. And each feature indelibly bears his thumbprint - his signature. He married art and functionality to create everlasting products and innovation that will affect generations to come. There are lots of posts on this website that discuss the "steps" to real estate investing, house flipping, wholesaling, you name it. Follow these steps here and learn as much as you can. But then, put your own thumbprint on each of them - just like Steve Jobs did with each of his creations. Is there only one way to rehab a house for maximum resale? No way. Is there only one way to round up funding for your next apartment building? Not a chance. Virtually anyone can become a real estate investor as long as they have the desire and the ambition, but to become a massive success, it's going to take more than just what you learn from others. Its going to require you to put your own indelible stamp on every deal you do. Think like Steve jobs in how you can make your flip or rental a little bit different, enhanced or beautiful...marry art with functionality. 4. Listen to Your Inner Voice When you are new to real estate investing, you have no voice in your head. If you do have one, that voice is usually screaming to you "don't do it!" However, the more deals you do, a different inner voice starts to appear. This is the voice of experience. Maybe you are thinking about becoming a real estate investor and there's something that has stopped you from doing it. You went to school, you got a good job in finance or sales or maybe you're a doctor or a dentist - but there's something missing. When we don't listen to our inner voice, we mail it in, we do what we do on autopilot. You're reading this blog most likely because you want something more. You want to create the life you've always wanted. THAT is the inner voice calling you. Ignore it at your own peril. Jobs' inner voice screamed "change the world" - a pretty dramatic vision and a pretty big voice. He built computers to do it. That was his plan. What's yours? One thing that's abundantly clear with Jobs is that despite his many imperfections, he lived his life with very few regrets. He followed his inner voice. Whatever that voice is telling you, it would be smart to listen to it.  Even if it tells you to quit your job, become a full-time real estate investor, move to Tibet or become a gourmet sushi chef, listen to it. Live life with no regrets. 5. Expect More from Yourself and From Others Jobs was a real prick sometimes. He would berate people. He would yell at people. He would throw little temper tantrums. He was a totally obsessive control freak. And of course, he was an absolute perfectionist. He demanded this from himself and he demanded the same from everyone who worked for him. I am not saying that the WAY Jobs did it was right, far from it. He seemed like a real jerk to work for. But one thing's for sure, he pushed people to places where they never thought they were capable of going. He expected this of himself and he expected it from everyone who worked for him. Do it in your own way and do the same thing in your real estate investment career. If you need to get upset, do it. Don't overdo it or you will find nobody will want to work with you, so be careful. But shoot for perfection and settle for excellence at the very least. Jobs built products that revolutionized the world using this philosophy and he did it in his own way...so you do it in your own way. But don't try to be him. Be yourself and expect a lot from everyone and most importantly expect the absolute most from yourself. 6. Surround Yourself with the Most Talented People You Can Find Steve Jobs gets all the credit when you think of the legacy of greatness at Apple. Sounds good, but it's simply not true. Yes, Jobs made the ultimate decisions in all matters Apple from the type of sandstone used in Apple stores to the kind of glass used on iPhone screens. But what's less known is that he surrounded himself with some brilliant minds that simply made him and Apple better. Jobs surrounded himself with serious talent: the true mastermind behind the iPhone and iPad design Jony Ive, now CEO Steve Cook, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Toy Story creator John Lesseter, just to name a few. These super-talented people (not the faceless minions kowtowing to Jobs every whim as we may want to believe) don't get the credit they rightfully deserve. In real estate investing, surrounding yourself with an incredibly talented and knowledgeable team, including lawyers, real estate agents, general contractors, etc. - people in many cases who know far more than you - is just as important in real estate investing as it was in building one of the great companies of our generation. Steve Jobs realized that he couldn't do anything without great talent around him. How about you? 7. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish Success in anything in life is consistently looking to improve, to grow, to build and also to have fun. If you're going to do it for the majority of the time you have in any given day, shouldn't it be fun too? Jobs summed up this philosophy of innovation, creativity and fun in his memorable 2005 Stanford commencement address (check it out on YouTube if you haven't):     "When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960′s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.     Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.     Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." We can be just as special as he was and although we may not all build the next Apple; we can build excellence in what we do every day as real estate investors. As was previously reported on this blog, we as real estate investors not only enrich the lives of thousands of people every year with quality housing, but we create jobs and opportunities to the tune of $9.2 billion per year as well. What we do as real estate investors matters. Jobs would agree that is a worthy dream to pursue. And we all can learn much from him - both the good and the bad. But best of all, you don't have to be perfect in to be wildly successful like Steve Jobs. In fact, anything's possible in life if you continue to follow the simple lessons laid out above. Author: Mike LaCava Mike's Website: http://www.houseflippingschool.com