Archive for faulty beliefs
Permanent decisions
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Thought for today:
Never make permanent decisions based on temporary emotions. We can;t control our emotions, they just happen to us don;t they. And most of the time we are being influenced by them because that is part of being a thinking feeling being.
Yet we often make decisions we later regret because those decisions are permanent and not what we would have done if we were less angry/sad/happy.
Think about it for a minute, from unwanted pregnancies to destroyed marriages and financial ruin. Permanent decisions made under the influence of a temporary emotion.
To stop this damage I am learning how to make temporary decisions so that I can check my emotions out. In stead of !$^&$^%#&$^ and ^%$#*!%&#)* to you too I now say:
“Let’s discuss this later on when I can think more clearly about it”.
Recognising our emotional barometer is a great place to start. None of us are going to make rational decisions in the heat of an emotional meltdown so once we establish that as a fact in our lives we can learn to say to ourselves I must not make any decisions right now until I am calmed down, sober, whatever it may be.
This has been quite a revelation to me today, not sure why.
I guess as I get older I understand the word permanent a bit better 
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Perspective
Posted by: | CommentsI have always been fascinated with perspective in art and life.
Whether it’s something like this:
which is funny and clever, well brilliant actually, right through to people’s perspective on life and how that affects them.
For example it has taken me 2 years to change my perspective fully on property investing because I had to reframe my world view to allow for the US market. Even though I have done a lot of investing in New Zealand it has taken me a lot of “work” to stop being surprised at being able to buy houses for only 50K instead of 300K. And to stop looking at 10 to 15% net returns with a “too good to be true” attitude.
I have been amazed at how long it has taken me and just how hard it was to reprogramme myself so that I could look at this new market and learn to benefit from it without being starry eyed. And what I also learned was that cliche’s can be dangerous programming also.
I have often said and heard it quoted ten gazillion times: “If it sounds too good to be true it probably is”.
And in many ways that statement is absolutely true. HOWEVER it is true positionally but not situationally. What do I mean? Well avoiding shonky deals by applying this principle will keep you out of a lot of trouble, but if you uplift a set of rules from one country and drop them down in another country, change the situation in other words, then this principle itself becomes silly.
For example if you were offered a twenty five percent return property today in Auckland you would know immediately that there was an error in somebody’s numbers or there was something seriously weird/dodgy going on. But that very level of return is on offer every day of the week in the USA so it is no longer too good to be true, it is situation normal.
I have used the US example because it has been my recent journey but you will have mindsets and stories embedded in your mind that affect/protect and limit you everyday.
My encouragement to you this morning is to stretch yourself mentally. What is your biggest worry or daily issue, your reprogramming needs to start right there. What are you believing about yourself that is a lie??
Discover it, expose it, and then start changing it!!
Get Going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus!!
Long and winding road
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I was reading a guru’s website today singing the praises of finding the path of least resistance. The theory is that success comes fastest if you find the easiest route to success. Comparisons with beautiful flowing rivers etc. are used to make us think about how easy our life could be if we could just find this easy path.
The problem with this wonderful idea is that it is total bollocks .
We were designed to push against resistance from cradle to the grave. We had to fight our way out of the womb, our muscles only develop when we use them and paths of least resistance have to violate the fact that most things left to themselves become increasingly chaotic. Look at the back of your garage for example.
It’s a bit like another semi myth called “passive” cashflow. Now don’t get me wrong I am a great believer in passive income but it is rarely ever going to be completely passive. If you spend a lot of time, energy and money building a great property portfolio you would be stupid to hand it over to property managers and never have any interest in your properties ever again. You would manage the managers, keep a watchful eye on the markets etc. and generally make sure your investments were being looked after right.
So let’s get off this fantasy train of success being easy, attractable and hard work being somehow second best.
I have learned that by doing now what others won’t do, that is WORK HARD AND SMART, then when I am older I will be able to do what everybody else can’t do, ENJOY MYSELF AND BE FINANCIALLY FREE.
Enjoy yourself along the way of course but if you keep looking for the silver bullet you just might end up on the receiving end of it
If I was looking for the path of least resistance I would have a sex change, have as many kids as possible and let the government pay me to do nothing!
OK rant over, back to work. But remember, work hard now so that you can relax later. Don;t look for the short cut, look for the best way to achieve the long term result!!
Get Going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus
Culture-ism
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It is fascinating to observe how different cultures respond to different situations. As I spend time in Asia, the USA and New Zealand I see very different cultural responses to the current global financial situation. As I alluded to in earlier blogs New Zealanders seem to be becoming increasingly depressed and angry, lashing out in frustration and creating a field day for litigators.
This is most uncharacteristic behaviour but increasing daily.
In Asia they see the current situation as an opportunity to make money and diversify into other areas. They simply work harder, get better educated and take better action. A great example of this was when i sent out my example of a 22% return property in the USA I sold 3 to Asian investors within an hour of the email going and had around 200 enquiries from kiwis, not one of whom has yet taken any action .
And in America they simply don’t have a clue that anything is really going on and they continue business as usual. They are quite happy generally because everything is Obamas fault but they still have their 15 credit cards and 60 inch televisions.
Same situation, equally relevant in each country and 3 totally different responses.
So what this tells me is that our environment and culture have an enormous impact on how we respond to adversity and opportunity.
And what that tells me is that we have to learn how to break out of our cultural responses to get a different result in our lives.
Step 1: Understand that a lot of what you think is not what you really think, it is what you have been trained into thinking. And the power to change starts with thinking about what you think about . More on this another day!
Get going and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus
PS: I have private lists of some awesome properties in the USA. If you are keen on investing but cannot join us next week I am happy to inspect and send photos etc. for you and get your foot on anything you like. Email me if you’d like any help before Friday!!
Have you failed enough yet??
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I was sharing some of my stuff ups last night with my webinar clients which reminded me just how important it is to get out there and fail as much as you can as fast as you can.
Now obviously this is not our ultimate goal, however it is important that we learn to embrace trying and failing as an essential part of our journey. The key thing of course is that we learn and grow so that we end up at the door of success.
So the next time something goes wrong consider the following:
1. What really went wrong? What part of this failure is my personal responsibility?
2. Why didn’t I see it coming? What can I look for next time to not repeat this?
3. What could I do differently if a similar situation arises? How could I have gotten a better outcome?
4. What are the 10 good things I have learned from this that I can use to develop my ability to succeed
5. Most importantly go and celebrate your failure as a major learning experience and look forward to the next curve ball!!
Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus
The Ethical Investor
PS: See you in CHCH next week!! www.nzpropertygurus.com
Eat the Rich??
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There is a very sad and bizarre debate/attack going on in New Zealand at the moment surrounding executive salaries. Sometimes an emotive subject brings out the dysfunction in a culture and in New Zealand wages and housing both do it.
People earning millions of dollars a year are being attacked for being overpaid and the companies that employ them, many are quango’s or large monopoly style organisations, are being hammered for irresponsibility.
So to me this is just patent nonsense. I have never read such drivel as I have in the last couple of weeks about it. If someone can find a way to get paid a fortune every year without being dishonest shouldn’t we celebrate their success?
If someone has skills that are so honed or valuable that a company recognises it by paying them 5 million a year we should be emulating that persons methods shouldn’t we? But oh no not in New Zealand, instead we get stuff like this:
“Eyebrows and ire were both raised by recent reports of big bonuses – contributing to even bigger remuneration packages – paid out to the executives of some of our leading companies. Even when those companies had seen profit margins fall substantially.
Nothing more strongly suggests the lessons that seemed such a clear legacy of the global financial meltdown a few brief months ago have been quickly and conveniently forgotten.
Even the justification offered by the spokesman for the Institute of Directors was redolent of a distinctly pre-recession complacency.
“If we are to attract the talent we need,” he solemnly intoned, “we have to pay salaries to match those paid in the rest of the world.”
Sadly because this writer is a senior person at a university he is listened to. What people don’t understand is that university lecturer’s are basically “poor people”. They are happy to earn an academic salary instead of ever generating real wealth for themselves. Put another way, they have no idea what they are talking about.
This culture of success bashing is highly toxic and contributes to our poverty as a nation. This is really a serious problem that we need to fight against. Every one of us should be thinking: “How can I increase my net worth and income by a MINIMUM of 20% every year”.
If we thought about it we would start to achieve it and as we achieved it we would become a wealthier nation. This attitude of increasing wealth is evident in Australia for example where they have compulsory Super, (generating huge wealth individually and for the nation), and the general sentiment I hear everywhere there is one of “How do I get ahead?” instead of NZ’s “Why won’t the government take from the rich and give to me”.
These laughable commentators should be required to have achieved great financial success and achieved great poverty before they are allowed to comment on either, then they would at least talk some sense.
So I implore you today to set some fresh income goals for yourself. Why not aim to double your income in the next 12 months and see how close you get to it. Understand that it is both achievable and desirable for you to get paid sa much as you can for your time and even more for your abilities. If enough of us do this we could shift this stinking Helenesque culture back to the cesspit it came from.
Here’s to wealth and prosperity with honesty hard work and integrity. All you people clamouring for more poverty please emigrate
Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus @ www.MassiveAction.tv
To get the latest investing information on time and for free make sure you get my regular newsletter here
Reaction or response
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When you say things publicly as I do you often get to see a large variety of replies to your thoughts or comments. This happened recently when I warned you all HERE about the new Sales and Purchase Agreements being promoted by REINZ.
I did have one of my facts wrong, which was that the date for REINZ membership becoming voluntary is the 16th November not the first, however other than that everything I said is substantially correct. In fact since I posted that newsletter a prominent conveyancing specialist has been touring property organisations nationally saying exactly what my solicitor said, albeit in more restrained formal language.
Anyway my point is not to defend myself in this case but to comment on the way people react in general. In any situation we have an opportunity to react, which is a bit like a reflex action where we might angrily lash out OR respond, where we think about what was said and how and make a response designed to either educate, challenge or inspire.
For example with my newsletter above I received an email from someone telling me that my emotional statements undermined my authority. Fair enough but when I asked him to tell me what I said that was factually incorrect I have never had a reply. He reacted to me and has been unable to respond, if that makes sense.
Then I received another from someone who had forwarded an emotive reaction from someone else but he simply said, ‘You might want to look at this”. So he was giving me feedback and information rather than yelling at me. In his email I discovered my solicitors mistake over the dates.
I have had to learn to respond to people and not lash out in reaction becuase I get more feedback than many people and it is easy to take negative feedback personally. But I have found as I learn to respond that often my attackers even become my friends as we learn to understand each other. After all we are not looking for everybody to have the same opinion on everything but we should be able to be connected with people who we might disagree with. Isn’t that what life and relationships is all about?
I hope you have a most responsive day!!
Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus @ www.MassiveAction.tv
To get the latest investing information on time and for free make sure you get my regular newsletter here
