The Path to Financial Success is a Marathon; not a Sprint!

Conversations around home and business ownership are happening in neighborhoods across our nation and perhaps around the world. I was chatting with my teacher-friend from Australia and we are tracking well on our race to increase our Real Estate portfolio; our side business of choice.

Several weeks ago, I also introduced you to another teacher-friend/investor of many years on the live stream to answer the question, “Is now a good time to buy Real Estate?” (By the way, I have heard your requests and will be teaching Real Estate Investment and Strategic Money Management classes starting in October and you can go to our store at this link livelikeamillionairenow.wordpress.com for more information.)

However, today, I want to leave you with 3 Tools that have helped me and my friends maintain thriving Real Estate Investment businesses for decades. I am going to share 3 “nuts and bolts” of money management that we don’t often hear about, but are key to finishing our 26.2 miles financial marathon race. And indeed, it is a grueling race! Whether you’re seeking to increase your financial success by way of business ownership or strategic money management, I believe the following 3 tools will help you achieve good success.

Vision

Vision is more than just a plan, but a deep, inner perception and inner prompting of a specific something you’re born to achieve. You clearly see and perceive the calling on your life to achieve a specific goal, so much so that you imagine yourself in the position long before it actually manifests or becomes reality. 

For example, paraphrasing the late Dr. Myles Munroe, who says God will show you the end at the beginning and then you have to back up and start. Prime example, God promised Abraham and Sarah a specific son. Twenty years elapsed before the vision came to pass, i.e. the birth of Isaac. In my own life, the vision or deep goal (buried within) to purchase real estate came when I was a teenager in high school and the tangible real estate portfolio (the properties in hand) became a reality 15 years later.

An interview with Samuel L. Jackson, a famous actor sums up my experience and the experience perhaps of working people worldwide, the Path to Financial Success is a Marathon; not a Sprint. The interviewer implied Samuel L was an overnight success and he said it was a long night, like 10 years or more. As I listened to him talk, I am sure he had to employ the second principle of today’s blog and that is to readjust.

Readjust

We working people are often told that hard work is the key to financial success. And certainly, it plays a huge role in wealth building. But what I’ve also learned along the way is that you have to be crystal clear about what you working towards (vision) and also be prepared to adjust and readjust, as you proceed. 

When Abraham and Sarah accepted God’s vision for their lives, they encountered some unexpected hardships. God asked them to leave their homeland for the Promised Land, only to encounter famine and later, subsequently, asked to be patient for 25 years as God tells Abraham at age 75 that he and his 65 year old wife will have a child. Oh, honey sometimes the vision seems outlandish and even then it tarries- – unplanned events take us for a loop:  disappointments from our “homeys”, lack of patience, limited resources and more can cause us to make decisions that further delay our vision and our victory.

Abraham and Sarah decided to help God by having and bringing him a child outside of His divine decree, i.e. outside of their union. I know I have had my A-S (Abraham and Sarah) experiences on the path to financial success. I had a vision in mind, where I had clearly mapped out my first 10 steps, only to be literally bombed with unexpected challenges and expenses that I simply didn’t know to plan for- – as the experience was new, unexpected and unfamiliar. After I bought my second property, it was then revealed that all of the pipes needed to be replaced. Expensive. Expensive. Expensive.

Practice what you preach. I had to do just like I am sharing with you. I had to regroup, readjust and gather the remnants. You can check out my previous blog and more at my website, where I spoke at length about the remnants. I have heard many friends and family members say, and I have even said to myself, what if we like Abraham and Sarah had known all the difficulties and challenges that vision brings, would we have chosen differently? If we could’ve seen the hardships and difficulties at the beginning, would we have gotten started?

If you’re like me, you probably would’ve taken the charge and Door Number 3 —Stay the Course!

Stay the Course

Lastly, for many of us working people, bringing our vision to pass is more like running a marathon, than a sprint. No matter how hard you train, how hard you work, big stuff, little stuff still go wrong. It rains. You fall. You get wet. You get hit. You get like Abraham and Sarah, and you start to think. Too old. Too hard. Too broke. Too blind. We lose sight. We take our eyes off the prize. We bring others into the equation.

As I get ready to close, I am telling us working people worldwide it will be a fight: it will be a fight to get ready, a fight to stay ready and a fight to stay hungry after the vision has already come to pass. Stay the Course! You will make it to the finish line. 

One of the things that threw me for a loop is when I ran the LA marathon the first time. I saw the balloons, felt the thunder and cheers of the crowd, all of which led me to believe the race was over. But it was just the 26 mile mark. I was ready to stop though the finish line and celebration lasted for another .2 mile.  Sometimes, the closer we get to the finish line, the sooner we want to stop. Though the vision tarries a little longer than we wish, we want to stop, just know that you’ve already overcome the most difficult part, just .2 mile to go, Stay the Course!

So as I close, sometimes the hardest part of the race is near the finish line. I leave you with this and I am speaking to us (myself included), as we prepare for our financial marathon. It is always a fight:  a fight to get ready, a fight to stay ready, a fight to finish and a fight to stay hungry for the next race.

This is why I encourage you to join our financial/life community livelikeamillionairenow.wordpress.com– where we cheer one another along and celebrate our success every step of the way. 

We’ve reached the finish line of today’s post! Congratulations!