Favorite Quotes Vol. XXX: How risk in real estate is related to us.

I was chatting with a very unqiuely intelligent two graduate-degreed guy today.  The degrees?  An MBA and an MD.  Yep, a Doctor who could tell you how to live an extra ten years, and then tell you how much those ten years will cost you.

He told me a story about his first class in Biz School, which focused on investing in real estate, whether that meant your own home, or something you were looking to flip.  He said one of the very first things the Prof. said was . . .

If you’re not sweating just a little bit each month to make your mortgage payment, you didn’t risk enough when you made your purchase.

This quote hit ‘home’ for me, because when I bought my apartment 15 years ago, I could have had a much bigger place for just a bit more.  I could have made it work, but it would have been a little tougher to make the payments, and I didn’t want to risk it.  Well, 15 years later, that other apartment increased in value a lot more than my current apartment.  But I wanted to play it safe, and live comfortably, rather than challenge myself just a bit.

And I lost out because of it.

It’s a great real estate lesson . . . but isn’t this quote also true about in everything in life?

If you want to do big things, whether that’s write a musical, produce a play, make money in the stock market, or heck, even have a wonderful marriage and family  . . . do you think you’re going to get it without a little bit of sweat on your brow every once in a while?  You think you can achieve your dream without that little nauseous knot in your stomach every so often  . . . you know, the one that scares the crap out of you . . .  but also makes you work a little harder to make sure you do get what you want?

Everyone gets scared.  And everyone sweats.

What that Biz Professor was saying, and what I am repeating, is that if you’re not sweating, that’s when you should really be scared.

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