As I mentioned in my
article in the previous edition of
this magazine, in my numerous interviews of the
wealthiest and happiest people, I am struck by the clear,
insightful and creative thinking that is prevalent in their
investing strategies and techniques.
A well known investor and author, Dolf de Roos says that the
most valuable piece of real estate is the one between our
ears. This leads me to the question "Why would anyone in
their right mind not work to ensure a right and alert mind?”
What if we could create a right and alert mind? What if we
could come up with practices that would consistently give
you this state of mind?
In the previous edition of this magazine, I talked about
integrity as the state of being whole and complete: i.e.
with nothing missing. If you had nothing missing or nothing
to be worried about, that would probably create ripe
conditions for an imaginative, creative and clear mind that
could in turn create effective, workable and exciting
investing strategies and techniques.
One expression of integrity is accountability. Specifically
accounting for promises; either promises you made or that
were made to you.
In my experience of coaching and training businesses, one of
the main sources of distraction or anxiety comes from
overwhelm associated with promises (or at least what are
construed to be promises) that are not fulfilled and are not
accounted for. This leads to the mind being distracted by
the “inner nagging voices”, e.g., “Why did I not get that
done?”, “When is John going to get that done?”
What if we could eliminate these distracting “voices”?
An example of accounting for promises: you make a promise to
wash your spouse’s car by Friday. You make the promise in
good faith: you know that you have the time to do the task
on Thursday afternoon and you intend all along in fulfilling
on the promise. However, on Thursday morning, you get an
urgent call; you have to fly out of town for an emergency
business meeting. You account for the promise by
communicating to your spouse either:
-
You are rescheduling
to do the car wash to next week when you are back home OR
-
You are going to
delegate this to someone else to do
OR
-
You are not going to
do this at all (sometimes this is the straightest, most
honest and cleanest communication)
OR
-
Some other creative
way that leaves you AND your spouse having the experience
of being whole and complete (i.e. with nothing being
experienced as missing or incorrect in your relationship).
The intention of doing
this is to have you AND your spouse experience having
nothing missing and thus being clear-minded again. It is not
about who is right or wrong.
Consider that as investors or business people (and arguably
as living human beings), the main thing to manage in our
lives are promises: our promises to others and the promises
of others to you.
For example, in a single family home investment, we
investors manage the promises of mortgage brokers to close
on time, appraisers to give appraisals by a certain time,
real estate brokers to fulfill on their written agreements
with you, property managers to respond to maintenance
requests within x hours, etc.
We also have promises to others, e.g., paying the
down-payment by a certain time, etc.
It would probably make sense to have some facility in
managing these promises and holding people to account
effectively and without causing an unnecessary firestorm of
blame.
Notice that I did not say keeping your promises. I said
account for your promises.
Chances are that you will not fulfill on all your promises
in your lifetime; especially if you are playing really big
and complicated investment opportunities.
Please note that in no way am I condoning or saying that you
can break your promises: the point is to account for
promises. Accounting for your promises implies getting into
communication the moment that you think that you cannot
fulfill on a promise that you made. So the moment that you
think that you cannot fulfill a promise, you get into
communication to renegotiate or renege a promise: see above
points a thru d.
To be accountable and to hold others to account, there needs
to be a promise. Without a promise, there is no way that you
can manage; no way that you can hold to account. It may
happen, it may not happen: and chances are very, very good
that it will not happen.
It is then probably a good idea to clarify what a promise is
in a way that makes the process effective. An effective
promise has two components:
-
An observable or
measurable result (usually an observable event or a
measurable quantity), e.g., $20,000 in my bank account, 3
homes in my portfolio, etc.
-
A deadline date by
which the result will be accomplished.
If either a or b is
missing, it is not an effective promise, and consider that
the person making the promise has no intention on fulfilling
on the promise.
In my coaching experience, promises that have these two
components illicit great results. Great results are usually
the cumulative result of several promises that were
accounted for. If you keep the accountability in, these
promises will either be fulfilled or not: but either way,
the accountability will serve as a way of correcting and
staying on track rather than allowing our normal human
foibles from distracting us and taking us completely off
track or worse, right back where we started.
Some practices to taken on:
-
Make a list of
promises made to you that do not have the two components
listed above. Renegotiate these promises so that they have
these two components. This will probably save you a lot of
time in the long run!
-
Start catching
yourself when you make a promise that does not include
these two components: be authentic with yourself: are you
really planning on executing on this promise? If you are
not, why waste your time or other people’s time? Maybe the
best thing you can do is to say “No”?
Bio:
Mr. Sunil Bhaskaran is the CEO of
Alacrity Consulting Services, Inc., an organization which is
dedicated to coaching, training and educating real estate
investors and business owners (particularly women based
businesses and investors). Mr. Bhaskaran comes from a family
who invested in real estate in Singapore in the early
nineteen seventies. Through the years, he has learned the
power and opportunity behind real estate investing and has
generated over $1 million in income from real estate (cash
flow and equity) in the last 10 years in the United States.
He is also a radio personality and had a successful radio
talk show “Lets Talk Relationships” on KSCO AM Radio in the
Monterey Bay area of California. You may email him at
Info@AlacrityConsulting.com. Go to the website
www.AlacrityConsulting.com to learn more.
