Investing with Why, What and How
By Christopher Levarek
In the book, “Start With Why”, by Simon Sinek, an excellent methodology is presented for business owners and leaders to utilize in their path towards success. Today we would like stress the importance of such an implementation with regards to investing in real estate or furthering ones owns goals. Many times we, as ambitious entrepreneurs, choose to start journeys and enterprises without having a clear definition of why we are doing it, what we will do or how we will even do it. This greatly hinders the chances of success of the venture before it has even started.
We would like demonstrate applying the principles outlined in the book, “Start with Why” to investment opportunities or personal goals. Although the book is more oriented towards defining great leadership and qualities found in successful companies, these same principles can be used in any goal. Starting with Why, Discovering What and executing the How is the way.
Why?
The first step in any goal as discussed in Simon Sinek’s book “Start With Why”, is to begin the journey with understanding why. Why are you choosing to invest in real estate? Why are you expanding your network and growing your knowledge in real estate? What do you hope to achieve? What are your motivations? What drives you to read the books, search the real estate websites, attend the conferences, visit the properties or listen to the podcasts? Beginning with these questions in mind, clarifies your purpose or cause. Every goal or ambition has a “why”. This was what launched the idea and began the first step on the journey in the first place.
Motivations drive the purpose. Defining what motivated the creation of the goal on paper and placing it somewhere easily visible will ensure that it is always present in your mind. Having your purpose clear and present ensures that motivation or drive stays fresh. Always start with why.
What?
The second step is understanding the “what”? What are you going to do? As Gino Wickman talks about in his highly successful book, “Traction”, this is the defining your niche. What will you do to achieve your “why”? What will be your opportunity, your product or your path? Having the motivations and vision is the start, but what will you use to get there?
In real estate investing, this could be defining your market and picking an investment vehicle. Will you focus on multifamily properties or single family homes? Will you invest as a passive investor or take a more active approach or both? Will you invest in commercial or residential? Will you invest in long or short lease or Airbnb type models? Will you choose long term investments or short term investments? What returns are you looking for? What are your necessary criteria for your investment?
How?
The last and final step is bringing the detail to your vision and plan. How are you going to execute on your vision? How will you implement the items in your “what”? If your “what” is investing as a passive investor on short term investments or real estate flips with 10-12% annual returns, this would be bringing a system in place to achieve this. Defining the step by step tasks or processes needed to bring the “what” into fruition. This would mean possibly choosing to be active on investing forums to attract flippers or other real estate investors, presenting your criteria for all to see and defining a promissory note or contract with an attorney with short term private lending in mind.
Or perhaps, you choose to invest in syndication deals with the goal to actively run syndication deals in the future. If defining the “how”, this would mean researching quality operators of syndication, educating on the syndication process, investing passively in a syndication and following the details of the investment from end to end.
In the how, you are creating the road map or tasks that will bring the “what” into creation. If you have a clear idea what you want to do and define the markers or method of execution in the “how”, you have a very high probability of success. You will also so easily see when you are off track as you will visibly know when you miss a marker if said marker is already defined ahead of time.
In Final
Starting with “why”, defining the “what” and executing with the “how” closely aligns with investing in real estate and can benefit all investors no matter the investment goal. Not only do we encourage reading “Starting with Why”, by Simon Sinek but we highly recommend applying these principles to your investments for achieving and thoroughly executing your vision of success. Invest Smart!