Great Teachers - Posted by Tony Colella
Posted by Tony Colella on March 20, 2011 at 09:02:48:
Ryan,
I admire your willingness to post the harsh realities you face. I told Greg Meade the same thing. You both are great teachers and have helped many. I understand that your investments have been hit hard and by telling others how it happened and in time how you overcame it, you two will be the leaders of tomorrow for us all to learn from.
It is hard to admit things went wrong, bad decisions were made, changes outside our control hammered the business etc.
I spend as much of my time as I can to try and find ways of adapting and even then I don’t feel I do enough.
My business has been hit but not as hard as yours. My rentals are still holding their own but life is by no means easy. I have sold off some properties to cull the herd but more so to limit the exposure and obtain needed cash.
I have several investment anchors that concern me still and those were made in times where I fell victim to the ease of it all (the easy bank money, the easy buy, the easy deal). I fell victim to my own overconfidence on those couple deals and did not do the due diligence I needed and I will not only lose money but likely scrape buy with those units for many years to come before I can do something with them.
The blame game for me goes like this. I blame myself for my mistakes. I blame local gov’t for their changes and I blame the economy on macro players such as gov’t, banks etc. AND THEN I stop playing the blame game.
I can’t change any of those things. I can only endeavor to find the best solution at present to attempt to weather the storm and hope to perfect it to capitalize on it.
We need great teachers more so now than ever. Great lesson come only through great trials and tribulations. We did not learn to walk by running. We learned to walk by falling and failing.
Hard decisions will have to be made. Great efforts will have to be put forth. We will survive one way or another. The things we may lose are wordly possessions that mean little as time goes on and less during hard times.
Most of the successful people I know have lost great fortunes at least once and most did so through no fault of their own. Ray Alcorn is a perfect example of a great teacher and wise investor who was forced into BK by banks and gov’t years ago through no fault of his own, just a change in gov’t policy regarding the type of loan he had that made the bank call it due, though no payment was ever missed by Ray.
Ray and his family faught for years and came through the BK no doubt emotionally spent but with their business intact. They paid everyone every dime they owed and to this day are very successful because of it.
The overnight “gurus” who do two deals and pump out a book and course have no experience to fall back upon during the good times much less the hard times. It is teachers like you and Greg that will become the Ray Alcorn’s of our tomorrow.
Tony
