Frustration is an inevitable part of everyone’s real estate investing journey. The worst part is, these setbacks often hit you hard when you least expect it.
For example, when I was eight months pregnant with my third child and responsible for the day-to-day operations of my first RV park, I discovered that my ex-husband was having an affair.
My life was suddenly turned upside down. I was forced to question everything—I even considered selling my business, packing up my kids, and moving back in with my parents.
At the moment, it feels almost impossible to recover from such a setback. However, I learned three priceless lessons that helped me turn this tragedy into over $30 million in real estate assets and made me a better woman for my family.
1. You didn’t fail; you just gave up too soon.
It’s easy for anyone to think that wildly successful investors with large social media platforms are more than just humans. Maybe they are born with a talent. Maybe they are lucky. Or maybe they started with a trust fund.
But when you meet those “legendary” investors, something happens. You admire them from a distance, eventually shake their hands, and enjoy talking to them. But then, when you see them clumsily pouring a full glass of water over themselves, you realize that they are just ordinary people, the only difference is that they work very hard and never give up.
As you meet more people who have overcome setbacks, kept trying, and ultimately succeeded, you’ll gather evidence that you can overcome setbacks and ultimately be better for it.
To put this into practice, attend a local real estate investing meetup, conference, or retreat. Talk to as many people as you can, and don’t be shy about politely asking about the obstacles they’re most proud of overcoming.
2. Try other methods
Sometimes, refusing to quit is not enough. After using all the tools you have, you may still not be able to solve the problem at hand. This happened when I was getting divorced.
I was faced with the decision of either selling the RV park I owned at the time or buying it out from my ex and I didn’t know what to do. So I called my lender and told him the situation and he said, “Why not refinance the property and take out some equity? You could pay your ex his percentage and use the rest of the money to buy more real estate.
At the time, I didn’t know that you could take out your equity through forced appreciation, refinance, and use that cash to expand. Nowadays, this is often called the BRRRR method. That conversation gave me a creative strategy that I used to grow my real estate holdings to over $30 million—all because I had to find a way to pay off my ex-husband’s debt during the divorce.
When none of your current tools are up to the job, it’s time to get creative. Fortunately, real estate investing can provide creative solutions to any problem. Even better, someone may have had the same problem before and solved it.
So instead of reinventing the wheel yourself, talk to other people. What seems unsolvable to you may be a matter of course to others.
3. What do you have to lose?
I was eight months pregnant, going through a devastating divorce, and considering selling my business. What else could possibly go wrong?
The worst thing I’ve found is to sell everything and move into my parents’ basement with the kids. This encouraged me to take action because although I loved my parents, I didn’t want to move back in with them. This also helps my mindset because it reduces risk. I knew I wasn’t “risking it all,” but I was risking the freedom of living without parental supervision in my early 30s.
From that point on, the only direction I could go was forward, up. So I doubled down on my RV park and started adding additional revenue streams like a pizza kitchen, golf cart rentals, glamping tents, and more. This mindset was the key I needed to build an RV park that has allowed me to make over $10,000,000.
I know not everyone can move back in with their parents. However, it’s still useful to ask yourself realistically, “What’s the worst that could happen?” This is part of a mindset exercise called “fear setting,” and it’s especially useful during times of frustration.
final thoughts
Often, problems don’t become setbacks until you overcome them, and the best way to turn problems into setbacks is to implement these three lessons into your life. However, if you are going through a problem right now and you can find the strength to say, “It’s going to be okay – it’s just a setback,” that tells me that you have overcome the obstacle in your mind and that you have the ability to put any setback into perspective Translates into a life filled with success.
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Notes on BiggerPockets: These are the opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the views of BiggerPockets.
