Success and why some people fail

By Thomas Beyer

Why are some folks with seemingly similar skills, similar bank account depths, and similar states in life more successful than others?

Taking appropriate risk differentiates you from others and gives you a chance to be successful. What are some of the other issues?

Besides risk taking, four things have to line up for success:

• Capability (i.e. your ability to actually do it)
• Time spent on it, as nothing happens automatically and your capabilities usually grow with time applied to it.
• Aspiration (i.e. your desire, your intention, your motivation to want something).
• Opportunity (i.e. the actions you take for a specific task in a certain moment of time). Opportunity is not always there but when it is there one has to have the ability to perceive it as well as (i.e. awareness) act upon it.

Let me elaborate

Capability

I have observed people over my many jobs, as well as in the corporations I have owned and managed, who have high aspirations and given all the opportunities that surround them, still do not succeed. Why is that? Well, after years of observation and reflecting, I have concluded that their capabilities vastly underachieve what they aspire to. They:

• write poor emails or have spelling mistakes
• produce documents, business plans or PowerPoint presentations that are unpersuasive
• are missing key points or underestimate key points
• stress out over minor details
• underestimate time lines for critical information pieces, not just by a few percentages but by magnitudes
• forget names of critical people or they show up late or not at all for critical meetings, or when asked they are unable to make decisions.

Thus, one reason why you may not be as successful as others with similar goals (aspiration) in the same time zone or location (i.e. same opportunity) is that you are actually wired differently or not as capable as the other person. Many people are in the wrong job. They want to be like me (now, the boss, the big cheese, the president, or at least GM), or in a more senior role, but lack the communications or functional skills required. I have seen it especially in people in their 30s, who after a few years of work, think they know everything and become cocky, arrogant, want salary increases or more responsibilities but are not ready. I also see it with folks without a university education, as often their critical analysis skills or ability to finish something is lacking. That doesn’t mean you cannot be successful without a degree, but it helps as a degree, such as an online mba, teaches you not only domain knowledge but also perseverance, social skills, decision-making skills, and task juggling skills, as often deadlines are looming and compromises have to be made.

One important thing to keep in mind while trying to tower the corporate ladder is to stay sane. People often go overboard about focusing on work. Work capabilities vary in every individual, but it should not be prioritized if it affects your health, especially mental health. If you have worked with a significant number of people, you might have noticed that there are some who are raging workaholics and usually on the brink of a meltdown. On the contrary, you should try and be like the other kind, who understand the importance of having a clear mind free of negativity in order to really succeed in life. These individuals would likely prioritize their mental health without compromising the work that they do. Those suffering from an influx of stress can do the same by trying out some cannabis distillates from lowpricebud or similar sources or regularly meeting up with a therapist who can provide alternative solutions. It is extremely important to balance the anxiety workplaces can cause someone with inner positivity. Prolonged stressful work situations can lead to depression and even alcohol and class A drug abuse. If things get out of hand, seeking medical help is the right decision. Reputed mental healthcare institutions like Honey Lake residential treatment center can help an individual get well physically as well as mentally. It is important to take a look at what help is available so the right pathway is used in these circumstances, otherwise, it can set someone back. For instance, some people will turn solely to therapy whilst others will look to combine it with medications whether that be medical or herbal like cheap bud canada, for example, so they can relax their minds and focus on what they need to do without racing and harmful thoughts. Whichever avenue is used, it will take time for people to see results so it is important that they stick at it and help themselves as much as possible.

Time

It takes time to get good at anything. Some say it takes 10,000 hours to master anything. That s 5 years of full-time work. Many aspects, say real estate financing, take of course far less time than that to understand and apply. Yet you still have to spend significant time at a certain job or set of tasks to be really, really good at them. I have bought over 37 apartment buildings worth over $175,000,000 over the last 15 years, the last 8 of which I was doing on a full-time basis, yet I still learn a thing or two every once in a while.

Will you be an expert in real estate after having bought only one or two properties? Likely not, yet many people behave as if they are the expert after a few weeks of work.

You may have travelled to Europe. You may have noticed the in-depth baking expertise and bread culture. Do you honestly believe you will be a great baker after mastering one bread type or one cookie? Successful people work very, very hard, and even among equally skilled folks with similar lots in life, the one that works more is usually more successful. It takes three years to become a baker and then another four before you are allowed to call yourself a master baker , and many master bakers then continue learning and perfecting their craft. It s the same with most other tasks in any profession.

Aspiration

Occasionally ambition is lacking. To be successful, you have to be persistent. You have to work long hours, many times in a repetitive fashion, to master a task and you have to be humble to learn from mistakes or from others. People are often too self-absorbed, too arrogant or often, just too lazy to succeed. Just because you made $25,000 on one house or one stock trade does not mean success. Success is building a pattern of similar results. Patterns are repetition, often boringly repetitive, but you learn to appreciate the nuances between repetition and that is how you grow and learn, and also spot opportunities. Ambition means a desire to do it again, and again, and again, and again. That is why I am a lousy piano player. I do not enjoy, or have the ambition for, the required repetition that is necessary to become great at playing piano. I am also a fairly fit guy in his mid-fifties with plenty of opportunity to run a marathon. I could run one with low risk but will I ever run a marathon? Unlikely, as I am not that ambitious of a runner. I enjoy the 3 to 5 mile runs I do with my wife but I have no ambition to run further.

Opportunity

There are times you just luck out or are in the right opportunity space. Showing up, again, and again, and again is how you create opportunity. Yes, sometimes you get a home run out of sheer luck, and you should be thankful for it. But that is not how you can build a business. You have to systematically create opportunity by showing up, by doing it, by risking something, by repeating it, by being motivated enough to repeat it again and again. Some people have been dealt a lousy hand. Some inherit wealth, good looks or vast brains and many times two people with the same ambition, risk taking ability and capability end up with vastly different results. One example that comes to mind is Steve Jobs who ended up revolutionizing the PC, music and movie industry. He certainly was ambitious and had the capabilities. Yet, had he been born a few years later or in another city, the opportunity would have been very different. He was in the right place, with the right ambition and the right capabilities, and by taking the right risk at the right time in Palo Alto, CA, surrounded by other talented people, HP and all the other early high-tech success stories. Had he been in Kansas in the late 1970 s / early 1980 s, i.e. without the right opportunity, Apple today would probably not exist.

You need to ask yourself, if you deem yourself not as successful as you think you ought to be, Is the opportunity there? If so, ask yourself Am I ambitious enough?, Am I willing to put in the many extra hours, weekend courses, additional stress onto my family, watch less TV and focus on what is required, not just once or twice, but a hundred, a thousand times perhaps? If so, do I have the proper skills – mental, attitudinal and perhaps physical, to do what it takes?

Perhaps that is why I enjoy being a REIN member and encourage membership to those who wish to attain real estate success, as it is a great incubation and educational environment to work on your skills. It s also a great environment for becoming infected by the ambition of others in those weeks when you are perhaps not as enthused as you ought to be. Plus REIN provides research support to guide you to where opportunities lie.

In my opinion, the ability to take risks, have ambition, time, and opportunity, and display capability have to line up for true success in your life.

Prior to 2000, Thomas Beyer was a software project manager, including 8 years with IBM. He has an MBA from the University of Alberta (1988) and a B.Sc. from the Technical University of Munich (1986). He founded Prestigious Properties in the year 2000 and has transacted over $175,000,000 in real estate since primarily apartment buildings, but also single family houses, condos and land parcels. He believes in turning under-valued properties into prestigious properties, for the benefit of investors, tenants and communities.

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