Sometimes we are part of a big project and we don’t realize how big it can be until somebody else reminds us. Today my mobile phone rang and the caller number display showed the Italian country code. I picked up the phone anticipating it was my partner Daniele Bogiatto who was catching up with me after almost a week of no communication. I had been sending e-mail messages all along the week briefing him about all the progresses we were going through here in the US but I wasn’t receiving any reply.
Initially I thought I had the wrong e-mail address, since he had just given me a new one, so I contacted him on another address but still got no reply. I knew he was busy at the landmark event of Tony Robbins in Rome and I knew he was knee deep into its organization therefore I didn’t expect him to come back to me, but still I wondered what was going on. I kept up with him through his blog (a convenient way to use the Web) and I had seen the enthusiasm coming out of the event he was living there. But I wanted to share some of it and also take some important decisions together with him based on the evolutions going on in Italy and in the US.
You need to recognize what are the strong points in every your associate and connection. Part of a presentation done by me and Daniele in Atlanta last June.
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Therefore I answered rapidly to the call and indeed it was Daniele who explained he had received all my e-mails but had not been able to answer because of a wrong configuration on his smart phone. But he anticipated immediately that there are some major important news stemming from the Tony Robbin’s event as well as from the activity he has done in Italy in the last four weeks that are going to blow me away.
Back in Florida, yesterday I had to work on a lot of chores making up for the time spent last week in Atlanta. Real estate investing is composed of many tasks and actions that aren’t necessarily exciting but are very needed in order to keep the ball rolling. Yet I returned very motivated from event in Georgia so I decided that from now on every day is going to be a special day, no matter the circumstances and so my wish became true.
Meet Pete and his master. A very cute parrot who likes to show off.
This is the type of encounters that would never happen in Italy or Europe for that matter: wild life and animals are everywhere in Florida and it feels totally different to live here than anywhere else. But the lesson here is that you can always meet extraordinary people in your life even if you are just going to ordinary places. You just need to keep your eyes open and be ready to welcome them as they appear.
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I had gone to a self storage facility in order to get a bigger space for storing some of the materials we use for staging houses when we sell them and I met Pete, a very beautiful parrot, with his master who enjoys greatly going around with a big bird constantly on his shoulder.
My kids were with with me and the had a very good time seeing this kind of piratesque character. I had just finished telling the clerk at the office in the self storage facility that living in the USA was quite different than living in Italy, and here it comes a parrot through the door.
Life is made of people and when you decide to live it fully you will always encounter someone who can change it or at least make it better. I personally don’t believe things happen by “accident” but they do happen suddenly at times and you must “be there” when they do. “Being there” includes also paying attention and being ready to capture new ideas, connections, opportunities.
I am returning from Atlanta, it has been an intense three days at the bootcamp organized by Sam Bell and Mark Jackson about investing on bank owned properties. I have learned many things that will help me improve my performances and that have made me even more familiar with the American culture and its way of doing business. I have also been fortunate to contribute my own experience with the European culture and its very peculiar way of developing relationships. Even today, as was leaving the hotel, several people approached me thanking for my presentation. Always glad to help.
Mark jackson on the stage with his byke: he rode over 1700 miles in 3 months.
But today was Sunday and the opening morning speech was done by Mark himself who gave a very motivational insight on how life can be changed by just cleaning up the bad habits that you have inside yourself.
I find it quite amazing that it kind of plays right in the hand of my previous post (Kill The Victim That Is in You) that I had written just before entering the conference room. So I want to echo it and give Mark’s view of business and life, as he has been able to acquired from years of teaching and coaching people on the very things he was himself doing.
Francesco, Sam, Me, Dutch and Mark during the event in Atlanta.
Every time you are ready to make a major change in your life and tackle something that you consider well beyond your current capabilities you need to take a first step that will enable you to move forward. I tell you this out of experience because I have been taking huge leaps and done major changes in my life during the last 13 months. You often hear coaches and people telling “you need to get out of your comfort zone”. This is definitely one part of the action, but I would rather more see it as a second step, a result of you actually throwing yourself into the fighting ground, right amongst the lions which are ready to chew you to pieces.
Me and Mark Jackson during the event.
The actual first step, that goes somewhat un-noticed and that is the make break point was pointed out to me by my wife Maria few days ago, before I was starting for my current business trip. She said: “you need to kill the victim that is in you”. This is a powerful statement because it gets to the very core of you and I know that my wife would have never told it to me with the purpose of making me wrong. She knew exactly what I needed and the fact that she pointed it out to me made me immediately realize that yes I was playing victim in some area of my life which was the area where I was growing and improving the least.
You can’t win unless you play on both sides. This is what the Internet has taught us in the recent years. Those companies that have totally neglected the Web as a production and promotion tool have lost lot of ground or have disappeared completely. Many companies that were just active online have disappeared as well. Internet by itself is not enough, it has to be combined with some traditional (offline) product, place or channel, then it can become very powerful.
Me and the legendary Lou Brown during the event in Atlanta.
Today I have been full time listening to the various presentations at the bootcamp on bank owned properties organized in Atlanta by Sam Bell and Mark Jackson. Lot of very technical stuff, which is very relevant if you want to achieve a good level of promotion on Google, but that would be useless if one didn’t have knowledge about traditional real estate evaluation and contracts. So I appreciated the fact that the presentations of today followed a whole series of lessons that yesterday were delivered on property evaluation (Mark Jackson), on closing procedures (Michelle Spalding) and on creating the most advanced type of real estate contract (Lou Brown): the land trust (which is used both to hide the owners of a property and for transferring interest in a property without a formal deed).
Dutch Mendenhall "bringing me to new heights"
Real estate is a field where you can observe the effective merge of the old culture of negotiation, evaluation and paperwork writing, with the newest Internet Marketing techniques that can bring you new buyers and sellers with less effort and more effectiveness. Yet you still see many investors fumbling with technology and shying away from it, or you see some young nerd who knows everything about setting up a blog and getting it ranked on Google, but knows nothing about buying and selling houses and yet wants to become a full time investor.
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