Episode #32 – Frustrated? Me, Too. Here’s How I Deal

 

As a serial entrepreneur and an impatient person, I’ve had my share of frustration. I lay it all out in this episode, the good, the bad, and the real.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Frustrated? Me, Too. Here’s How I Deal

I am excited to talk to you in this episode about frustration. I don’t know how excited I am. I’m always excited when I get on a show with you guys because I do have something to share on this subject. I’m probably one of the more frustrating human beings that I know. If you guys know me, you probably are like, “Yes.”

I have been experiencing some frustrations with business and investing. I wanted to share with you how I’m handling it. Maybe share some tips and things that I’ve gone through. Hopefully, this makes a difference to you. If you’ve never experienced any frustrations, then you are superhuman in business and investing. I want to listen to your podcast so you better start one right away.

What is frustration? We all know what emotion is but what is the cause? The cause of frustration is simply unrealized expectations. That’s it. You had an expectation that whatever you were doing, you would get a certain outcome and then you didn’t get it. Your expectations were not met. That’s frustration. That’s what causes all of it. I have high expectations. Being frustrated is a good thing. I don’t know any other emotion for myself that’s caused more change than frustration.

I look at this as a negative emotion. I don’t enjoy it when I’m in it. It’s the most powerful emotion for me to cause me to redirect the way I’m thinking, being and acting. I’m going to give you some examples of some frustrations that I’ve experienced in business and investing. People think that business is so fancy, cool and awesome. It’s a major source of frustration.

I have a couple of examples business-wise. This is one I’m going through. My real estate partner, Jeff, is way more frustrated on this one than me but I’m getting there as well. We purchased two renovation projects. I think you guys know where this is headed. These were big projects. We wanted to start consolidating our projects down. We were doing a lot of smaller single-family homes so we wanted to take on bigger projects that we could make a bigger equity hit on or bigger profit if we decided to sell them. We decided to take these two on.

They’re on a street that’s gentrifying rapidly. It’s a good solid area but has a lot of room for growth potential and value. They’re on the same street so we gave the most trusted contractor that we’ve done probably 100 projects but not at this scope of size. We trust him. However, we’re nine months in and they are still not done. We’ve had COVID-related material delays. His crew has all gotten COVID at this point. A lot of them have been knocked out of the game for 2 or 3 weeks. Sometimes some of them are more than that but at the end of the day, we have to take full responsibility because we trusted 2 big projects with 1 crew.

My partner is so upset with the contractor. I’m like, “This is us. We take 100% responsibility for this.” This is the most important part. You’ve got to take 100% full responsibility that everything that happens to you, the good and the bad, no matter what, is the only way to keep your power. If you’re playing the blame game or you’re off saying, “This is this person’s fault,” that never serves you at any point. You’ve got to always come back and look at what decisions you made to do business with somebody and let this relationship into your life. What lesson do you need to learn?

You need to take 100% full responsibility of everything that happens to you, the good and the bad, no matter what. That is the only way to keep your power. Click To Tweet

There’s always something that you can grow stronger in and looking back, you’re like, “I could have done this differently. Here’s what I learned. I’m going to grow stronger because of it.” Here we are. We’ve got a buyer lined up for both properties and it’s a nice exit price. We’ve got $500,000 in cash tied up into these two projects alone. Sitting on that cash there for nine months is driving us crazy. These should have been done at month six at the latest.

Here’s the good news though. We’re getting there. Every time he tells me a timeline, I add another two weeks on top of whatever he told me. He told me two weeks. It’s going to be at least 4 weeks or 5 weeks before these are done but at least there’s light at the end of the tunnel. We’re going to do okay on these. We’re going to do fine. We’re going to make a profit. They’re going to get done eventually. We’re going to close. It’s not the end of the world. We had to figure out a way to keep chugging along and make other things happen.

Another example is I got into crypto mining. I was thinking that I was going to get two Ethereum pumps out per month. Now, it’s a little bit over one that I’m getting because the network got super busy and with the increase of the busyness of the network, more and more people mining, that’s less and less Ethereum coming out for me. I don’t know how the whole thing works, to be honest. It’s above my pay grade in the technicality of it but I know my expectation was based on the amount that I put in and how much I expected out.

It was supposed to be two Ethereum per month. That’s not what we’re getting. We’re getting half. It’s still great. I’m getting one Ethereum per month coming in. I got to keep that in mind. Expectations weren’t met and aren’t being met but things are still happening. In the very first business that I got going in some things changed. Some regulations came down the pipe and it took away what I would feel was some of my freedom of speech would be.

That’s been very frustrating for me but here’s what I did. I didn’t have that outlet anymore to say what I wanted to say so that’s why this platform is in existence. If that hadn’t happened to me, I wouldn’t be doing this platform where I get to let it rip. I get to talk about all the things that I want to talk about like building wealth, entrepreneurialism and all kinds of investing. I get to pour in and build a new network.

The frustration caused me to pivot and I’m grateful for that. A lot of times, frustration causes you to make changes or pivot into a new direction that you would’ve never moved in that direction had you not had that frustration that was pushing you to do something different. Talk about the glamor and the glitz of entrepreneurialism. I have a company, High Return Real Estate that I’ve been involved in. I started that many years ago.

I have made money in real estate. I do want to make sure that you’re clear on that. Not everything has been this but this is the marketing company that we’ve been working on, building and pouring our heart and soul into for the last few years. I haven’t taken a paycheck out of that company in those years. All I’ve done is put money into it to make it grow.

Think about that. That’s frustrating. After years of not being able to take any profit, that’s how business works a lot of times. You get into a business where you’re able to make a profit right out of the gate and there are businesses out there that are certainly very available. A lot of my readers are involved in businesses where they’re able to make sales and profits right out of the gate. You got to understand how amazing and wonderful that is because there are a lot of businesses that don’t make a profit for several years and that’s normal but still trust me, a few years with no paycheck, do you think I’m not frustrated with that?

On top of that, we pivoted and formed a new partnership with a new company. They’re not moving very fast and closing deals. I’m super frustrated. I haven’t been yelling at my partner but I’ve been venting to him. I’m like, “What are we doing? We’re 7 or 8 months into this. We haven’t seen any profit. What’s going on?” People are dropping the ball. Think about that. That’s frustrating.

Look at this platform. I started learning and came up with the concept back in December 2020. Here we are in mid-August 2021. We’re almost eight months into this platform. With 231 followers on Instagram and maybe 3,000 followers on LinkedIn. My show is starting to gain some traction but my downloads are certainly nothing to write home about by any stretch. I go online. I’m following this one gal, Tori. She has only started her podcast and went to the top of the charts right out of the gate.

I did some research. I’m like, “How do you do that? You can’t be that much better than me.” You could be better but that much better? She had 1.5 million TikTok followers so as soon as she started her podcast, she promoted it to her 1.5 million TikTok followers and they all migrated over to her podcast. She’s top of the charts immediately. When you’re looking and comparing yourself to other people, it can cause a lot of frustration too.

 

Comparisons to other people. They’re at this level. You’re at this level. That causes frustration. “Why am I not there? What am I doing wrong?” I’ve got to keep all of that clear to myself and make sure that I’m on my journey. I don’t need to go there and compare myself to anybody else. The bottom line question that you need to ask is, “Am I 100% happy with what I’m doing?”

One hundred percent happiness, I don’t think that it is attainable in business because there are going to be so many challenging things that are going to be thrown at you that are going to throw you off. You’re not always every day going to be feeling your peak energy stay or be in total joy with what you’re doing. That’s a fictional type of outcome but overall, when you wake up in the morning, are you looking forward to your day? Are you happy with what you’re doing?

Here’s the question that I can answer. Am I happy and fulfilled with doing this platform and pouring it into all of you? Yes, I am 100%. I love doing this. I love answering your questions. I love the engagement. I love the feedback when you tell me that this is making a difference for you. That’s what I need. I don’t need 100,000 or 500,000 downloads. I need to be happy with what I’m doing 100% as much and strive for that as much as I humanly can.

If you’re frustrated, you’re probably a high achiever. That’s what I think. You’re probably very outcome and results-focused like I am. When you have a results-focused outcome-oriented state of being, that’s great. That creates action. You are proactive. You’re aggressive and hungry. You’re getting after it. You want to make things happen. When things don’t happen at the pace and speed of which you want them to, that’s when you get frustrated like me.

 

Focus On The Process

How can you deal with this? I’m going to give you four things here to focus on to deal with your frustration. Number one is to focus on the process. What does that look like? For me, focusing on the process is putting out valuable educational, entertaining content as much as I humanly can. I’m focused on what is it that I can do. What is the next action item that I can take to keep driving things forward? The process? Can I control the results? To a certain extent, yes, but not really either.

I can’t control how many people download my show, follow me on Instagram, are in the short run or follow me on LinkedIn. Over the long run though, I can control that. If I stay focused on the process, then years from now, continually pumping out incredible, valuable content, I’m going to win and have a huge following. That’s what I got to stay focused on because, in the short run, that’s where I’m going to get disappointed.

Think about that for a second in your businesses. How can you stay focused on the input and processes that you need to do on a daily to keep driving things forward because it’s going to cycle? You’re going to have ups. You’re going to think, “Business is cranking. This investment I got a hold of.” When crypto was cranking back up in March 2021, Bitcoin hit $64,000 and Ethereum was at $4,300. I was up pretty big. My expectations were, “This is going to keep going. This is awesome,” until it didn’t. It dropped 50%. China cracks down on crypto. Bans it on-ramp and off-ramp for all crypto-related transactions. Elon Musk tweets, “Tesla’s no longer accepting Bitcoin.”

Focus On What I Can Control

Those two factors plummeted the markets. My expectation is I had to be okay with the volatility and that’s what you’ve got to embrace. You’re going to have volatility with whatever business or investing that you choose to do. Number two, focus on what I can control. There are a lot of things in business and investing that I can’t control. I can’t control when the markets fluctuate and the cyclical nature of business. There are lots of things that are outside of my control.

You're going to have volatility with whatever business or investing that you choose to do. Click To Tweet

What can I control? There’s only one thing. I can control my actions, mindset and attitude. What do I need to do next? How do I provide more value to my clients and help other people solve their problems? That’s the number one rule of business. It’s solving other people’s problems. If you focus on that every day, your job in business is to solve other people’s problems. When you focus on that, guess whose problems you’re eventually going to solve? It’s your own. You got to put other people first to solve your problems. If you got a money problem, the only way to solve that is you got to solve somebody else’s problem that they have first and then you get rewarded financially for doing that.

Have Faith In Yourself And Your Abilities

Number three, have faith in yourself and your abilities. That doesn’t only include faith in yourself. Faith in God. I rely so much every day on my faith in my creator to help me navigate through and make the decisions and to lead me in the direction that’s going to be best serving my future self, my family, my community and for others.

It takes a lot to have faith, especially when things aren’t looking so good. It takes a lot to have faith when you’re experiencing some major frustrations, you don’t get a paycheck out of a company for a few years, your crypto drops $300,000 within a week or when you buy into stocks and they go down immediately to hold and say, “I made a good bet that 5 or 10 years from now, these companies are going to be cranking out earnings. They’re going to be super valuable. These are going to go up.”

It takes a lot of faith to buy real estate and something goes wrong. Tenants don’t pay because of COVID-related sanctions. It takes a lot of faith when the roof goes out and you got to spend a few grand to fix the roof on your property and then that eats away your cashflow for the entire year. That’s part of the game. You got to be able to embrace those types of down moments so that you can get yourself into the good.

Step Away

Step four is super important. Step away and spend time doing what you love with the people that you love. What does that look like? For me, that’s going golfing with my wife and buddies. That’s going to poker night, having some laughs with the guys and throwing some money around. Going outside and playing catch with my son. Those are moments that I’ll never get back. I can’t be so involved in business, investing and this platform that I don’t spend time with my kids.

I’m going outside. Tyler said, “Can we throw the football with me, dad?” “Yeah, just let me record this episode as I committed to and we’ll go outside and throw the football.” Spending time with my family, taking them on trips, going out on the boat and taking them out on the jet ski. I got to do more of that. Taking a step back from business is so critical to your longevity and sustainability. Don’t over-hustle or over-grind yourself. You will eventually crash if you do that and you don’t take time away from yourself, your family and your loved ones of doing things that you enjoy.

I hope this helps you to know that you’re not alone. You’re probably with the king of frustration right here. We’ve all got to work ourselves through that. It is a powerful emotion for your good. Embrace it and pivot. Utilize it for what the great things that it can help you to achieve. I hope this helps you. Have a great day. Thanks for being on here.

 

Important Links

• High Return Real Estate