Today you are an investor

I recently participated in the Chattanooga Waterfront Triathlon. I love this event. It’s put on by Team Magic, a company that organizes/ sponsors runs and multisport events across the southeast.

And they do an amazing job.

 

The waterfront triathlon is a larger event with close to 1,000 athletes showing up to swim, bike and run, in that order, one of two distances. Either the Sprint distance or the Olympic distance.

 

That morning, my alarm went off at 4 a.m. I got up, gathered my gear and made some food for myself to eat along the way before kissing Ashley goodbye and leaving at 4:30 a.m. to head to Chattanooga. The reason for this early departure was transition, the area where triathletes store and change into their different equipment for each sport, opens at 5:30 and closes promptly at 6:30 with a race start time of 6:45.

 

That’s a small window to get there, find parking downtown and get registered. Then you need to get your equipment set up, eat something and get stretched and warmed up before the race.  Needless to say, being late is not an option.

 

But I got there, got set up, warmed up, and then made my way down to the dock where the swim would begin in the Chattanooga River.

 

With the aid of the current in the river, my swim went really fast for me. And in no time, I was coming out of the water, breathing hard and trotting back up to the transition area to change into my bike gear as quickly as I could. I found my bike, pulled off my goggles, swim cap and did a quick towel-off before putting on my helmet, race bid and bike shoes. I took my bike off the stand where it was hanging by the seat and jogged towards the bike exit. Once out, I hopped on and started peddling.

 

There is only one real hill on this course. And it’s almost immediately after you come out of transition. That’s great on the way back because you’ll get that extra speed to end, but to start out going up, well, it’s a challenge.

 

I started up the hill, gearing down quickly. It was a slow arduous go, but I got to the top and didn’t kill my legs in the process. Now was the fun part: we get to catch some speed coming down the back side of that hill. But something happened. As I went to gear up so I could pedal harder, my chain slipped off.

This was not good. I was about a quarter of the way down the hill, going about 25 miles an hour and I couldn’t pedal. I had to make a decision: coast with as much speed as I could and then stop and fix my chain, or slam on the brake, fix the chain and try to regain and maintain as much speed with the remainder of the hill.

 

I chose option 2. I hit the brakes, skidded to a stop and then fixed the chain. I jumped back on and pedaled hard to get as much speed as I could out of that hill, maxing out at about 30 mph.

 

One of the things I love about triathlons is how the athletes are constantly encouraging each other. And it doesn’t matter what your skill level is. You’ll see people there from professional athletes with expensive bikes, all the way down to brand-new people who are there doing their first event ever, riding on a borrowed mountain bike with road tires and who are there on a personal journey just trying to prove to themselves that they can finish.

 

That was me when I started.

 

Back then I was doing amazing to average over 15 mph for the bike leg of the race on my dad’s borrowed Schwinn mountain bike. In this event, I raced on a carbon framed street bike, and even with my chain dropping I averaged almost 18.5 mph.

 

At about the halfway point, I came up on someone on a mountain bike. And as I got close enough to overtake her, I yelled some words of encouragement and told her she was doing great.  Her response stuck with me. She said, “Thanks. But I’m not really a bike rider.”

I found this odd. She was in the middle of a triathlon, about halfway through the bike leg of the race… a literal bike race. I’m not sure what the disconnect was in her perception, but I wondered how much more of a bike rider she could be. I hope what I said next to her stuck. Because I replied, “Well… today you are!”

As I pedaled on, I thought about how people have wrong perceptions of themselves and how this is very prevalent in real estate investing. You get “pros” who do podcasts and things who say they’re doing tons of deals each year. I put that in italics because just because they say they are doing tons of deals doesn’t mean they really are, nor does it mean they are making any money doing it.

 

Then there are the newer folks who say things like “I’m not really an investor yet.” Even though they have two paid-for rentals and have done a flip.

 

What I want you to hear from this is don’t judge your insides by someone else’s outsides. It’s too easy to sell yourself short by comparison. If you’re meeting with sellers, if you’re making offers, if you have done a deal, if you have a rental property… today you are an investor. And you’re well into your own personal race to financial freedom. And I can’t wait to join you at the finish line. Keep it up. You are doing amazing things!

 

Joe and Ashley English buy houses and mobile homes in Northwest Georgia. For more information or to ask a question, go to www.cashflowwithjoe.com or call Joe at 678-986-6813.