G Letter

September 2016

“The moment you commit and quit holding back, all sorts of unforeseen incidents, meetings, and material assistance will rise up to help you. The simple act of commitment is a powerful magnet for help.”

— Napoleon Hill

“Do not wait; the time will never be “just right.” Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.”

— Napoleon Hill

In the 1980s, Robert Ronstadt conducted a study that found that the most successful entrepreneurs leveraged what is known as the “Corridor Principle.” 

The corridor principle can be described like this: Imagine you’re looking down a long, dark corridor. Without knowing what’s in front of you, you walk forward, and as you move along the corridor, new doors open up on both sides of you — doors that you would not have been able to see had you not started walking down the corridor in the first place.

In a nutshell, the Corridor Principle affirms that the mere act of starting enables you to see and take advantage of opportunities that you wouldn’t be able to see or take advantage of if you stayed put where you are now, waiting for circumstances to be perfect. In order to follow the Corridor Principle to success, you must be willing to launch yourself down the corridor of opportunity without any guarantee of what will happen, because that’s when truly uncommon opportunities manifest themselves.

The truth is that circumstances will never be picture perfect, and let’s be honest — even if they were perfect, we could easily convince ourselves otherwise. So the key to getting your real estate business going or getting anything that you really want started is to launch yourself from wherever you are right now, then look at your results and make adjustments as you go. The Chinese philosopher Laozi, who was a contemporary of Confucius, said that “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Onward and upward! 

I’m looking for an elite group to reveal my most profitable real estate investing techniques to. If you’re coachable, open to instruction, and willing to take what I share and put it into action immediately, complete the application by visiting tinyurl.com/glcoachingapplication.

After you complete the application, here’s what will happen: I will personally review your application to make sure you’re a good
fit for my program. If your application passes, then either I
or someone from my office will call or email you to set up a one-on-one interview and strategy session with me. 

G Letter

April 2015

Indecision Is A Decision

“All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger but in calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.”

- Niccolo Machiavelli 

Let’s welcome the arrival of spring after a punishing winter by embracing the fact that the Earth we all share is constantly in motion. The Earth’s spin axis is tilted on its orbital plane which is what causes the four seasons. Life is movement. If we don’t move, the circumstances and people around us will move things for us. If we don’t move, our muscles will wither and atrophy, so resisting movement is not only pointless but unhealthy. This is why making decisions and being proactive is so important.

One of the main excuses people use for putting off decision-making is the fear of making a mistake. The problem with that logic is successful people make more mistakes than everyone else, precisely because they make more decisions than everyone else—they learn from their decisions regardless of how things ultimately turn out. You shouldn’t be afraid of making a mistake—you should be afraid of standing still and letting the world pass you by.

Make it a point to cultivate decisiveness. Putting off decisions creates a cluttered mind. Decision-making creates order. Your life will be much more organized if you make decisions as they come. Rather than obsessing forever
about decisions you’ve put off, your mind will be free to concentrate on more important things. Time is our greatest asset. Like money, we can invest it, spend it, our waste it. However, unlike money we can’t possess, hold, or retain time—time comes to us for a moment and then passes by us.

How many times have you said to yourself, “I’ll get around to that later” or “I’m going to take care of that one of these days”? This is masochistic, self-sabotaging thinking based on the foolish notion that we’ll have more time down the road, or that an unpleasant task won’t be as bad if we do it later. Unpleasant tasks usually get more unpleasant the more we put them off (think toothache or leaky roof). Nothing gets accomplished “sooner or later.” Things get accomplished at a specific moment in time.

Although it’s tempting, your worst impulse is to wait, procrastinate, ponder, or wait and see. If you hear this inside your head, know that this is NOT how successful real estate investors respond to life’s challenges. Fortune favors the bold. So now, the only open question is, are you ready? Good luck. Onward and upward!

I’m putting on an epic real estate investing workshop on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, April 17-19 at the Empire Meadowlands

Hotel, 2 Harmon Plaza in Secaucus, NJ. That’s 3 full days for just $197, where I’ll reveal my most profitable
real estate investing strategies. Find out more about the event and reserve your seat by visiting tinyurl.com/gerald-lucas-4-17-15. 

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G Letter

December 2014

The Best Holiday Gift To Give

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
- Thomas Jefferson 

Seasons Greetings to all of you in The Real Estate Insider family. Let’s count our collective blessings for 2014 and look forward to a bountiful 2015. As you are out frantically doing last minute holiday shopping, consider that one of the greatest gifts you can give is the gift of honesty. Before you can be honest with others, however, you must be honest with yourself.

We all like to think of ourselves as basically honest, but we all have areas of our lives where we’re pretending to be something that we’re not. We pretend we’re on a diet, even as we’re sneaking chocolate when nobody’s watching. We pretend we’re working hard even when we’re watching TV or silly videos on youtube.

If you want to be whole and happy, then being “basically honest” isn’t good enough. Every time you do a little end-run around the truth, you lose a part of the truth of who you are. Self-deception is a slippery slope, so when you pretend to yourself, you cheat yourself out of the opportunity to look squarely at the things that you wish were different and take measures to change them.

When you are dishonest with others, you sabotage the trust that’s required for that relationship to thrive, and you undermine your own sense of trust. Setting a standard of absolute honesty for yourself prepares you for moments of temptation. Every lie you tell out of fear strengthens the fear. Every truth you tell strengthens your courage and confirms your integrity.

Practicing absolute honesty is very liberating—you find power in living according to your own beliefs, preferences and desires, instead of trying to mold your behavior according to others people’s expectations. You learn to trust yourself completely and to take full ownership of your decisions. Your relationships get cleaner, clearer and deeper. Your stress decreases, and life becomes more interesting and more fun.

Best wishes for success and happiness in the New Year.

Onward and upward! 

G Letter

November 2014

The Power Of Gratitude:
Why Thanksgiving Matters
 

Every year, millions of Americans gather for Thanksgiving to celebrate family, friends and connection. Thanksgiving is more than just a cultural tradition, however, and science now shows that celebrating Thanksgiving and practicing gratitude can elevate our levels of happiness. Gratitude enriches human life and mental well-being. It increases self-esteem and increases your energy levels. Gratitude elevates, energizes, inspires and transforms. It strengthens relationships, reduces stress and improves health.

So how does gratitude improve health? On one level, it helps people sleep better. A 2009 study of 401 people—40% of whom had clinical sleep disorders—found that the most grateful people had better sleep quality, normalized sleep duration (not too long or too short), were able to fall asleep faster at night, and also had less daytime tiredness compared to those who weren’t as thankful.

Gratitude also puts situations into perspective. When we make a point to see the good as well as the bad, it becomes more difficult to complain and stay stuck in a rut. Gratitude helps us realize what we have and reduces our constant need for wanting more all the time. So, while it may seem easier to focus on problems and grievances, you should make a point to introduce a little gratefulness into every day instead.

Gratitude Is Not Only The Greatest Of All Virtues,But The Parent Of All The Others.

-Cicero 

Gratitude not only helps you, it also helps those around you. Other people are moved, opened and humbled by your expressions of gratitude.

So how can we increase our gratitude? We can make gratitude a daily habit. At the end of every day, I try to write down at least one thing that I am grateful for. This simple, daily ritual improves my mood, (which is particularly helpful after frustrating days) and gives me more energy for the next day.

Take time every day to appreciate what you have as well as those you have around you. Happiness, meaning, and value in life don’t come from external things; they only come from within. Happiness is not discovered; it’s created on an individual basis based on the attitude you posess.

So this Thanksgiving, express gratitude for all you have. When you express gratitude for something, you attract more of that thing into your life. Gratitude is one of the surest paths to continued happiness.

Onward and upward! 

G Letter

October 2014

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Identify Things You Can and Cannot Control 
 

Do you ever worry about things that are beyond your control? Unfortunately, worrying creates physical and mental problems without providing any benefits. People often worry about both the past and the future instead of focusing what they can do in the present. There’s nothing you can do about the past—the clock can’t be turned back. Worrying about what might happen in the future is equally futile and creates mental monsters that can paralyze you.

The truth is that there are some things that you have no control over and others that you have complete and total control over—knowing the difference and then acting on that realization is one of the keys to personal productivity and satisfaction. Why worry about things you can’t control when you can keep yourself busy on the things you can control? Whenever you catch yourself worrying, repeat the serenity poem to yourself:

“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Letting go of worry will help you to take action and exert more control over your life and circumstances. Action defeats worry, inaction feeds it. When you’re faced with a problem, the first step you should take is to identify the source and cause of the problem and whether the problem is out of your control. If the problem is within your control, come up with possible solutions and options for handling the problem. Weigh all of the facts, evaluate all your options, make the best decision possible, and then take action. This is all you can do. Prioritize your effort and your energy on the things that make the biggest impact first. Being proactive is one of the most effective ways to combat worry.

Here’s to a productive and worry-free month. Onward and upward!

"Suffering comes from trying to control what is uncontrollable, or from neglecting what is within our power."

- Epictetus 

7 THINGS YOU CAN’T CONTROL IN REAL ESTATE 

• Inflation
• Price of land
• Interest Rates**
• Cost of Insurance
• Price of building material
• Taxes (Property and Income)
• Sale Price (when you sell) and Rent Price (when you rent)*

*The person with the money always decides the price—this is another way of saying that ‘the market’ ultimately controls these prices.

**your credit score has some influence over the interest rate you’ll pay, but you have no say in the Prime Rate which underpins most loans.


7 THINGS YOU CAN & SHOULD CONTROL IN REAL ESTATE

• The terms and contents of any contract that you CHOOSE to sign 

• Who you rent your property out to (rule #1 for landlords: screen your tenants!). 

• The price you pay to contractors and other professionals you work with (realtors, property managers, inspectors, contractors, attorneys, title companies, insurance brokers, etc.). Remember, the person with the money always decides the price!

• The condition of your property. Real estate is an active investment—this gives you much more control over property than you’d have over other assets, like stocks.

• The price you pay for property. Buyers always decide the price—the person with the money always ultimately decides the price.

• Guidelines you set for tenants, contractors, or anyone else you do business with. Setting rules and regulations for you and everyone you do business with eliminates risk.

• The professionals you choose to work with (realtors, property managers, inspectors, contractors, attorneys, title companies, insurance brokers, etc.). Only work with the best most trustworthy and reputable people you can find.