Evolution of the Why
In my previous post, I talked about how real estate investing can provide freedom and legacy. This potential future, one in which I no longer trade my time for money, but instead earn income according to the value I create for others, motivated me to form ELJAY Properties. The financial benefits of real estate investing continue to move me to grow the business and to realize the dream of financial freedom, but it has become less important to me than another benefit of being a real estate entrepreneur, one that has become my primary motivator, and one that I experience every day.
There are many people working toward a better future for themselves and their families through the business of real estate, and more are entering the business every day. There are brokers, investors, developers, educators, syndicators, fund managers and others who recognize the potential for financial freedom and are smart and gritty enough to make it happen. I believe I am one of these. But more than this, secondary to the financial benefits, is the potential for this business to let me see the world through different, better eyes.
Physicians learn a set of skills that are hard earned, valuable and relatively rare. When our work is good, it is fulfilling. We cure disease, prolong life, meet difficult challenges and connect with patients. The downside is that as medicine has become a business, we have become a commodity. In the eyes of the organizations that employ us, we are one dimensional, valued for the service we can provide and revenue we can generate today, but needing to prove our value again every day.
Physicians aren’t alone in this, of course. Many of us sense that we want more and that more is possible for us, but we may have become too like the people our employers assume us to be – a simple version of the us we sense could be.
So, what is special about real estate? It is true that it comes in infinite varieties, that we spend almost our entire lives in spaces defined by it, it can be bought for thousands or millions, and make those amounts for those that invest in it. These facts are important to those of us growing a real estate business, but they are not what is most important to me.
As a physician, particularly as a surgeon, my value is well-defined. In the operating room, I have the most valuable skill set, the skills that are most difficult to replace. I am the only one that can make the most important decisions. What the business of real estate has taught me, and is teaching me daily, is something I would not have learned in several lifetimes of practicing as a physician.
That is that the world is much, much bigger, more interesting and fuller of possibilities than I can imagine, and that those possibilities are more than I could explore in 100 lifetimes.
It takes some work to come to grips with this. Along with this realization of the possibilities being an entrepreneur provides, comes a fear of those possibilities: There is a fear of the unknown and the fear of failure. I cannot rely on the controlled environment of the operating room or my hard-won knowledge of anatomy and physiology to guide me. The world of business and real estate is huge, infinitely changeable and varied. Expertise in business, I have found, comes with adaptability, constant focus on a goal, and faith in an unknown future.
What is beautiful about all this is the realization that being in control isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It is the daily making of order out of chaos that brings me joy, and there is no better medium for that than real estate.
