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By Sensei Gilliland

This is not your average financial planning article…

If you want to be lulled into a half conscious Sunday afternoon post-game coma, or find yet another excuse to go back and take another 6 months to build a business and investment plan, this is not the advice you want to read.

If you do want real results, and you want them today, then the next 5 minutes are going to produce a nice healthy ROI.

Let’s do this!

What Do You Really Want?

Financial goal setting doesn’t have to be a dull, laborious, or time consuming affair. It really doesn’t. Spending hours with financial planners who give you colorful presentation packages can make you feel warm and fuzzy. Commissioning another revision of your 25 page business and investment plan might give you a little ray of hope. But do these things put money in your pocket? Or are they just stealing your most precious resource – time?

Airbnb is famous for its one page business plan. On August 7th, 2016 TechCrunch values the bed and breakfast app at $30 billion. Not too shabby. So if you are simply hoping to score somewhere south of $2 billion in the next 8 years you’ll probably be fine with a paper napkin. In fact, in my latest book “Wholesale Warrior” I reveal how I ended up boiling down my model to the simplicity of being able to fit on less than a 10 inch square.

Your plan is really all about four questions.

  1. Why?

What are your finances going to achieve for you?

  1. How Much?

How much are you shooting for? Wealth, income, and time?

  1. When?

By when should you be enjoying these benefits? What date?

  1. How?

How are you going to get there? Break it down into three simple steps A, B, C.

  1. Acquire rental properties
  2. Scale to owning 100 cash flowing rental units
  3. Spend free time helping to train other investors

Now focus on accomplishing A.

Be a Financial Champion

If real estate is all about “location, location, location,” then winning at your financial goals is all about “ACTION, ACTION, ACTION!”

We had the Rio Olympics. What did it take for those world class athletes to win those medals? Did they wait to get a master’s degree? Did they have a bigger binder and financial prospectus than all of the millions of spectators around the globe? Or did they just go?

They practiced, they trained, they took action daily, and they got the best coaches they could find.

I competed in martial arts for years. How do you get great at combat sports like martial arts (or real estate)? Not in a corner office or in front of the TV. You get on the mat, and you train. You spar. Sure you’ll get hit. You might even get a bruise or two. Guess what; you just get smarter, faster, and stronger. Next time you are less likely to leave yourself open to that blow. You’ll be faster and more accurate at securing a win.

Now I’m a big fan of education. I wouldn’t recommend anyone just jump in the UFC octagon after watching Rocky or a Jean Claude Van Damme movie. Just like you shouldn’t just rush to put all of your money into real estate based on a ‘reality’ TV show episode, or a handbook printed in the 80s. You’ve got to have some knowledge, a good trainer, and an up to date system. But at some point you’ve just got to take action.

You’ve probably seen martial arts block breaking. Practitioners can smash through stacks of concrete blocks, boards, and other building materials. But those items aren’t going to break unless the artist swings on them. Without action nothing will happen. The same goes for your financial plan.

Even Water Breaks Stone

Even dripping water breaks through stone over time. That small drop of persistence can literally drill through seemingly insurmountable boulders. And this is one of the reasons that building a rental portfolio is so powerful in breaking through financial goals.

I am a big fan of wholesaling, rehabbing, and even private lending. However, rentals are also a great choice. They are great for steadily building wealth, building up powerful streams of cash flow, and it can be a completely passive strategy that delivers the results you want, while you sleep.

I firmly believe that anyone can benefit from rentals, if they have discipline and a good system. With a good turnkey system it doesn’t matter whether you own 10 or 100 in your portfolio, you still have all the free time in the world to do what you are really passionate about.

Sensei Gilliland

Founder of Black Belt Investors; Sensei Gilliland has been featured on the cover of Real Estate Wealth Magazine, hosts ‘The West’s Top Ranked Real Estate Investors’ Club’ – 12 ROUNDS, and has engineered several highly popular trademarked real estate investment systems. Sensei is the go-to source for serious investors and entrepreneurs seeking extremely effective, no holds barred training, investment properties and funding. Claim your copy of his powerful Cash and Wealth Report here.