3 Crucial Mindsets Every Investor Needs to Succeed

What do you see as the greatest hurdle between you and your wealth creation goals? Is it the limited amount of time to search for deals? Would it be the financial constraints of pulling together deposits or getting loans? Is it a lack of property investing skills?

I recently watched a brief video clip of a talk where Tony Robbins makes a simple, but profound statement. “80 percent of wealth is psychology; 20 percent is mechanics.”

In other words, according to Tony, the greatest hindrance to your financial dreams is not your lack of skills, nor your limited resources, but your mindset.

I agree with that statement. We teach in our Property Apprenticeship course how to overcome these common constraints of time, money and skill. Those are easy to deal with, as long as the mindset is right.

However, if a person lacks a winning mindset, our experience has shown that they are doomed before they even begin. You may have a flawless investing strategy and significant time or financial resources, but these are practically worthless if you don’t possess the right attitude.

For this reason, we work extra hard at the beginning of the apprenticeship program to challenge people to break through their limiting beliefs.

So, what are your thoughts about money? Do you believe money is good, or is it dangerous and evil? What do you think is the best way to acquire wealth – by ripping people off, or through diligent efforts? Are the opportunities for wealth creation scarce or abundant? How you answer these questions will profoundly impact your financial future.

Often, before we can transform our mindset, we need to first consider where our attitudes about money came from in the first place. Where did your beliefs about money and wealth originate?

While there are many influencers in our lives, few are as significant as our parent’s attitudes about money. For better or worse, our mindsets tend to be generational. You probably got your basic mindset from your parents, and your kids will get theirs from you. Just pause for a moment and consider the implications of this idea.

Like many people, I inherited some limiting attitudes that I needed to break free from in order to be fully successful. By the time I finished university, I was deeply in debt. This wasn’t just related to poor money management, it was due to deep core beliefs that shaped my actions. One of my greatest motivations for overcoming my limiting beliefs was to improve the destiny of my children.

Here are the top 3 most crucial mindsets that I believe every investor needs in order to succeed:

1. Have A Purpose Bigger Than Yourself

I heard a story once of a great warrior long ago who went to battle with his army. They traveled great distances by boat to face a great enemy whose army outnumbered theirs.

After arriving on enemy shores, they unloaded their equipment and burned the ships that carried them there. They gave themselves no opportunity for retreat. They would win or perish. They won.

Have you burned all bridges behind you in pursuit of your investing goals? Are you willing to stake your entire future on your ability to achieve what you desire?

Where does resolve like this come from? This level of commitment and desire can only come from a great purpose. Without it, you don’t have a chance.

In From 0 to Financial Freedom, Steve takes his readers through an exercise in setting income and asset base goals with a time commitment attached. Goals are crucial because they put legs to our dreams.

But there’s another crucial step. You must ask the question, “Why do I want this goal?”

Have you ever set a goal in excitement and then forgot about it only to remember months later that you’ve hardly made any progress toward it. I’ve been there and it’s not an empowering feeling. How does this happen?

Quite simply, the root of the problem is a lack of desire, or to use Steve’s language, the goal was a “maybe,” and not a “must.”

Before your goal will ever be a “must,” it has to be tied to a purpose greater than your own comfort or sense of freedom. Think of it this way: What will you give yourself to – heart and soul – once you no longer need to work?

As you may have heard Steve quote his friend Brendan Nichols, “The enemy of a great life is a good life.”

Most people wander from the path of their goal because they really don’t care if they get there or not. Most people are too comfortable living the good life to lay hold of the great life they can find by serving a cause greater than themselves.

Last year I coached an investor in Tasmania whose husband worked at the Australian Maritime College. He trained many Indian students who left behind their wives and children for many months to study at great cost at an Australian university. Having sacrificed so much, they had little money left to cover basic life expenses and often had nothing to eat but rice.

Her husband’s dream was to provide scholarships to these students who had forsaken all they had, just for the opportunity to learn. Sadly, he died of cancer before seeing his dream come true. As I spoke with his widow about the “why” behind her investing goal, she shared through tears her husband’s dream, which had now become her own. Her desire is to use property to not only cover her needs in retirement, but to help provide for the living expenses of these Indian students. She’s already started providing rent for several students now.

What’s your ultimate purpose behind your goal? Why must you achieve it?

2. Believe That Anything Is Possible

Had you lived in the United States in the 1960’s, you would likely have believed that equality between black and white people was impossible. Racial segregation was so deeply ingrained in the culture, African-Americans could not use the same toilets or drink from the same fountains as white people. They were even forced to sit in a segregated area on public transport.

But one man, Martin Luther King, Jr., not only had a dream, but a faith that transcended and ultimately overpowered the unbelief of an entire nation. His faith inspired and led a civil rights movement that, in the end, cost him his life.

Is it possible that you could tap into the power of this same principle in your own life to transcend your circumstances and lay hold of your investing dreams?

We’ve all experienced failure and disappointment in our quest to fulfill our dreams, and often the result seems to be a faith left in tatters. We start to wonder, “Is this dream really possible? Do I have what it takes to make it happen?”

Just because you haven’t done something before doesn’t mean you can’t do it. Truly believing that nothing is impossible is vital to seeing your dreams come true. If your dream is bigger than you, the path toward it is guaranteed to be difficult, so you’ll need a strong faith to keep you going.

The conviction that nothing is impossible is the foundation for overcoming your constraints of time, money and skills. In order to transcend your current economic circumstances, you’ll need to take action in ways you haven’t tried before. To do so, you’ll need a system for increasing your faith.

The ancient Hebrew people believed that faith came through repetitive hearing. Check out this passage from one of their ancient writings. Their tradition demanded that they meditate on their ultimate purpose day and night. Only then would they take action toward their dreams and be prosperous and successful.

The Hebrew word for the word, “meditate,” can also be translated to the phrase, “to declare.” Hebrew meditation was not silent; it was quite vocal. We could take a valuable lesson from them.

I once mentored an investor in Perth who told me he shouted his goal statement out loud every morning in the shower. I suppose a side benefit of that was that his wife and children were also clear on what he was aiming for that day.

Do you have a system in place for repetitive hearing? Do you look at your goal daily, even speaking it aloud? Do you often think about the “why” behind your goals?

3. Take Responsibility For Your Outcome

Viktor Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist who suffered horrifically as a Jewish prisoner at Auschwitz in WWII. Just months after his marriage, he watched his wife, his parents and his brother die, either by illness or by murder in the gas ovens.

He suffered torture and many indignities, never knowing from one moment to the next if he would end up in the ovens, or perhaps be one of the more fortunate who would remove the bodies or shovel the ashes of those who weren’t so lucky.

Frankl used the experience to find meaning and grow stronger. While in the prison camp, he had a revelation that although the guards could take his freedom, his loved ones and even his own life, the one thing that they could not take from him was his power to choose how we was going to respond to their torment.

So he chose to forgive them. In reference to his experience in the prison camp, he said this:

“Just as a small fire is extinguished by the storm, whereas a large fire is enhanced by it, likewise a weak faith is weakened by predicament and catastrophes, whereas a strong faith is strengthened by them.”

He goes on to say…

Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”

So, what does this have to do with investing?

Through our work with literally thousands of property investors, we’ve found that people generally have one of two attitudes toward making money.

Some think that money comes as a result of factors beyond their control. We call them speculators. Speculators have lots of hope, but few to no plans.

Those who find success; however, all have one thing in common. They take responsibility for their desired outcome. Rather than leaving their success to forces outside of their control, they exert the effort to devise the right plan to achieve their dream. We call these outcome-driven investors.

The mindset that success is possible without thorough planning has financially annihilated many investors. Speculators give control for their success over to market forces that they are powerless to influence.

Outcome-driven investors maintain a sense of responsibility. Rather than trying to buy profits, they systematically create wealth. They plan their profit outcome before they buy, and they only buy when they are relatively certain their desired outcome will be achieved.

Winston Churchill said, “Responsibility is the price of greatness.” This is true in property investing, and in every area of life.

One practical way you can take responsibility for your investing future is to set aside both time and money toward property investing education.

Conclusion

In Steve McKnight’s Property Apprenticeship course, we spend at least the first month strengthening your mindset.

The entire first module of the course is devoted to these three crucial mindsets, because we know it’s the foundation for your success. Remember, “80 percent of wealth is psychology; 20 percent is mechanics.”

Let Us Know Your Thoughts

Can you think of any other limiting mindsets that hold investors back? How important have you found mindsets and attitude to be in your life? Leave a comment below to share your thoughts.

By Jason Staggers

Jason was a personal mentor working with Steve McKnight's Property Apprentices. He helped hundreds of investors apply Steve's teachings in the real world and achieve greater results on their journey to financial freedom. Jason now lives in Perth, WA where he leads Neuma Church.