Thursday, August 21, 2008

It's all my fault

I've made this an actual entry because to many people might not read all the comments left on a particular entry and I wanted to show the person who keeps writing that I have not fear of his comments; even if he will not disclose his name. I don’t even know if it’s a man or a woman. For our sake here, I’m going to assume it’s a man.

For full disclosure sake the person that made the last comment is mad at me because I have not published his latest new comment. He takes it as if I don't want to look bad. What he does not understand is, looking bad I have no challenge with. Letting people post things out of anger, spite and self pity, blaming their challenges on everyone else and not taking any responsibility for themselves; that I have a challenge with.

Here’s his complaint in a nut shell. He says that I and Robert Allen have ruined his life through the things he learned from us. He blames me and Mr. Allen because he bought homes in a market that was doing well and now can't unload them since the market is not doing as well. His position is that this whole real estate thing is BS and that his life is a mess because of me and Robert Allen. He claims that he lost thousands of dollars to me personally because he spent money getting educated and it was all for nothing. (Interesting that depending on him either buying my home study course or actually coming to my two day event, since he won't tell me who he is I can't tell, he would have paid between $300 to $1200 on my course. I don't know how that breaks down to "Thousands" but he is obviously miffed about the "big money" he spent with Mr. Allen and Mr. Allen doesn’t have a blog he can complain on.)

All I can say to that is I'm sorry things are not working out the way he planned. I apologize that I could not make him successful. I feel bad that he has such a bitter and angry taste in his mouth about me and real estate in general.

When someone is having a bad go at something they of course want to blame everyone and their brother. It is normal to be pissed off at whoever told you this or that was a good idea. What can I say? He's mad.

The strategies and principles must be working for someone though. I myself am in the middle of a short sale that we are projecting to make a lot of money on. I just got back from Chicago where I was speaking with a gentleman out of Denver who is making money hand over fist in bank REO's. One of my student couples just emailed me two days ago telling me about a house they took over using the strategies they learned from me with a ton of equity in it that they are going to seller finance and make a decent profit from.

The question that this person brings up for me is why does it work for some and not others? Why is it that I can guarantee, wherever this person is from, there are other investors doing just fine in this market? I guess that question will never be fully answered, at least not well enough for someone in a frame of mind where it's everyone else's fault that they are not successful. Go to any one of the real estate investors groups in your area and you will find people that are doing just great in this market. Will you find people in your exact same situation? I guarantee it. Will you find others that are pissed off because they paid for education that just doesn’t seem to be working? Yep. They will be easy to find. They tend to attract to each other and love to commiserate with each other.

I really feel bad for this person. It must really suck. I'm not going to defend myself or what I have taught him and others. I don't need to. I'm not going to get in a blog fight or war of words with him or anyone else. We all have challenges come up in our lives. I have crappy day’s weeks and months. I have had BAD deals and will have bad deals in the future. No one ever said that you or I wouldn't. I never promised anyone that there would be no challenges in the game of real estate investing. I never predicted the future of the market in your specific area. I definitely never forced anyone to buy a property.

Do I care that he is ticked off? Yep. I wouldn’t take the time to write if I didn’t. I do know that all of my students have my email and office phone number and I always answer to help in any way I can. If being mad at me helps him deal with the crap he is going through then fine. I have a stack of testimonials from others and I hear stories all the time of the exact opposite view.

The best lesson all of us can learn from this person is; when things get tough, when it really is “hitting the fan”, we all can choose to play the blame game or we can choose to get off our duff’s and move forward. That is my wish for this person. That they move forward and find a way to become successful in spite of how he feels about me or anyone else.