PREPARATION AND MINDSET MEETS = SUCCESS
As we come to the end of the year and we look ahead to 2024, i wanted to share my thoughts on what we could all do, as property investors and developers and the habits we can all inculcate in our daily lives to help us be even more successful next year.
To do this, i take inspiration from how the Japanese put it:
Ikigai -Purpose in life
The obvious place is to start with being clear on your ‘purpose’ and what makes you get up in the morning. You must try to align your talents with your passion.
This means that you have to take some time to ‘think’ about your own talents and capabilities. These are the things you are really good at.
In the context of property investment and development, this could be ‘deal negotiation’ and ‘deal analysis’ (as you may be highly numerically gifted).
Once you have truly aware of your own personal capabilities, you should try to align your passion doing more of these tasksas they will bring you more success and joy.
Your purpose fuels you!
Kaizen – Continuous Improvement
I am and have always been a massive advocate of moving the dial one inch at a time, one day at a time.
I believe , strongly, in the notion of small improvements. In fact on site, i am always talking about the daily tasks to be done to my team of builders, plumbers, property managers in a project that would last months.
Being able to distill large and complex projects into bite size daily chunks is vital to manage multiple projects and multiple tradesmen.
You should combine your capabilities and understand gaps in your own skills.Thereafter you should build a team of driven individuals around you. I always want my tradesmen to be as driven as i am on every project and i use incentives to foster these behaviours.
Pomodoro Technique:
It is said that for us to be more productive we need to think in 30 mins spans.
The Pomodoro technique suggests that we work for 25 mins without distraction and take a 5 minute break. This means turning your phone off! In fact, if i am not working online i also turn off my WIFI connections to avoid being distracted by all notifications.
Being able to focus on one task seems so much harder these days as we are bombarded with a deluge of information.
One research i read recently on this found that today we are exposed to the same amount of information (overload) in one day than what our grandparents processed in a lifetime!
A small technique i employed on my mobile to reduce distraction is to turn off ‘all notifications’ from all apps. This, i found, helped me reduce my screen time!
In combination these small techniques will improve your productivity.
Shoshin:
Here we are advised to approach our work with the same level of curiosity we had when you first started.
This is another powerful mindset to have. It means we should not be afraid to ask the all the ‘stupid’ questions, to learn the information we don’t know about.
Even after 25 years of property development experience, i am still asking these ‘stupid questions’ if i dont fully grasp what is being said by technical professionals. I always want to learn about these new information as it’s fun and challenging for my brains but also i am adding new knowledge to my repertoire.
Cumulative knowledge building over time gets you to move from a novice to an expert!
In addition, and most importantly as commissioners of works, the more you know and understand about each trade the less likely you are to be taken for a ride on cost and prices of works.
So be super curious always!
Wabi Sabi:
Life is full of imperfection, embrace them!
In fact the concept of perfection can be so costly in property development.
A lot of people i coach get so bogged down in the minutiae that they lose focus on the bigger picture, as to why they are even doing these investments/developments, which is hopefully to be financial free and build a passive income.
So in 2024, try to stress less about all the little details but rather focus on what is truly important (e.g financial freedom, passive income) and achieving a good work life balance.
Remember the key it to keep taking little actions daily rather than waiting for perfection.
The law of diminishing return:
The law of diminishing return is another one i use to explain to my team that getting from 95% finish and 100% (perfection) can be so costly and yet doesn’t add anymore to the bottom line. Rather it adds delays to the completion of the project and to the rental income.
So be happy with imperfection!
Kakeibo (have goals in place)
Lastly, its critical to set yourself financial goals and working towards it.
This means that you have a ‘north star’ to aim for on all of your investment projects, which feed into the delivery of your short term (next 12 months ) and eventually to the goals for the next decade!
So always start with a budget on all of your projects, not matter if you find that it is somewhat wrong as you move along the project. Its best to be slightly wrong than be start in total darkness.
About Azid
Azid has been a property investor for the past 25 years and started with no inherited wealth and has built a multi million pound property wealth. He holds an MBA and an MSc in Economics and pools his 20 years of corporate experience and his academic background to invest with knowledge and skills.
Quiddity Education
Title Splitting Courses:
Quiddity Education successfully trains investors on how to build their wealth in properties by buying multiple flats at a time and recycling their capital out of each deal so they can re-use the same capital over and over again to buy even more property assets.
He has written a book on the property investment strategy called “Grow your Wealth via Title Splitting” by Azid Gungah and is available on Amazon.
You can find out more about his next 2 day Title Splitting courses on www.quidditygroup.co.uk
