She had kind of a rough start with spelling at the beginning of the years. She was getting B’s and C’s at first. I decided that I need to do work with her to help her to develop the skill of spelling. What I did was work five days a week with her a little bit each day.

At first it was a real struggle to get her to practice with me. But after awhile, she got used to it. We even invented a game based on the TV show “Minute to Win It” to help make the practice more fun. After that rough start, she got straight A’s, week in and week out.

The last week of school was very busy with activities outside of school. In fact, we only got a few chances to practice spelling. The day of test she was stressed out because she felt like she wasn’t well enough prepared for the test. I told her to relax – that she would do just fine. Sure enough, she got an A.

The reason that you got so stressed out is that she now has the identity someone he has a good speller, and someone who is an A student. She she was very uncomfortable with the idea of getting less than than an A.

Why am I telling you this story? It contains one of the most powerful success principals. It’s the same thing with any other area in your life.

For example, when you are successful in finding great deals, you begin to believe that you are great at finding great deals. This helps you find more and more deals as your belief in yourself grows. As you find more and more great deals, your identity shifts from unsure to certain that you can always find great deals.

You begin to expect success all the time, every single time. This is your new standard of excellence. You become uncomfortable when fall below that level of success which is your new standard.

I notice this in myself. I’ll get onto a hot streak, and seem to find great deals all over the place. I’ve also been a cold streak, and wonder when I’m ever going to find my next deal.

When I feel that I’m not living up to my personal standards as a real estate investor, I go into action mode. I’ll put myself onto an action-based program. I’ll keep moving until I’m back to my comfortable level of production.

My mistake is that I slack off once I reach that level of production.

Want to create more for your business? Change your identity for yourself. Set a new standard. As Tony Robbins taught me years ago…”Step up!”

That’s how people become more and more successful in real estate investing.

When I was a kid, one of the things I really loved to do was cook. That stemmed partly from the fact that I also loved to eat (I still struggle with my weight , but partly from the fact that I just enjoyed doing it.

The first thing you must do is start with the end in mind. Decide what you’d like to make, based upon what ingredients you have on hand. If you intend to make chocolate brownies, so be it.

Once you’ve decided upon what you want, you must combine the ingredients in the specific way described in the instructions. Then you cook it as instructed.

If you have followed the instructions, you will get the same result every single time. If you didn’t, chances are you’ll end up with a flop.

Sometimes even when you think you’ve followed the instructions, you end up with a flop. These are the chocolate brownies she tried to make yesterday. We’re still trying to figure out what to do with them

Real estate investing is very, VERY similar.

For starters, you take a look at your goals and your ingredients. Let’s say for instance that your goal is to create passive income with real estate. You need to look then look at the key ingredients for that recipe:

1. Financing lined up to purchase your target property.
2. An abundance of houses you can buy and finance in such a way that your tenant pays for the property.
3. A system for managing the properties from getting them ready to rent, doing the leasing, collections, maintenance, etc.

If you combine those ingredients in the right way, and you’ll get a successful cash flow property every single time.
The key to making this work every single time is to know your ingredients extremely well. That means gathering lots of intel on the neighborhoods in your city. You’ve got to know your pricing so you can tell a great deal from a situation where you’re going to get fleeced.

You’ve got to know the construction of the houses you are buying well so that you know in advance what upgrades you’ll need to make when you are doing your rehab.

Finally, you’ll need to know what your customers are looking for. How many bedrooms? Do they want central heat and air, or does that really matter to them?

Once you know your market really well, you’ll know what will work well, and what will flop.