Mindset
One of the most powerful things I've learned over the past 10 years is that your mindset is your single most powerful tool and the thing that your success or failure depends on most. If you go into a situation with the right mindset, you will be putting yourself in the best position you can to succeed. Even when faced with challenging situations, having the right mindset will help you overcome those things.
Conversely, going into a situation with the wrong mindset will clearly not put you in the best situation to succeed. Can you still be successful even when having the wrong mindset? Sure, but at that point success can often be attributed to luck which is not sustainable. Also, at the first sign of a challenge or complication, you will be thrown off course and will probably not achieve the outcome you desire. It's really a question of whether you want to control what you can control, or if you just want to let the chips fall where they may.
Most recently I've realized that our mind can also be the thing that limits our potential the most. When I first started looking into multifamily personally, I was only looking at things that my small mindset would allow me to. I was limiting myself to things I felt like I could afford because that's how society teaches us to look at things. Anything over $1M was pretty much out of the question because it was too big and scary. Even after all the uncomfortable things I've done in my life, anything more than that was getting too far out over my skis. It wasn't until I began talking to people that have been extremely successful in this business that I realized that it wasn't my abilities and it wasn't money that was limiting the size of deals that I could be pursuing - it was my mindset. Once I expanded my horizons, it became so obvious that I had a huge opportunity to help people and make a difference in their lives. I never would have had that moment of clarity had I not rewired my own way of thinking first.
This can be applied to anything. It doesn't matter where you are in your life or career, nothing is going to change for the better if your mindset isn't allowing you to be open to the opportunities that present themselves.
“I’ve never been poor, only broke. Being poor is a frame of mind. Being broke is only a temporary situation.”
