Subscribe: RSS
In today’s episode, Allan shares his thought process about being a real estate investor and business owner. Entrepreneurs must focus on what they can control, and let go of what they can’t. In addition, accepting risk is fundamental to any kind of investing. Without risk, there could be no return.
To get in touch will Allan, follow him on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/allanrdraper/
or schedule a call with him at https://allandraper.com/scheduling/
Show Notes:
Allan has started and grown several multimillion-dollar businesses, his mission is to help you do the same. Welcome to The Business Growth Pod, building the future one entrepreneur at a time.
Everyone, Welcome to The Business Growth Pod. I’m Allan Draper. I’m glad you joined me today, I am going to be doing a solo episode and just sharing a few thoughts that are near and dear to my heart, especially just recently.
So a lot of you know that I’ve been working on an investment property in Naples, Florida. And we basically built a custom home there. And it’s been a process we started working on it in probably February or so. So about a little over seven months ago. And we just closed on the property about a week and a half ago, I was there for a week with a couple of the other investors and we were putting together the house, getting the furniture, doing all that stuff that’s required to get it ready to go. And fast forward a week and a half or so two weeks, to yesterday, and hurricane in hit. And it originally I thought it was going to miss us I thought it was going to be north of us closer to Tampa. But it didn’t, it hit Naples and the coasts right there, a couple hours south of Tampa, pretty hard. And as time went on, it became more clear that the opportunity, the likelihood of severe severe damage to our new home was very likely that I think this brought some mixed emotions. And I was trying to document what was happening a little bit on my Instagram. And just going through the thought process of what it’s like to be a real estate investor, and a business owner and entrepreneur. So I have a few thoughts that I wanted to share about what it takes to one invest in real estate, to own a business and how those things are very closely related. And the interesting thing is, as hurricane in was just going crazy, just dumping large amounts of water in the streets and flooding areas all around me. I started watching videos, the cameras in our house, they went out and we’re trying to we’re still trying to get them back. We don’t know if it was a power issue or an internet issue or what but we lost them. And so we were relying on people, our neighbors and people in our neighborhood to update us because they couldn’t leave their homes, obviously, during the hurricane and all these things were happening. But we were trying to get as close as possible to where our house is to determine the amount of damage that had happened. So at one point, someone shared a ring doorbell video that was just Up Our Street. And I shared it on my Instagram, my Instagram stories. And there was this guy on a wave runner that was just cruising right up our street. And he was in several feet of water above the street. So I saw that I knew it was on my street or really close to my house, we were still trying to figure out exactly where it was. But I just figured our house is gonna be underwater. And we just put it’s a custom home. And so it has like really, really expensive custom hardwood in it. And for some reason that that was the thing we kind of kept coming back to is like the amount of work that that hardwood and the flooring, and all the furniture that we just spent a week and a half putting together getting in the house and all those things, just the work. It wasn’t necessarily the money. And when I talked to people about it or shared on my social media, images, or even the video of the guy on the wave runner going up the street, it became clear hear that people were very, very concerned. For me, which I really appreciate. There was this outpouring of love, but I got to the point where it seemed like it affected them more than it was affecting me. And because it was affecting them, it seemed like it, uh, on a greater level, then it started to affect me even more than it had originally affected me. And people were like, Allan, do you guys have insurance? You have flood insurance? And it’s like, of course, of course, yeah, we have all those things, there would have been some minor financial loss, probably just deductibles and certain extraneous costs traveling out there, whatever. But it was more about the work. From my perspective, it was more about okay, this is going to take time out of my day just talking about it, just worrying about it just wondering what’s going on there is taking time out of my day. And I’m not able to be productive with other things. As we were kind of in limbo with the severity of the damage. I was recording a podcast episode. And prior to hitting the record button, I mentioned to my guests like, hey, you know, I might be talking about this a little bit because it’s at the forefront of my mind. And I didn’t during the recording. And it was actually really refreshing. He and I just had this really good conversation about building businesses and the experience of an entrepreneur. And I didn’t think about the house at all. And it was very refreshing. So the end of the story with the house, just to kind of sum up what actually happened an hour or two or three after the hurricane, kind of pass through the builder of our house was in the neighborhood, we asked him to stop by and take some photos. And he went to the house inspected, it took some photos of the inside, and it was completely dry. And I don’t know how that happened. We’re still trying to figure it out. There’s a marina, probably 100 yards or less just to the west of us. And then just on the other side of that Marina is Vanderbilt beach. And I’ve seen videos and photos from our neighborhood. And we’re kind of in the middle ish of the neighborhood. And when you’re in my neighborhood is completely flat, you don’t go up any hills or anything is completely flat, at least it feels like that. But it appears that where we’re at and my neighbor’s might have flooded, we were just built a little higher. But it appears that my point on the street is just a few inches higher than the rest of the neighborhood. I know that there are streets a few away from mine that are certainly higher that people know about. But I didn’t know that mine was and it’s really weird. But I’ve been trying to process this, like, I’ve been trying to think about survivor’s remorse, I think that’s a little stronger term than is appropriate for the scenario. But there is some of that, like, Why didn’t my house flood, we don’t live there full time. It’s a vacation and investment property. There are people that live in that neighborhood. And that live in Naples, that’s where they live in work. And I’ve seen these videos of their furniture floating around in their living rooms. So that’s one of my points today is I do feel very thankful, I don’t understand, I don’t think I did anything special, at least I haven’t figured out like maybe the contractor that built the home, maybe he took extra measures to prevent this. I know there’s all sorts of weird hurricane protections that are now common in that area, like the glass is extra thick. The doors open in certain ways, like the exterior door opens to the outside as opposed to coming into the house, and things like that. But I don’t think I did anything to necessarily deserve this. And it’s been kind of a weird process for me just kind of going through my thoughts and thinking about what happened and all the devastation that’s been going on, and why we kind of really at the end of the day just lucked out. But I do feel very thankful about that. But I feel a little guilt as well. I think the big lesson that I want to share today, though, is that in this process of getting feedback from people just blowing up my Instagram and texting me lots of people were texting me because they knew I had a house there, Hey, is your house, okay, and this and that. And I swear I got to the point where it felt like people were more worried about my house than I was worried about my house. And in business, I’ve started to realize that one of my skills or abilities is I have a tenacious knack for accepting risk that a lot of people don’t have. And by the way, the night before the hurricane, as I was falling asleep, I didn’t think twice about it. I swear I wasn’t even thinking about it at all slept great. But there are some people that can’t do that, that they would be up all night. I worried about their house. And I had an episode of this podcast, where I talked about circle of concern versus circle of influence. And I think that’s a really big part of why I was able to handle this. Just not even financially, but just in terms of emotionally, how I was able to go on with my day, I had five or six important meetings yesterday, I recorded a podcast episode, like I said, and I have obligations that don’t stop, so that I can just sit in front of the TV, watch the news, or in front of my computer and watch live video of what’s going on there and just worry about the house, I have these other obligations, which are actually a blessing for me, because then I’m not just fretting over what’s going on there. So a couple of weeks ago, I dropped an episode that we’ll share in the show notes, where I talk about this concept from Stephen Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” That involves these two circles, this analogy that he uses of what affect our lives. And our circle of influence includes things that we have control over our circle of concern is everything that affects us. So for example, Hurricane Ian is a perfect example of this, right. So within my circle of concern was, it was just how I responded, We got to the point where we were talking about what we can do, no one can really leave their house, we tried to put away as much furniture as possible. And we just got to the point where it’s like, there is nothing we can do. So that was my circle of concern, we got to the point where it’s like, hey, we did what we could, there’s nothing we can do, what is left is how we react to it. Now the circle of influence was much larger, right, the hurricane was passing through. And in his book, Stephen Covey talks about how the most successful people are able to spend their time focusing on their circle of concern, the things that they have control over. And that by spending that time focusing on the things that they have control over, they’re able to expand the number of things that they can affect, and they limit how the circle of influence the things that affect them, that don’t have control over them, they’re able to limit the material effect that those things have in their lives. So the moral of the story is this, if you want to invest in real estate, if you want to invest in a business and be an entrepreneur, you have to be okay with risk. And buy be okay with risk, I don’t just mean you have to be willing to take risk, you have to be able to not let it consume you, you have to live within your circle of concern. And not just your circle of influence, you have to live and focus on the things that you can control, and not spend time living and focusing on things that affect you that you cannot control. And in order to be successful in business, you have to be able to do that at greater and greater risk depths. So if the risk is greater, you have to really push yourself to understand that there’s things that you’re not going to be able to control. But you’re going to take the risk anyway. And with this whole hurricane Ian thing and our new vacation property in Naples, I learned just mostly again by how people were reaching out to me and how emotional and how upset they seem to be. I learned that that’s one way that I’m a little different. And that has helped me to embrace new endeavors and new challenges, and especially to try new things. This experience isn’t going to make me question new endeavors, it’s actually going to give me a reason to try them. Because it’s like, look at brand new several million dollar house hurricane comes through the week after, well, how did I respond? And don’t get me wrong, I make mistakes with all sorts of things even in this area. But at the end of the day, I was able to match the advice from this book with a very practical application of to some extent, at least focusing on what I could control and not focusing on the things that I couldn’t control. And to get to that next level. You’re going to have to do exactly that. And I think the big thing is, if you’re able to focus on the things that you can control, you’re going to take greater risks. You’re going to invest in yourself, and you’re going to spend more time focusing on your mental state your attitudes, and your emotions and responses to things that are outside of your control, and just take everything in stride. Those are my thoughts. If you have questions, if you have any follow ups, anything that I can help you with along these lines, make sure number one follow my Instagram, @allanrdraper. You can go to my website and schedule an appointment with me. We can sit down and we can work through some of the hesitations that you have with risk, and some other suggestions that I might have for you to be able to spend time controlling your thoughts and focusing on what you can control and not everything that affects you. And we’ll catch you next time.
If you’ve enjoyed today’s podcast, please leave us a rating and for daily inspiration and business tips. Follow Allan on Instagram. Until next time, remember we build the future one entrepreneur at a time.
Reader Interactions