I'm really starting to understand what Simon & Garfunkel meant by "people hearing without listening in their song Sounds of Silence.
Let me digress a bit ...
Last week, both my wife's parents (who are newly retired), applied for and got jobs at a local retail store chain. After probing my wife and them about it, the only reasoning I could get is they just "wanted to do it, since retirement was boring. I figure there is more to it, but I'm not one to pry too much. I mentioned to my MIL that she could make a LOT more money doing things for me as far as REI is concerned, with the possibility of making more in a single deal than what they could make in a year working laborously at the retail store. When I told her that, my wife had overheard, and almost at the same time, they both said "How?" I guess everything I've been doing and telling them to this point hasn't clicked yet with them. It's as if they've been hearing me, but not listening.
So, I told them both that I would put together a more organized presentation, and present it to them tonight. I hope beyond hope that both of them will "listen" this time. In brief, I told my MIL that she and my FIL could do a lot of work that I cannot do while at my JOB, like looking at houses, researching records at the courthouse, distributing marketing material, and even talking to sellers. This would be a huge boost in my overall efforts, and they would be justly rewarded for it. Plus, they wouldn't have to be doing near-minimum wage, laborous work.
I guess what really surprised me most of all about this whole dialog was the fact that my wife still hasn't gotten it. I guess I must've been doing something wrong this year in not communicating REI well to her. :-(
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Well, the truth is, Michael has been my partner in REI for 2.5 years, and just recently has it started to sink in that he should be prioritizing our business and diprioritizing the soul-less, minion-type work that is his day job. I think the impending layoffs have helped trigger the change. :-) It's too bad it's taken his this long--if we'd been cruising along at this rate the whole time, we may have been able to retire by now. I'm not blaming him, though.
I'm sure your family is just desensitized from all the get-rich-quick schemes they've seen. But, that's exactly what marks a good investor--it's someone that can spot a "real deal" opportunity when it comes along. Of course, real estate isn't really a way to get rich quickly, either. But, I'll take it over the stock market any day!
Very true. The problem I'm running into with my wife is her insistance on co-mingling the business with our personal endeavors - mostly finances. She understands it's a business, but feels we need to use proceeds from the business to eliminate personal debt. I admit some of our personal debt is because of the business, but that's the extent of it. The CPA didn't help matters by telling her we don't need to seperate our accounts just yet. This only exacerbated the situation.
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