June 2010

Are you a creative person? When was the last time you came up with a creative idea? But why be creative? Why challenge the rules and perhaps even appear stupid to others? Because creativity is the stuff of life. That is a big reason. But there are other more reasons to consider. Another reason is change. We all know the only constant in life is change, albeit we tend to resist change. (In fact, the only person I know who likes "change" is a wet baby.)
When things change, new information emerges which leads to a brand new set of problems. It's proven time and again that it's no longer possible to solve today's problems with yesterday's answers. So you have a decision to make. You can either complain about how difficult things have become or employ your creative juices to come up with new ideas, new solutions and new paradigms.
This economic turndown has vastly influenced our lives in recent years. It has forced us to stop and examine our lives. Socrates once said "an unexamined life is not worth living." So, I think this recession may ultimately prove to be a good thing because we are learning valuable lessons. What would make it even better is if we further examine our spending habits and reasons why we tend to live beyond our means. This kind of introspection is needed if we are to attain financial freedom ourselves and to save our great country from becoming another great civilization that was.
To affect positive change we needed an impetus and we got one, the Subprime Meltdown, the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression (or as I call it, the 911 of the business world). It is here for a few more years to be sure. But to benefit from it maximally requires new knowledge and applications. Remember how our lives have changed since the 9/11. Well, the business rules of engagement have also changed drastically. Real estate has taken the biggest blow, and as usual, our government's answer to every problem is more regulation. In contrast, I advocate education over regulation. But you can't find that kind of knowledge in any accessible or even comprehensible fashion in our bureaucratic system.
To obtain this kind of knowledge required for your prosperity you need to attend and network in real estate meetings and seminars. Venues such as our real estate club, Los Angeles Real Estate Investor's Club ("LAREIC"), will provide you with the new knowledge on how the game is being played now. Once you know what's working in today's market, you'd be able to further develop your creativity and capitalize on it more effectively. Without this new information, you're limited to old solutions which are ineffectual in our fast-changing world.
I believe there are ways to enhance your creative powers. Here are a couple of suggestions from two highly successful people. Steven Jobs was asked why some people are more creative than others. He replied, "Innovation is usually the result of connections of past experience. But if you have the same experiences as everybody else, you're unlikely to look in a different direction." He said in college he took modern dance classes to meet the women. But what he didn't realize was how much he learned about movement and perception in those classes, which came handy years later when he worked for the Atari Corporation. Thanks to his modern dance classes, he was able to calculate how much resolution of movement was needed in their video games.
The real estate entrepreneur Frank Morrow explains that he got his entrepreneurial education while attending the graduate school of business at Stanford. Although he took all the required courses in marketing, finance, accounting, he said, "I learned more about business from a drawing course than anything else. My teacher taught us: 'All art is a series of recoveries from the first line. The hardest thing to do is to put down the first line. But you must.' The same is true in business. You must act. A lot of business school types analyze things to death and never get around to acting. Perhaps more of them should take drawing lessons." I believe your mindset is more important than nuts and bolts. We have plenty of real estate knowledge at our monthly meetings and seminars to arm you with helpful tools to succeed in this market. But I challenge your beliefs relative to success. Remember that unless you break with the old you won't let in the new. In other words, light (education, abundance, and love) won't come into your life until you show the courage to literally kick out darkness (ignorance, scarcity and fear.)
So expand your horizons, step outside of what's considered normal, break the boundaries of what seems reasonable, and act upon your knowledge. There's never been a more important time in our country's history (or the world for that matter), than the present. What we do today will affect humanity and shape our future destiny. So, let's make it a good one.
You can always contact me directly by email: sam@samsadat.com.