Hey it’s Dr Ro, hope you’re well.
I wanted to share something with you that is a little bit more personal but at the same time professional linked to business.
I’m going to narrow this down because it’s such a big topic and it’s really driven by the fact that I’ve been doing quite a few events recently with 100, 120, 130 people sat listening, wanting to learn and develop a business specific property investing and in many cases they’re driven, as a couple really got a passion towards doing something together and they both see that this is a solution that can provide financial security for example, in the future, so they are aligned.
But at the same time there are couples that aren’t aligned and there’s a conflict either the husband wants to do this and his wife doesn’t or his wife wants to do it and he doesn’t, it can be a combination of either of those. It’s not unusual to come across this if I come across 100 people. It is likely to be in the region of eight, 10, 12 couples that may be in conflict.
It might even be one of them is totally focused and wants to make it happen and wants to sit learn this, whereas the other came along and felt like they were dragged there and when those situations happen it’s very hard to say for example in this case the wife really wants to do this, but husbands like why have you even got me to watch this I don’t want to do this stuff. It’s a massive conflict for a lot of couples because the big question is if we don’t do this what are we going to do?
The first question I’m going to ask you is have you had a chance to watch I do a 75 minute presentation, a free presentation that goes through the key elements of property investing. If you haven’t watched that watch it together. It might help to watch it because if one of you is not quite sure what’s involved or what this means to build a property business for example, at least if you watch it you get some idea.
It gives you a nice simple structure to understand and it might help the person that is not so positive, come on board and go okay, I get this I understand how this works, I see what you want to do I’ll support you through that. I’ve got four questions you might want to consider if you’re butting heads it’s okay to butt heads because you’re two different people, you’ve got two sets of values, two sets of different aspirations and maybe the way you see the world, or specifically this part of the world property business or business in general is different to the other person.
You may have common aspirations and that’s what I want to find out really, what are your common aspirations? What would you say are the things that you both when you first met you talked about? When you first fell in love, when you had those passionate walks out along the beachfront on a mountain or in a café together, when you first looked into each other’s eyes and you had a real buzz about the future.
What were those aspirations?
You might say to me that was 15 years ago, 10 years ago we’ve got two kids now and one of us has been made redundant. I understand all those things because I have been through the journey of ups and downs.
I’ve got my own children and I had my conflicts with my partner and I have had those experiences on many occasions and worked with countless couples, countless couples going through the same thing and actually, the reality is that although life has changed and the way you are together has changed, you’re still two human beings with aspirations. It is quite worrying when people forget to bring back those aspirations and they may have changed, so what you originally wanted may have changed, agreed, but now it’s time to press the reset button and say okay, as we sit here now, as I’m recording this it’s 2021.
But you might be watching this in two, three, four, five years from now what are your aspirations as a couple? Where do you want to travel? What experiences do you want to have together? If you’ve got kids, what experiences do you want to have with the kids? Don’t think you understand because I’ve got a job and I can’t do that. I want you to imagine, if you didn’t have a job if you were financially secure, financially dependent where would you travel, what would you do? What would you do together?
I’ve helped couples make some good friends of mine just recently they got financially free property two and half years ago from coming through developing a property business. When I first taught them, they were like can we do this and I remember getting a message from the wife and was like guess where I am, I’m over in Portugal on a juice cleanse for a week and she’d just taken the time off as she had the financial independence to do that.
What would you do separately to have some fun, have your own aspirational things and what would you do together? If you can find common aspirations to start with, that brings your compass back into your line of sight that’s very important.
Then you ask yourself the question, what are the options we’ve got? We’re looking at property or maybe he is or she is and he or she wants to do it and the other ones may be a bit reluctant, what real estate can do as a passive income for example, can create the opportunity to do those things.
It gives your monthly income. It gives you the choice to step back from your job fully or partly, it allows you to have longer holidays and choose to go where you want to go when you want to go it gives you that. If it’s not real estate, then what are your other choices? That’s the conversation you need to be having a couple. Don’t go, what are the choices? You need to go, this is what it can do for it.
This is what can be done and you go we get three, four, five, six, £7,000 per month or whatever it is we want from a property business. We could do an online business. How long will it take? Could trade the stock market. That’s an option it’s more an active income that could be something you could do, you can go work longer hours.
That’s an option, but for most people it’s like do I want to do more hours and if you do more hours you are limited to how many hours you’ve got in the day. It’s really looking at different options and if you feel right now there is no other option but I see this as a really tangible asset based income, we can do it together and have similar focus. We can go and buy assets that create long-term wealth for our kids as well.
Then at least understand what your partner wants to do and support them in that and that’s number three.
First of all look at the options and be sensible saying we could give this a thing ago but will it work for us? The great thing with property is there are multiple strategies, you can have passive income strategies, creative strategies, cash generating strategies for you as well, tax efficient way. There’s lots of clever things you can do but you do have to have the conversation about the options.
Number three is then are you going to support me? Let’s agree that I’m going to do this, but your partner doesn’t want to do it instead of beating them up, getting angry, frustrated just simply say I know you love me, I love you. Will you at least support me morally, I’ll spend a certain number of hours a week building this as a business would you just encourage me, support me? Let me put the time in and put the work in, I’ll do the work I just need your support.
Or it could be that they want to come on board and fully get involved, but what you are looking for is a minimum is at least their moral support. If you’re watching this and you’re not really interested in doing it but your partner does at least offer them that they’ve made a decision, you’ve got a partner that wants to do something. I come across so many people where I had a wife at an event and her husband sat there filling his face in front of the TV watching soccer doesn’t want to do anything, has no aspirations whatsoever. It might be that you’re watching this and you’ve got a partner that wants to do it, but you don’t particularly want to do it at least they’re aspirational tuck into that.
Be thankful that you’ve got that as so many couples break up because one person has no aspiration whatsoever, and that’s challenging because they want to grow, but the other person doesn’t want to grow. It’s important to find that common ground that is the centre of gravity between the two of you and the fourth question is what are the consequences if you don’t?
You just carry on doing what you’re doing.
If you’re pissed off right now, you’re tired and feeling like do I really want to carry on doing this? If you just project your life in 10 years’ time doing the same thing no changes, you’ll get to this destination and hit that point there, so only by changing one degree here when you actually end up in a completely different place in your life, and that’s the challenge.
Most people aren’t prepared to put time and the effort in to make that one-degree change. You’ve really got to do this, look at the consequences and say if we don’t this is what’s going to happen.
So, let’s make a change now. Dr Ro signing out.
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