Last week, we heard a few stories of some people that are striving to achieve something bigger than ourselves. In many ways, the dream, vision or purpose is only half of the story.
This week, we look at the second half perhaps. Grit, resilience or fortitude are variations on the same theme. When the going gets tough, as it surely will do, these are the characteristics and qualities that will see us through. When we get knocked down, we need a reason to get back up again...that’s the motivation behind purpose part. But actually getting back up once we have been knocked down is where we need some of that grit, resilience or fortitude, often in spades.
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Transcription of the show
Last week, we heard a few stories of some people that are striving to achieve something bigger than ourselves. In many ways, the dream, vision or purpose is only half of the story.
This week, we look at the second half perhaps. Grit, resilience or fortitude are variations on the same theme. When the going gets tough, as it surely will do, these are the characteristics and qualities that will see us through. When we get knocked down, we need a reason to get back up again...that’s the motivation behind purpose part. But actually getting back up once we have been knocked down is where we need some of that grit, resilience or fortitude, often in spades.
Property Chatter
Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Property Voice Podcast. My name is Richard Brown and as always, it's a pleasure to have you join me again on the show today. Well, I was thinking to myself, what can I share with you this week? And whilst I've got a few ideas for content and in fact, more than ideas, plans for content for the next few weeks, I wasn't really sure what I was going to share with you this week. And lo and behold Monday comes around, which is my recording deadline day, and I'm thinking, what am I going to talk about on the podcast this week? It's one of the benefits of the unplanned schedule, but it also brings some pressure points as well.
And I was thinking to myself, well, what can I share? What came to mind essentially is a stimulus, rather, from conversations I've been having with a number of people of late, and it really revolves around the phrase or the term resilience was the word I use. Now, I often talk about the characteristics that we need in terms of mindset to be successful as property investors and developers. And resilience is definitely one on that list. But I think equally I wanted to extend that to a few other similar words, if you like, that could come into play here. Of course the most notable would be grit. And there's a very, very famous book that's been written on the topic of course, by Angela Duckworth, which is called Grit. And if I look at the title actually, it talks about the power of passion with perseverance.
And that's really interesting because when you look up on Wikipedia, the definition of the word grit, from a psychological point of view, is described as a positive, non-cognitive trait based on an individual's perseverance of effort, combined with the passion for a particular long-term goal or end state. In other words, a powerful motivation to achieve an objective and therefore to be able to endure some of the things that come our way to test us along the way. I haven't read the book, so that's why I'm having no doubt. And rather than say absolutely that she was probably referring to the psychological definition of grit when she came up with the title and the subtitle of her book. In fact, I really must get around to reading that one. It's on my wishlist.
So I've used the word resilience, but I think grit is a better word. Now, I will say this right from the off, I recently shared a video actually on LinkedIn. If you follow me on LinkedIn, by all means, feel free to do so if you don't already. But I shared a video on there which was entitled Grit Or Quit. And I will say this, that I think just persevering for no end game, no cause or when things just don't make sense, just doesn't make sense really. I will say that grit and perseverance and resilience, when we're really just banging our heads on a brick wall, is probably not that sensible. So there probably is a point when knowing when to quit is also a valuable trait to have.
But let's just assume for the moment that what we're aiming for is worth having, and it's worth enduring some pain and discomfort, and perhaps even opposition along the way. And that's what grit is really. So I think assuming that we've got this long-term goal or passion or purpose that we're aiming at, then it's inevitable that we're going to be tested along the way. That's just the way life is. And so if we have got a fairly weak temperament, then we might give up at the first hurdle, of course. And the idea is that to have anything worthwhile, we need to go through and endure tests along the way. Ironically, and having been through a number of tests along the way, these tests actually, they sharpen us up. They knock off the rough edges and they improve us. It's a bit like a diamond in the rough. A diamond in the rough doesn't look like a diamond. It doesn't look like what you put on somebody's engagement ring I can assure you. It looks very rough and it needs to be chiseled and chipped away and smoothed and polished as it goes through a process to make it into this beautiful stone that I'm sure that many of the ladies in particular will appreciate.
But the point is that actually to have something worthwhile, we have to go through this journey, this process much like forming a diamond. And that's really the point of grit. And I'll just use a few examples in my own case, and I'm not going to go too far back. Well, I might go a little bit far back, but I'm not going to go too far back in time as it were.
I'm going to start the first one, which was not a great personal experience really, is when I got divorced, I separated from my first wife and it led to a divorce. And I remember actually, in fact, I was stimulated to recall this because somebody in the property community who I'm connected to, and I must admit, I don't really know that well, but clearly we're connected on Facebook as it happens. And he shared a post late last week, which was quite an open share about him and his wife separating. And he just put it out there. And there was a lot of really positive, supportive comments. And I decided to comment also just to show support, even though we've really had little engagement and we don't really know each other, but we had a common interest and that's that I was also in a position similar to where he is right now, a decade before.
I remember clearly, it was in the summer of 2009, wasn't it? Yeah, 2009. So I remember it clearly but I can't remember the year. No, it was 2009. It was August. And I left the family home. Literally just put a couple of suitcases and a couple of boxes in the car and that was me gone. And yeah, it was not great for anyone. It wasn't great for my wife. It wasn't great for our kids and it wasn't great for me. And in fact, actually it was quite a difficult period, certainly for that first six months to a year, I have to say. Yeah, I was kind of just about starting out or wanting to start out actually. I hadn't even started proper on my property journey. It was literally just on the cusp of starting out on that. And it would have been easy just to wallow and not do anything and just sit down and maybe lie down and sulk for a bit. But actually I didn't do that. I carried on anyway.
And so I'd had a dream, if you like, of getting into property for a number of years or getting back into property for a number of years, which had been wrestling with me for about four years, by that point. And in the latter quarter, the last quarter of 2009, I actually managed to undertake three property investment projects. So that was despite what was going on in my personal life, which really wasn't great if I'm honest with you. So I guess that's the first example of a little bit of grit or resilience.
The second one I can really site is at that point in time, so 2009, I was working for a multinational company and I had a really good job, but the financial crisis of course had hit 2008, 2009. And being in the lending space, the financial services space in business to business, we just didn't have any money to lend to people. And so we kind of didn't do anything for the best part of a year. Now, ironically, there were two of us who worked on the same team and we had identical goals and targets. We'd carved up the whole of the UK territory, our joint responsibility. We carved it up into different business sectors. We both had the same goal, so me and my colleague, if you like. And yeah, we had the same goal to achieve for the year, but clearly for most of the year, we weren't able to operate. We weren't open for business and we became open for business in the latter part of the year, I think it was approximately three months or four months, something like that.
And then come the end of the year. So by the way, the whole year had passed by this point. We'd been closed for business most of the time. We became open for business and then after the end of the year, our goals were in the American terminology, re-goaled. We were re-targeted, but it was retrospectively, which is all a bit odd.
But needless to say, having gone from equal share or equal goals and targets for the year, for some unknown reason, my re-goaling, my retargeting was lower than my colleagues. And if you also add into that, that I had public sector and financial services as part of my territory, so to speak. They're two of the hardest people to sell to, I can assure you, sell financial services to loans and leasing and that sort of thing. So I was kind of a little bit flawed by that. Anyway, needless to say, it meant actually my colleague hit their target and I didn't. And I was like really struggling with that just as a concept, but it got worse than that because that led to my employer and my manager sitting me down one day and saying, "You got three months to leave the business."
And yeah, you can imagine what that felt like. It wasn't great. And of course, all sorts of thoughts are going through my head about how unfair it was, the whole process. We didn't have any money to lend out to people for most of the year, we had a very short run or a sprint to the end of the year. And then going from obviously equal targeting to unequal targeting for no real explanation, no real reason resulting in one of us hitting their number and the other one missing their number. I was about 90% of the number when it was re-goaled. So I didn't miss it by a mile, I did miss it by a bit. Of course, my colleague didn't and the response to him was quite different to me.
So yeah, it would have been easy for me to wallow and feel sorry for myself, et cetera. But no, I decided solve this basically. And I just went out and I got myself another job. So I wasn't full-time in property at that point in time. I needed an income or at least I thought I did, and so I went out and got myself another job, and I did that well within the three months as it happened. I was even offered another job within the company I was employed in by a different manager. So yeah. Make of that, what you will. I'm not going to get into it too much. But here's a point. I didn't give up. I didn't become a victim. I didn't roll over. Yes, I got knocked down.
And in fact, actually, when I was preparing for this podcast, I was thinking about other phrases and references I could use, and I've just used it right there, haven't I? I got knocked down. There's a famous song. Well, I think it was famous. It was during one of the football tournament's, wasn't it? And it was a by Chumbawamba, "I get knocked down, but I get up again." And that's exactly how I was feeling actually. Well, that was two events. So I got knocked down a couple of times, but I got up again. I felt like I'd been in a boxing ring with Mike Tyson. Although not that many people get up again when they're hit by him. But essentially just get knocked down and get back up again. And that's kind of grit, that's kind of perseverance, that's kind of pushing through to aim for the long-term goal, the purpose, the passion that we're really aiming at.
We're going to have these setbacks, people are going to do things to us. We might think it's all unfair at times. We might think we've been harshly treated. We might think why us? But we just got to get up and go again, essentially. And as if that wasn't enough, because I was doing pretty well in property and I was able to step out and have a career effectively, working in unrelated to the property sector a couple of years after that. So, that was great. So the results were there after the action that I'd taken at that point in time.
And needless to say, everything was going swimmingly well, perhaps too well, who knows. But everything was going swimmingly well. And then I stepped into some larger projects as I'd probably shared with you a number of times. And then I had a bit of a blow last year, actually, because I don't know if I've alluded to this too much, but I had somebody who was looking after a number of the sites for me, who basically let me down quite badly. And ultimate responsibility lies with me. It always does, but I put my trust and my faith into this individual and unfortunately it didn't pay off so well, let's say that.
So I had had a bit of a bruising, let's say, experience from that. But guess what? Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to lie to you. I had a month where I was wallowing a little bit in that as well. So we're all human, and I think getting knocked down and getting back up again, it doesn't necessarily mean you get straight back up, you just bounce straight back up and you have this amazingly positive attitude and you just go again immediately. We're human, life isn't like that. We're not like that necessarily. We have emotions. We can be damaged by these events. We might not know what to do exactly at the moment, but I think it's a process of getting knocked down and deciding to get back up again and really pushing on again. And that's the point of grit, that's the point of resilience in amongst all those.
So yes. Kept going, moved on. Of course now we've got coronavirus and COVID-19, I'm thinking, wow, okay. When is this all going to end? The thing is, I'm going to tell you something, they won't all ever end. We're in this for the long haul. If we want to achieve something of value, of significance, of purpose, of meaning in our lives, it's usually a long-term gig. It's not a sort of overnight achievement thing once and we're done. Nope, it's constant. And we're going to face challenges along the way as I keep saying essentially.
Perhaps one sort of additional reference that I wanted to also say, perhaps before I finished today, was all about the Stoics essentially. Now, the Stoics is a very practical philosophy. You can look it up for yourself by all means. And they have a number of virtues that they like to talk about and they have what they call the Cardinal Virtues. I'm just flicking through them now. So you've got wisdom, you've got justice, you got temperance. And the fourth one is what they call fortitude. And I love this word fortitude. You could translate it as courage, but I love the word fortitude.
And the reason why is at one point, I had a physiotherapist who was Brazilian and was not fluent in English. And we were talking about translating words between the Portuguese and the English and she couldn't say the word strength. That was just a hard word for her to say, just the way that our mouths work. I can't say certain words in Portuguese very well because my mouth is not trained to say those words. And it was the same for her. So she couldn't say the word strength very well.
So I actually said, "Use the word fortitude instead for strength." It's actually more than strength, it's courage. And I really love what the Stoics talk about this because fortitude is all about standing tall in the face of battle, if you like. And being strong to your values and your principles and your morals, and just not buckling under the pressure and not buckling under the stress. And I think fortitude is a really good word, actually. So whether it's grit, whether it's resilience or whether it's fortitude, we need it essentially. And often we need it in spades.
I'm not going to lie to you. So if you're just starting out or thinking of starting out, you better have a bit of this stuff because you're going to need it. And even if things go swimmingly well for a time, and in my case, they went swimmingly well for about nine years, let's say in property before I got that property bump, let's call it that with my experience I just referred to last year. The previous examples weren't specifically property, but this has all happened in the last 10 years. So, counter fall bumps, the divorce, the work situation, the project manager situation, and then more laterally of course, coronavirus.
But guess what? I do believe that I'm resilient. I do believe I have grit and the idea of grit being perseverance, heading towards a long-term passion or goal. And it's not blind faith, if you like. It's not ignorance. It's not like just being punched in the face several times and keep going back for more. It's not that. There's something very worthwhile at the end of this. And I definitely believe I've got fortitude as well.
So the real question is, do you? Do you have these qualities or this quality? There's more, by the way. Maybe share this another occasion, but I really wanted to drill into the whole grit, perseverance and fortitude point today. There's other characteristics of our mindset and our character that we're going to need to be successful in this. But I just wanted to ask, have you got that within you? Have you got what it takes? Do you think you could take a few knocks and get back up and go again? Yeah. It's definitely something you're going to need, I think, to survive this business in the long game.
So there we go. Maybe not what you might have been imagining for me to share this week, but it's very much in my heart. It's very much in my mind. And so that's all usually a good sign too, that it will be a good show. Hopefully that's been helpful to you and thanks for those people who have commented, by the way, about last week being really helpful for them when we're talking about something bigger than ourselves. Today is all about, well, if it's something bigger than ourselves, we're going to need a bit of this stuff, grit and resilience and fortitude.
So make it through the bumps and the bruises and to get through the other side rather unscathed, because it's worth it in the end. So yeah, hopefully that's been useful to you. You're going to find the show notes over at the website, ThePropertyVoice.net. You know that you can always contact me podcast@thepropertyvoice.net if you want to talk about anything from today's show, or indeed property more generally speaking, I'd love to hear from you in fact, so do that. But meanwhile, I guess all that's left to say is thank you once again for listening this week on The Property Voice Podcast. Until next time, it's ciao-ciao.
That's all from me this week, remember if you want to talk about anything from today’s show, or just talk property investing more generally, email me at podcast@thepropertyvoice.net, I would be happy to hear from you! The show notes can be found at our website www.thepropertyvoice.net
Thanks very much for listening again this week, so all that left to say is ciao ciao!