358: 2021 SMART Goals! 5-Year Investment Plan

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Happy New Year.

Happy New Year.

Happy New Year. Happy New Year. It is going to be a fantastic year for real estate investors. Last year was phenomenal. I mean, we just bucked all the trends, defied all the odds and real estate investors did so, so well last year. Our clients prospered just fantastically last year. So congratulations to all of you who have been following my plan. I know things have been working great. Granted, there are a couple of problems here and there. There's, you know, some forbearance opportunity, there have been a few moratorium issues, a couple of tenants sick here and there. But overall it has been nothing short of an absolutely fantastic year. As so much of the world and so much of the country is in distress and there are so many sad things going on, the one thing that we have found to be incredibly resilient and reliable is income. Property. The most historically proven asset class in the entire world. The asset class that has universal need. Everybody needs food, clothing and shelter. Let them rent that shelter from you. Provide rental housing to other people. Provide a place where they can be safe, where they can be in a suburban market, where they can shelter in place, where they can make memories that will last an entire lifetime. Think of what an important role you play as a landlord, as a rental housing provider.

Think of what an important role you.

Play in people's lives. For their entire life, they will remember your property, that they lived in your property 10 years, 20 years, 30 years later. They'll remember things in their life that.

Happened in the property that you own.

Think of how significant the role you play in people's lives are, they'll think. Remember when we lived in that place on Main street and guess what? That place was owned by you and you were a big part of their life. Amazing. It's amazing what we have, the honor that we have as real estate investors, as landlords and we are paid so well for being in that position. We are rewarded so, so generously for being landlords. So today, as is normal at the beginning of the year and as we did last night on our livestream, we talked about goal setting. And today I want to take a different take from what we did yesterday on the live stream on goal setting. So we're going to play a very small clip from last night on this podcast. Today this is going to be different. We have some different angles on that topic. So we're going to dive right into hopefully helping you with some frameworks, some ideas, some ways that you can set goals, make them achievable, make them as the old acronym goes, smart. And so that'll be a little bit of a clip from last night, just a very short clip. And we're also going to play one of the world winning videos from our contest. And by the way, if you haven't entered our new contest, I'm here to tell you your odds are extremely good. This is a small business, small company. This is not Microsoft or Apple you're talking to. This is a small business doing a contest where we are giving out a stimulus payment. A stimulus payment for you, our dear listeners. Two of you will win 500 bucks cash. Yes, cash. That's the sound of cash, folks. Oh, I amuse myself with sound effects, don't I? So two of you will win 500 bucks cash. All you need to do is enter. Go to jasonhartman.com contest, that's jasonartman.com contest and enter to win. So we're giving away 1,000 bucks in stimulus money. It comes a lot faster than it comes from Washington, D.C. that's for sure. So be sure to enter our contest. It's super easy. Jason hartman.com contest but let's get right into this goal achieving topic and figure out how we can achieve our New Year's resolutions, our New Year's goals, and make it a fantastic new year. And as you know, I am pretty darn bullish on this market. I just finished recording a couple of YouTube videos and podcast episodes with Ken McElroy to be on his show and he was interviewing me about it. And you'll hear those probably if you look for them, or maybe we'll replay them here on this show. But there's a lot of reasons to believe this market has a couple of good years of juice behind it. It's a lot of good stuff going on in amongst the bad news. You hear the bad news, the media sensationalizes the bad news. They're talking about moratoriums and so forth and that's out there. But by and large, with our investor class, which is different than the institutional landlords that are Focusing on lower price, lower class workforce type housing where there's.

A lot more people affected.

Our tenant base in the properties you're buying through us is largely rent workers that are unaffected by everything that's going on in the world. I mean, everybody's affected, but their jobs aren't affected. They haven't lost their job, their business hasn't shut down. You know, they're not in as many of the service industries that are so sadly affected. And you know, one of the things I talked about on Ken's YouTube and podcast is how the wealth gap is widening and widening. And folks, 17 years ago when I got into this business, I used to say at my very first conferences that I was doing at our Newport beach office in Newport Beach, California, we used to have them in our office and then in our Costa Mesa office too, back in the day, many, many years ago, I was saying that the middle class is disappearing, it is under attack. And then I shared some passages from Lou Dobbs great book, War on the Middle Class. I think that book came out in 2004, maybe 2005. It is really true. It is something that is very, very disheartening, no question about it. But look, the only thing you can do about it, you don't have the power to change all of that. I don't have the power, but I do have the power to help make sure that the people following my work, listening to my podcast, attending our events, buying our courses and investing through our network, those people are going to move up the socioeconomic ladder. Many others, sadly, will be moving down the socioeconomic ladder. And it's like the old saying, don't curse the darkness, light a candle. The best way to help the poor is to not be one of them. Be the person who is self sufficient, who doesn't need the government. And by the way, I think we've all seen the government isn't really there for us. How long has it been since a stimulus payment has gone out? It's been way, way too long. If someone got $1,200 over half a year ago, do you think they can live on that for all this time? Of course not. Of course not. And then they're going to get another measly $600 again. And maybe if Trump gets his way, it'll be $2,000. Okay, great. But it's still not enough, folks. We have to make our own way in the world. And the next big tidal wave of crisis coming at us is the pension bubble. It is about to pop and it is going to be just devastating to people. So you're in the right place, you're listening to the right content, you're doing the right thing, investing in the most historically proven asset class in the its income property. So let's talk about setting and achieving goals for this new year and let's dive into it right now.

So, you know, I think these are just some ideas of how we should.

Look at the New year, right?

And how we should look at our New Year's resolutions. Now, the other thing is 80% of.

Americans, they say, don't have any goals.

No goals at all.

80% of the population, right.

So if you have a goal or.

Hopefully a few goals, you're in the top 20%.

Congratulations. Now, of the people that have goals.

In that top 20%, guess what?

How many do you think have written goals? You know, they have a vague idea of the goal in their head, right?

But when it's written, it becomes much more written real.

So I've been thinking, you know, you've heard people at this point have said, oh, New Year's resolutions are so cliche. That's kind of true. But our minds do work in a way that when there's a clear board, like, you know, 1, 1, 20, our minds seem to get it right. Like if you look at the store and pretty much any store around the world, you see, like, everything's $1.99, not $2, and it's stupid because it's only $0.01. But mentally it does make a difference. And so what I want everybody to do this year is to make a commitment, to make a resolution, to sit down and have a talk either with yourself or with your significant other or whomever helps you or works with you in making your financial decisions, or your investment counselor, or your investment counselor, you know, that would be included. And just figure out what you want to do. You know, realistically, what can you do? Realistically, what are you willing to do? So maybe, you know, if it is, say four properties and you want to do one a quarter, figure out where am I going to get the money? You know, how much every month am I putting away here? How much am I putting. You know, if you do invest in your 401k, let's say, how much are you going to put there? How much are you going to put away in your savings for real estate? If you have to cut back on anything, what are you willing to cut back on? And just make a conscious effort to plan for the year. Don't go out and say, I'm going to buy 10 properties if you know you're more likely to buy five. You know, don't make your goals unrealistic, but just figure out what you can realistically do and how you can realistically get there so that you can become financially free.

You know, I love what Dennis Whaley taught me at age 17.

He said a goal should be just.

Out of reach, but not out of sight. And five years, I think, is a really good timeframe for this. Now, a five year plan would be different if you're talking about, you know, fitness or a workout plan versus real estate investing. Right, because real estate investing's, you know, it's the tortoise and the hare.

It's a little slow.

You know, it's the tortoise. But Elizabeth has just done such a fantastic job and I enjoyed the time I had her on the show just recently where we talked about this. So if you didn't hear that, please go back and listen to it. But wait, there's more, Elizabeth, there's more. Tell us more.

Right, so, you know, one of the things that we were just talking about is the deep thinking process. And actually taking the time to put pen to paper or video record something or just jot down your thoughts really does help you envision the future, but also really thinking through what are the possibilities and what are the appropriate targets for yourself. But the other thing that I really love about the goal setting, and as I mentioned on the earlier podcast, you know, Neil and I actually carve out time to do this every year, but we also take the time to reflect on how the year performed. And so we think about the past, we think about. You know, it's funny because it's so easy to remember the bad things that happened. Oh, no, a tree fell on a roof and I gotta pay for that. But then when you actually look at the performance of your portfolio in aggregate, the progress you've made against your goals from the prior year, you get to actually see the scale and the scope of all the things that you actually did achieve. And it just, it's really exciting because it just completely revs me up for making more, you know, audacious goals. More big crazy goals coming up because I see how much I actually already achieved.

Let's dive into this topic of goal setting and goal achieving tonight or today, depending on where in the world you happen to be. And I hope you had a happy new year. You probably stayed home, save some money, and you probably didn't have a hangover. So, hey, there's some good things to this, maybe you stayed home and had a hangover anyway, but it probably wasn't as bad as it would have been.

Had you gone out.

Right. Let's go ahead and just kind of dive into some, some content here. So what I want to start with is, you know, a couple of years ago for our Meet the Masters of Income Property conference that we have held now 22 times. We've had 20. We had the, we had it last August and It was the 22nd anniversary of our Meet the Masters of Income Property conference. And at the one two years ago where we had Ron Paul as a distinguished guest speaker, he delivered a keynote there. And we had some other great speakers too. We hosted a contest and it was asking people to do their five year plan of what their goals are for their income property portfolio. So I want to play for you to sort of kick off our topic today. The winner of the five year plan contest. It's one of our clients. Her name is Michelle. She just did a phenomenal video that really laid out how she and her family intend to achieve their income property goals. And at the time she did this video, they were well on their way to building an awesome portfolio of income producing real estate properties. And that's what we do. We've been doing that for many, many years. We've helped thousands of people buy properties nationwide, build fantastic income property portfolios. So let me play this short video for you because I think it'll really, really tee up this topic very, very nicely.

Hi, my name is Michelle and this is my husband Phil.

Hello.

Hi, I'm Marcina. I'm Sophie. We're the Hopkins family and this is our five year plan. Our five year plan centers around three main areas of health, wealth and family area number one, health. It all starts here. I've learned that healthy habits are the cornerstone for a successful life. If you don't have your health, it's really hard to achieve your other goals. So in these next five years, we will focus on getting quality sleep, daily exercise and eating fresh organic meals. We enjoy eating a Paleo inspired diet. Area number two, wealth. We want to achieve financial freedom in five years. Step one is to build passive income through rental properties.

Because income property is the most historically.

Proven asset class in the world.

Thanks, Jason. Our current portfolio contains 10 units. It brings in passive income of about $3,500 per month. That's about 29% of our monthly expenses. However, if we want to cover 100% the of of our expenses, we need about $12,000 a month in passive income. So how will we achieve that in five years? It's simple. If we buy eight units per year for the next five years, we will end up with a total of 50 units. With 50 units, our monthly passive income will be about $15,000. Assuming an average of about $300 a month per unit, that's enough to pay our expenses with room to spare. Step number two is to fire Phil's boss.

I'm going to retire early from teaching and build a media production business producing video and audio from my own studio area.

Number three is family. We want to spend our time doing what matters most, making memories, traveling the world and becoming the best possible versions of ourselves. With our increased financial security, we can achieve a better work life balance. We want to explore the world together and share in amazing experiences. In the next five years, I want to take my mom back to Korea and meet my relatives. I want to go to Paris. I want to eat sushi in Japan.

I want to travel to Tierra del Fuego and see Antarctica and the penguins.

And when we're not traveling, we'll be pursuing our passions. I love reading, going to see shows with my friends and trying new restaurants and exotic cuisines. And I'm going to start a blog. I'm gonna publish my first novel and learn how to drive. I want to act in a show.

I have lots of music that I want to record and perform. And I'm going to earn a degree in kinesiology.

But most of all, we want to spend time with our family and friends because that's what really matters.

So there is just a fantastic five year plan, right, that gives you, hopefully gives you some ideas of how simple it is to lay this out. And by the way, gotta mention, we are giving away two. We will have two winners of first $500 cash each. You can go to jasonartman.com contest and enter.

And let me tell you something, folks, you ready for this?

Your odds of winning are extremely good. It's not like we're some big giant company. It's not like we have a thousand people entering this little contest. There will be two winners that win 500 bucks each. So go and enter the contest and you can actually increase your odds by doing some easy little actions as well. And you know, make a five year plan video. I mean, really declare this stuff publicly. It makes it more real. It makes it more achievable, you know, about, I don't know, 20 years ago, maybe 21 years ago, I had the privilege of going on a speaking tour with Zig Ziglar the late Zig Ziglar, we lost him, but he was such a great influence in my life, he said. And I remembered this quote differently. Maybe he has two quotes about this, but this is the only one I could find tonight. It's not what we get by achieving our goals that counts. It's the kind of person we become just by trying. Just by trying. Now, that was a little different, you know, from what I found tonight. What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals, right? So it's not about what you get. You know, a lot of people might think, oh, it's just about, what do I get out of it? Well, okay, I want a new house or a boat or a plane or, you know, whatever, right? It's who you become by making the effort. That's the important part of it. This is an example. We won't do this one, but maybe we will if we have time. We'll circle back to it. But this is. One of our entrants in the contest made a little video. Again, very, very good odds that you will win 500 bucks. In fact, your odds are probably better that you'll win 500 bucks in our contest than you'll get a $600 check from Washington, D.C. so there you go, folks. Oh, gosh, it's such a mess in government, isn't it? Isn't it a mess? Yes, it's a mess. You've probably all heard of the idea of smart goals, right? Smart being an acronym, okay? And that acronym is, you know, specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound, right? You've got to have a time limit on the goals, otherwise you're on Someday Aisle. Dennis Whiteley has done this great poem called Someday Aisle. Like I apostrophe ll, not like an island, but it is like an island, right? It's both. And so check that out. I've shared that on my podcast before. But smart goals, okay? Specific. It's the who, what, when, where, which, and why. And, you know, the thing I want to say about this, and by the way, I got this from a great website called smartsheet. And you can go there, and for free, you can get some free spreadsheets and goal files, basically, that you can run on your computer to help you set smart goals and make them very specific. One of the things I want to say there, besides what's on the screen, and there are actually, I think, two books with this title. Manny, you'll know because you're the book guy. Okay. And two books with this title. And the idea being that it's not how, it's who. And I want to tell you, that is such a powerful idea. So much of my life has been wasted, frankly, on the how, trying to figure out how to do everything myself. Huge mistake. And when I started joining mastermind groups and going to a lot of conferences maybe eight, 10 years ago, that dramatically accelerated my life success because I started finding the who and the who was the shortcut. Certainly we can become very qualified and very knowledgeable. There's a lot of information out there, a lot of great gurus that can teach us a lot of things, but we can't know everything and we don't have time to implement everything ourself. So if we can, if we can find the who's out there, the who's that will help us accelerate the achievement of our goals. And when it comes to real estate investing, we are the who. My company is the who that can help you and connect you with lots of other who's. Sounds like a Dr. Seuss book, doesn't it? Remember Horton Hears a who?

I love that book, by the way.

It's great. Anyway, there's some thoughts on the specific. The who, what, when, where, which and why. Okay. And then measurable, achievable. It's got to be, as Dennis Waitley put it, just out of reach, but not out of sight. You know, it can't be so ridiculous that it can't be seen, but it should be far enough that you can't reach it. Now that it stretches you, it makes you become more. It makes you become a bigger person. And the measurable concept. Back to that for a moment. How will you quantify it? How will you know when you got there? Here's one of the things. And Lisa, I'm sure you can attest to this. Many investors in the real estate world, they own properties, okay? These are investors who are already in the game. They have properties and many times they think they're losing when they're really winning, and they just don't know how to do the math. With income property, it's this beautiful multi dimensional asset class, and I hate to use all these cliches, but it's like the iceberg. Most of the iceberg is where it's below the waterline. We can't see it. It's below the water. Only a little bit of the iceberg is above the water. Most of it is below. And that's how income property is. Most of the ROI, or the return on Investment is below the water line, if you will. You're making money, you're creating wealth. But if you don't know how to do the math, if you don't know how to calculate return on investment from a multidimensional asset class, you might think you're losing when you're actually winning. And that would be a huge shame to give up when you're actually winning. Lisa, any thoughts on that?

And that's why it's important to hang in there and stick with it, not give up on the first house. That's why you need a couple houses. So balance out your portfolio.

Yes, yes. Balance out your portfolio and take advantage of the law of large numbers, where you diversify risk, you diversify results over a portfolio.

Definitely.

Good point, Lisa. Definitely good point. And then relevant, okay, relevance refers to focusing on what makes sense with broader goals. Now, this says business goals. This is from the website. But I would say for the context of what we're talking about, just broader life goals. Right? One way I've heard that expressed is, is it ecological? Does it fit into what you're doing with the rest of your life? Is it relevant? So that's important. And then is it time bound? You know, it can't be a goal that says, yeah, I want to be a rich real estate investor. I'm going to have 100 units. Okay, well, you better put a time limit on that. Otherwise it's just this amorphous thing out there in the ether. It's just someday I'll. Someday I will. Right? Someday I'll. Dennis Whateley starts off that fantastic poem. I don't have it in front of me, but he says there is an island fantasy, a someday aisle we'll never see. Where recession stops, inflation ceases, our mortgage is paid, and our pay increases. That someday I'll. Where problems end. Where every piece of mail is from a friend. I can't remember the rest of it. So that's just from memory. Hey, that's not bad. I've obviously read that a few times because it's a great lesson, you know, it's a great lesson about not living in the future or in the past. We can only control the now. We must live in the now. We should have plans for the future. We should appreciate and learn from the past, but we can only live in the now because the now is the only time over which we can exert any actual control over what we do. Now, now, and it's gone.

Now and it's gone.

Now and it's gone. See, that moment ago is gone now.

And I can't do anything about it.

I can only learn from it or reminisce about it. So he says also in that Someday Owl poem, people who live in the past become senile, and people who are stuck in the future live on someday isle. You gotta live in the now.

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