May
6

Empty Pockets Never Held Anyone Back

Filed Under Real Estate Investing 


“Success doesn’t come to you…you go to it.”

Those words were spoken by Marva Collins and I totally agree.

The other day I received the following email:

“I would also like to point out that people are not poor by choice, but by decision. They make poor decisions. If you were to hand a winning lottery ticket to a poor person they are not going to refuse it and say no, I prefer to be poor.I currently am effectively homeless and I’m having to sell my car to get food money. In your talks you casually dismiss the costs of promoting (cards etc.), you assume that a person has a phone and a home to put it in. It apparently is beyond your ken to understand that a budding investor may not have these ‘trivial’ things.

I wish you weren’t so damned high and mighty when it comes to money and so derisive of poor people. If it wasn’t for the poor you would be poor.”

Tony

Gerald’s Response: Listen, if you have a losing attitude things are not going to change. If you are in a bad financial position I would not be buying “cards etc,” I would be driving around neighborhoods (or riding a bike if needed) and making phone calls to MAKE things happen. These are two of the lowest-cost tasks you can do to find bargain real estate.

“Dismiss the costs of promoting?” Huh? I don’t get it. Real estate investing is a business and there are costs associated with all businesses. I haven’t found any other business with the income potential of real estate that can really be built on a shoestring investment. If anybody thinks money can be earned without investing anything to attract it, they are a fool!

“High and mighty when it comes to money and so derisive of poor people?” O.K., I confess that I had to look up “derisive” (means mocking). Anyway, money is nothing more than a tool and can be used or not used, for good or bad. Money doesn’t make the man (or woman); it only brings out what is inside of them. Poor people have poor beliefs that STOP them from achieving success. If that’s “derisive” then I’m guilty. I believe all people are self-made for good or bad, poor or rich. I’ve been there. I once was poor and made a choice/decision to become wealthy.

My favorite one was the closing line, “If it wasn’t for the poor you would be poor.” The writer just doesn’t get it. The best way to make it to the top of the mountain is by helping other people to the top, and then you arrive there by default. Bill Gates didn’t make money from the poor; he made money from people who wanted to buy Microsoft products. Bless him and his success.

How about a few motivational quotes:

“The waste of money cures itself, for soon there is no more to waste.”
-M.W. Harrison

“Do not value money for any more nor any less than it is worth; it is a good servant but a bad master.”
-Alexandre Dumas fils, Camille, 1852

Norman Vincent Peale ( May 31, 1898 – December 24, 1993) was a Christian preacher and author (most notably of The Power of Positive Thinking) and a progenitor of the theory of “Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that.”
-Norman Vincent Peale

Author: Gerald Romine

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