Today the news was released that my friend Trevor Milton’s company Nikola Motors just raised $250 million at a $3 billion evaluation. Trevor owns over half of this company and he has been able to bless the lives of 100’s of friends and employees by having a vision much bigger than any of us could have ever expected.
Watching his success with this business the past 5 years has helped me realize one very important thing in life, “when it comes to your investments and romantic relationship you only have to get it really right one time!” What a beautiful thought that is. You can literally crash and burn in work or in investing dozens of times, you can take out hundreds of men or women in dating and get very little in return. Yet, if you nail it just one time you are on your way to having a beautiful life!
I know this sounds all too simple but really it’s not. Too often people are paralyzed by the fear of failure to even try and do something great. They do nothing in fear that they will make the wrong choice. They don’t date because they can’t handle the rejection. But success in life is arbitrary. What is failure to one can be seen as a complete success to another. Every time you go out on a date only to end up alone afterwards, did you fail or did you find out a little more about yourself and what you are looking for in a partner? Did you enjoy the journey and the new connection or were you too worried about it being the last first date you ever went on?
Investing is such a tricky business. I know in my own life I had to learn the hard way how not to invest money.
- At age 22 I invested $120,000 in my own meat business only to lose it all.
- At age 23 I invested $35,000 with my brothers neighbor and turns out it was in a Ponzi scheme, I lost it all.
- At age 24 I bought several investment properties and after the housing collapse I ended up out of pocket losing over $180,000.
- At age 25 I invested $50,000 in a dental clinic in Arizona that never even got built. I’m still not sure where that money ended up.
- At age 29 I said enough. I decided to educate myself. I got a Masters degree from Arizona State and learned how to invest and how to read a spreadsheet. I learned how to look for opportunities and realized that even a successful company can lose you your money if you don’t have a good exit strategy. I surrounded myself with people much smarter than me and I admitted as much. I spent 100’s of hours talking to them and learning how to actually make money, turns out it’s a science that can be learned.
So fast forward to 2014 when I heard for the first time what my friend Trevor was up to. I talked to him and he told me point blank, “I know how to do this, it’s a billion-dollar idea, and it will work. But it will cost me 5 years of my life.” He then showed me the idea. I begged him to invest with him and eventually he let me give him all the money that I had to my name. I sold off a few real estate properties that had equity and invested all of that as well. I could live with losing all my money, I had done that before. But I couldn’t live with sitting this opportunity out knowing damn well my buddy was going to pull it off.
I feel like so many people are taking the wait and see approach with real estate right now. Waiting for this collapse that isn’t ever coming. Educate yourself, learn why it is so different right now and you will know that you should invest. You can see the cash flows and the low interest rates and realize that you will win even if there is a short-term slump or downturn in housing prices.
Fast forward 5 years and yes things are looking up. I am so proud of my friend and so grateful for the lives that are being blessed because of his vision. I am also grateful that I didn’t lose hope in investing when I kept losing money. I joke that I basically squandered my first million dollars. But just like in dating, you only have to nail it once and you can have a pretty damn cool life.
Whether you are stuck in your job, scared to invest, or afraid to ask out that girl or guy that you have always wanted to. I can tell you this; if nothing else, a life taking chances and putting yourself out there is a damn fun one to live! I’ll never forget my good friend Matt Beck a few years back when he was interested in taking out a girl named Ashley that he had a crush on. He told me, “Fortune favors the Bold Jimmy” and he made an aggressive play. She is now his wife.
So, educate yourself, find whatever part of your life makes you skittish and go learn how to be an expert in that field. Dating, investing, entrepreneurship, or whatever else it might be. Put yourself out there and even if you fail over and over again, you just may end up nailing it, even if it’s just that once!