“The Secret” to House Flipping Success
One of the movies we advocate our house flipping school students to watch is The Secret.
The movie got a bit too much exposure when it first came out, with the author Rhoda Byrne making the circuit on Oprah, Ellen, Montel, The Today Show...all advocating the power of “the law of attraction”.
It’s not exactly the kind of self-improvement author you’d think of when learning how to flip houses…
The truth is that the movie (and the subsequent best-selling book) is one of the best movies you can watch to inspire you to success when you first start flipping houses.
Aladdin, the Genie and House Flipping
In the fairytale Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, a young boy comes across a magical lamp - out of which a genie appears before him.
The genie asks the boy “your wish is my command”.
Whatever the boy asks for, he gets from the genie.
Sound pretty good, right?
What most people in real estate investing don’t realize is that house flipping success works in the very same way…
When it comes to achieving success flipping houses, the first step is to “ask the genie”.
The 3 Step Formula for House Flipping Success
Step 1: Ask For House Flipping Success
The first step is to ask, make a command to the universe – let the universe know what it is that you want.
Sit down and write it out on a piece of paper. Write it in the present tense.
Start it with “I am so happy and grateful now that…I make $100,000 per year in profit flipping houses.
You must be very clear on what you want and state it positively; otherwise “the genie” will not know what to bring you.
Likewise if you think and if you ask for bad things, he’ll bring that to you too.
When people do this, sometimes for the first time in their lives, they get very clear on what it is that they really want. If you don’t ask for success flipping houses, how will the universe know you actually want it?
Think of the universe as your personal catalog, and you are just placing an order.
The House Flipping Mindset
It’s been said many times by many success experts that people’s behaviors are driven by just two forces of nature:
- The pursuit of pleasure
- The avoidance of pain
Out of the two...fear is the bigger motivator by far.
You may have seen this before - but Tony Robbins said it best:
“The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you're in control of your life. If you don't, life controls you”
If you are just getting started house flipping as either full time job or just part time, this is the most critical element to conquer before you even consider doing your first house flip.
House Flipping, Pain and Pleasure
Here’s the really strange thing. We make the vast majority of our decisions to do something or not do something based entirely on what we THINK will happen instead of what will ACTUALLY happen.
So in any case, when we are confronted with a decision to either do it or not to it, whether it’s flipping houses or deciding on going to a party, most of us think about what we would LOSE by choosing to move forward with that decision.
We project ourselves into the future and THINK about what these things will feel like in the future. More often than not, this is not based on reality at all.
The reality for most of us is we completely fabricate painful outcomes based on very little data, if any at all.
This “projection” is all about our own twisted PERCEPTION of what reality may actually be.
How to Get Started Flipping Houses: My First House Flip
How to Get Started Flipping Houses
I've told this story dozens of times at various real estate investing and house flipping events and seminars, as well as business meetings and networking events - but wherever I go it is still the biggest question people ask me:
How do you get started flipping houses?
For me flipping houses began with a wonderful coincidence of events.
A few years ago a good friend of mine who had some solid real estate investing experience approached me and asked me if I wanted to partner with him on a real estate deal. As it would've been my first real estate investment, I had no experience but I trusted him to do the right thing with the deal.
Needless to say, it turned out to be a great experience because I learned a lot – both what not to do and what to do!
We bought a house flip fixer-upper single-family home at the peak of the real estate market. We fixed it up ourselves and sold it just before the real estate market began to crash.
I ended up losing $1,800 on that first deal. I'm lucky I didn't lose more.
Despite the less than stellar results of that first deal, I still managed learned something incredibly valuable. After going through the process of making that first deal, I realized what I wanted to do with my career - I wanted to flip houses for profit.
I resolved that the next time I would try to flip a house, I would know everything I could about the entire real estate investing process. I knew that next time, I would make a profit.
How to Get Started Flipping Houses
In order to do this right I knew I needed to learn everything that I possibly could learn about flipping houses and real estate investing.
How to Get Started Flipping Houses - LEARN
So when people ask me how to get started flipping houses, I tell them to do what I did:
- I went to seminars, bought books, watched DVDs and listened to audios. I learned from some of the best real estate investors in the business.
- I engaged in weekly coaching calls and assignments, trying to learn everything I could about flipping houses and real estate investing.
- I joined local real estate investing clubs where I learned more about how to hone my craft and achieve my goal of flipping houses full-time.
- I also furthered my education by getting my contractor supervisors license and passing the examination.
Education is not enough though. If you REALLY want to know how to get started flipping houses, the next (and most important) step is ACTION.
How to Get Started Flipping Houses - TAKE ACTION
Once I felt confident with my real estate education, I took bold action. I sucked up all my courage and made a big move and invested in my first property with the intention of doing a house flip within three months. You can see some of those first properties here.
The point is that you cannot start flipping houses until you take action and actually start doing it. If you have a mental block on how to get started, think about your house flipping mindset. Is it the right mindset to become rich flipping houses and investing in real estate?
If it isn't, start reading our ongoing series on how to flip and grow rich. This ongoing series will help you to overcome your fears and start taking action by giving you concrete steps towards house flip success.
