Janet, one of our participants in our Financial Freedom Now teleseminar, asks the following excellent question:
How does your philosophy of spending 20% of
your time planning before taking action mesh with
Harv's mantra of "ready, fire, aim" (ie, take action
then adjust as necessary).
I'm sure Janet is referring to T. Harv Eker, one of my favorite authors and speakers. On our part, I frequently suggest that you should have your wealth strategy in place before you begin investing. While these seem to be conflicting points of view, I think they work very well together. It's all a matter of timing.
When Harv suggests that you need to take action and then adjust as necessary, he is likely referring to making an actual investment. But remember that making the actual investment should still come after we have our wealth strategy in place. Let's take an example of someone who has chosen single family home rentals as her asset category.
Suppose that her real estate finder discovers an opportunity to acquire a property that may or may not fit within her investment criteria. She wants to check out the investment before committing herself to it to make sure it really does fit her criteria. The simple way to do this is to go ahead and put a contract on the property. Just make sure that there is a window of opportunity to get out of the contract. Typically, any real estate deal has a due diligence period. This is the time to find out if the property fits within your investment criteria. If it doesn't you have the opportunity of making a counter offer or withdrawing from the deal.
In this case, you have fired before aiming. You have tied up the property (taken action) and still have time to make sure it fits within your strategy. Of course, this is just one example. But the key is to still be sure as you can that any investment fits your criteria before closing on the deal.
I totally agree with Harv's mantra of ready, fire, aim. Far to many people spend all of their time researching deals and never act. With the right contract, you can tie up a deal and then do the research.
Warmest regards,
Tom