I called one of my mentors recently about a new idea I was exploring to promote my business. It concerned promoting one day seminars which would require an investment of $50,000 each. I explained that although I was new at this aspect of the business, I was working with someone who had done similar, though not identical events so I felt a high level of confidence for our success.

I figured I’d try it once and if it worked out, I would continue. If not, I would cut my losses and drop the idea.

His suggestion was “Drew, you’ve got to plan to do at least three or four of those events before you work out the kinks. Be prepared to lose money on the first few.” In other words don’t do the event if its overall success depends on you getting it right the first time. No one gets anything 100% right the first time through.

Here’s what happened. The first event lost over $20,000. We made some changes to the format and the second event broke even. It was only after the third event that we got the system to the point where it made money.

If I had gone with the “I’ll give it one try” approach, we would have failed. Planning ahead to gain the benefit of our learning experiences lead to our ultimate success.

I just finished a speaking engagement in Vancouver. During one of the breaks, two ladies approached me and asked my opinion about the current state of their business. They had taken several real estate courses, read a number of books, and attended four different “wealth building” seminars; yet they still hadn’t purchased their first property. In fact, they hadn’t even made their first offer. Sound familiar? It is a very common problem.

They took me up on my invitation to discuss their situation over a cup of coffee. For the first five or ten minutes they expressed their frustration about not getting started and about making a significant investment yet not seeing any return. They shared how their personal situation was getting in the way of their business dreams. In about ten minutes the cause of their problem became obvious:

They were trying to conjure up and solve every conceivable problem they might face ahead of time instead of taking their first step forward.

Now, I’m a believer in planning and problem avoidance techniques. Yet, may people get bogged down in the “what-ifs” and never get into the game. In just a few more minutes together we outlined a three step plan to get them “unstuck” and on their way to actual real estate investing.

Never start something if you can’t afford to withstand a few learning experiences. You can't plan ahead for every conceivable twist of the road, and throwing more money into more courses is not the same as putting the pedal the metal and getting out there on the road. Failures are there to teach us something, and to make our ultimate success that much sweeter.

Author: Drew Miles

I strongly agree with the ideas proposed above. Nobody can get success without taking risks in the life. In order to do that, one needs self confidence and intention for what s/he is going to do, because otherwise s/he would lose not only all of his/her money but also the goals to be reached.



Personal maturity of a person determines how much risk s/he can take prior to making a vital decision. S/he must consider whether s/he only wants to earn money or further than that. It is an important step to take care of egoism and stand as a careful thinker so as not to be sad after failure comes. Luck is a significant factor in all of these, but it should not be forgotten that who creates our luck is us. So, we can implement a good strategy to hold onto our plans and be satisfied at the end even if it takes too much of our time.



Another crucial point is the amount of time to be patient about a plan. Should we wait for years for success, or do we have to change our plans immediately after we run into failure? This completely depends on the type of work we plan to do. At the end, we should be aware of the fact that we, as the decision maker, can change our risk level and get closer to success if we think freely