What would you do if money was no object?

They're good, but I find they don't suck hard enough.

We also have a Dyson upright that I use as it does a far superior job. Mrs Sonamic bought herself the Dyson hand stick because it's too hard to plug in a cord or something. Apparently.

 

Employ a teacher to get the kids through their formal education and travel the world together. We'd still invest in property - it's an addictive hobby

 

For me, even with a debt free home and a double digit portfolio of INV properties generating 300K + tax free, with significant funds sitting in offset, the the reality of pets (now) and children ( next) means my wife and I cant really just jet off and do as we please.


But we can say no to things far more readily


So whats the magic "money is no object" number? Cold hard cash after all debts are cleared... available to invest for income however you chose. $2 Mil? $5 Mil? $10 Mil?

 

Getting training, experience and obtain licences of being a pilot, crane operator, forklift, helicopter and etc. Maybe couple more degrees and do a useless but fun PHD in finding the Flying Dutchman.

 

I'd pay for a licensed version of WinRar that I've been using for the last 15+ years

 

Helicopter pilot
Learn
Read
Travel
Donate my time helping establish educational facilities in poor countries
Become a great home cook

So many things I could pour my time into!

 

Run for President

 

Haha...that is the picture i use to see everyday as a schoolkid...
It was on the "Lakeland " colour metal pencil case .....

 

Might need to check out jZip

 

We've got a robot vacuum cleaner but I can't even be bothered to turn it on - with my feet. Lucky my partner thinks I'm cute.

 

There's a lot of commentary in this thread about "follow your passion and the wealth will come"...

How many people really believe that? and why?

Personally, I don't believe it. I actually think it's the other way around. Do something and become good at it and you'll find success. Keep succeeding at it and your passion for it will grow...

e.g. the small business failure rate between 2007 and 2011 was 40%. Probably a good portion of those owners were trying to follow a passion..

Same with actors/entertainers. How many aspiring actors head to LA to follow their passion, only to end up waiting tables, cleaning hotels, or otherwise?

Same with sports.. how many talented kids with promise follow their passion of playing (AFL, tennis, rugby etc) and make it big? How many don't?

 

I believe you need to be passionate about that 'thing' you're doing to leverage off to succeed. But that 'thing' has to be something you're already great at or show real potential to be great at it. Not just some airy fairy dream of opening a health food store to make millions when you have zero money in the bank and no business skills or becoming a super accountant when you can barely add 2 plus 2. There has to be a high degree of practicality involved in your dream equation.

I believe there are dreamers and then there are dreams to be achieved. Way too many of the former exist.

Just my opinion.

 

If money was no object -

*Travel to weird places most folks don't go to and do unusual things on the spur of the moment....jump on a boat to the Antarctic for a 2 week trip, for eg.
* Buy a 60 foot ocean going boat with a crew.
*Live in a nice house with a pool, and a nice view.
* Buy a Harley and ride across the USA (Route 66)
* Buy an Aston Martin DB10
*Help homeless people by setting up a Foundation/refuge scheme.

 

Would it be a bay view by any chance?

 

Fair enough. Quick thought experiment...

Were you passionate about property when you bought your first at 17? Or were you passionate about the idea of making money like your family friend. Do you think that you would be as passionate about property development now, if your first ventures into property lost money?

I think you're right though that success won't come unless you work for it. Going only by what I've read on here and SS, it sounds like you are/were determined to do whatever it took to make something work for you. Do you think that your desire for knowledge and hard-work ethic came from passion?

 

The two are often mutually exclusive.

For eg; a music teacher, or a Cop - who are passionate about it; unless they use their salary to invest; they won't become wealthy.

If it is a business you are in and passionate about, then yes..

 

[QUOTE="Phase2, Fair enough. Quick thought experiment...

Were you passionate about property when you bought your first at 17? Or were you passionate about the idea of making money like your family friend.


To be honest I was never, nor am I now passionate about 'property' ,even when I first started that many years ago. For me, the passion has always been about the reasons why I want to invest and the goals I wanted to achieve every step of the way. Property (among a few commercial ventures locally and overseas) has always just been the vehicle for me and my partner to achieve our goals and it was a vehicle and game that we discovered that we could be good at so it made sense to use it. Over the years..probably starting somewhere around 24-25 years old I had also come to be very passionate about the 'deal making' process, but even that is a far second, to the passion that drives us which ultimately is only one thing, our goals.



Do you think that you would be as passionate about property development now, if your first ventures into property lost money?

Well again, We are not passionate about property development, it is just the vehicle we are using to achieve more of our goals and we chose the vehicle because among other reasons, we knew it was something we could be successful at. When I said you need to be passionate at what you do, I was more referring to having a very strong passion for your goals because if you have that, you will then be able to find something you are good at to use as the vehicle to achieve whatever it is you want. That's my belief.

With regards to would we waiver from our goals if we had lost money early on, we actually have lost money along our journey. We have been blatantly lied to, cheated, made poor decisions resulting in 70k loss and a whole list more I can name. We never gave up because we knew the alternative. There is no other alternative. If you want to break free from the shackles of the 9-6pm rat race, working for 50 years, maxium 4 weeks annual leave, a super thats peanuts and a pension that will leave you a pauper when your 75, then the reality is simple - create a better life for yourself or wait for the inevitable. Thats it. I do know though without a shadow of a doubt we would never have achieved even 50% of what we have now without working on our mindset development.

it sounds like you are/were determined to do whatever it took to make something work for you.
Correct.

Do you think that your desire for knowledge and hard-work ethic came from passion?

To be honest, at the start it came from sheer fear. The fear of working till 70 and wasting most of our life for an employer, and at the end of it retiring as a pauper almost. Then after time fear slowly changed to bigger and bigger goals. But for many years that fear drove us hard to do whatever it took to buy our freedom back, at least as we saw it.

 

Thanks for your comments @Leo2413, great. One thing that I took from this is to use property as the vehicle to your goals, rather than being the goal in and of itself - I think if people keep this at the front of their decision making process then they will keep everything in perspective, as well as managing FOMO. Love the final statement about the underlying drivers. Would be great to have this in the investor psychology section as well (opps I realised it is, but needs a different thread - eg what drives you to invest or something ).

 

Thanks for the public response. I think you've actually illustrated my point pretty well.

You didn't start out being passionate about property or even making money. Your original motivation was fear (by far the largest motivator in people), not passion (the love of something).

Over time you appear to have had overall success using property as your investment vehicle, and that success has led to a passion for doing deals.

Fear/Passion/Greed/Desire is the motivating "why" of what we do. Passion is about getting out bed each day excited for whatever we're going to do.

Your mind-set development, like you mentioned, has been the ultimate factor to your success, and that laser-like focus is not passion. It's the "how" not the "why".

PS - I didn't mean to make this about you, and I don't pretend to know you either. Please don't take any of this as an affront.