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  I had the pick of ten homes he had lined up. I figured, why do one when I could do five? All that upfront cash would be more than what I’d just spent on gurus and courses. I could finally recoup that money!

  I got with my new mortgage broker and closed on five beautiful homes. I collected over $150K from the purchase closings, and my partner got his share. I was ELATED since this was the very first time I “made money” in this new career.

  I set up a call with my new partner on Monday to discuss next steps with placing the tenants and starting the rental management process. Monday morning came, and went. I didn’t think too much of it. That night, I followed up in an email. I called him and texted him on Tuesday. I was getting nervous. By the end of the week, I still had heard…nothing.

  Lesson #1: Do Your Due Diligence on Your Partners and Your Deals

  It turned out that my “partner” didn’t do much to keep up his end of the bargain. The leases, rental applications, and purchase contracts were not real. He had forged it all. I couldn’t believe someone would come up with such an elaborate scheme. More so, I couldn’t believe I fell for it.

  Unfortunately, the houses and their 10 mortgages were very real. It didn’t take long to blow through any money I “made” from the closings after I paid an attorney to chase this “partner,” hired a property management company to attempt to rent these monsters, and kept up with over $15,000 per month in mortgage payments.

  I was drowning in debt.

  But I had no idea how much worse it could get. After I finally fell a couple months behind on mortgage payments, my phone rang.

  It didn’t just ring once or twice a day. With 10 loans and my credit card debt all stacked up from those courses and invoices, my cell phone was ringing from both automated and live collections calls every…thirty…eight… seconds.

  “This is Ken calling from (Collections Agency). You can let Mr. Aalerud know that I will be by his office tomorrow at 1 p.m. to conduct our investigation and possibly seize any assets to make good on debt he has incurred unless he contacts our office to make payment arrangements immediately.”

  They called my mother’s cell phone, my brother’s cell phone, and then my work phone. My family called me in a panic, wondering what I had done and how I’d dragged THEM into this mess.

  When you’re down to zero in your bank accounts and you start to miss more payments, the calls get worse. Your credit score plunges. If my employing bank checked my credit, I’d surely lose my job.

  I put the properties on the market. But who in their right mind would buy properties for above what I owed on them? And it didn’t matter, I was done. I couldn’t handle it anymore. The constant threats, my family, I couldn’t concentrate at work, and I most certainly couldn’t use my cell phone. I manifested this financial and emotional stress physically in my neck and upper back to the point I couldn’t get out of bed. My body was frozen, and I needed drugs to sleep. I turned off my cell phone, placed it in my sock drawer, and stopped paying bills.

  A local investor came along and offered to buy the houses for WAY less than I owed on them. That was called a “short sale.” I told my agent I’d sign anything she wanted to put in front of me. I just wanted everything to be over.

  Lesson #2: You Should Perhaps Read and Understand What You’re Signing

  As it would turn out, what I was signing wasn’t just closing documents. The banks were also making me sign promissory notes. At the end of the day, I owed $525,000 in unsecured promissory notes back to these banks. I only found this out when I started receiving demand letters in the mail a few months later, at a new address I had escaped to, to run away from the collectors.

  I wasn’t happy with my job at the bank, but I had it pretty good. I had an 800 credit score with a 401K and a salary. Real estate was supposed to be my way out of the corporate world. Instead, my first five deals crushed me, resulting in $525,000 in debt and judgments I had to pay back, a credit score of around 300, and serious physical and emotional trauma from the creditors’ tactics. Call me self-disciplined or call me an idiot, but I didn’t believe in bankruptcy, so that was never an option. I signed for those loans, so I had a responsibility to make good on them.

  I decided I deserved some time off, so I put my nose to the grindstone at work and hoped they wouldn’t check my credit. I also hoped some collections agent wouldn’t show up with a bulletproof vest and a badge and throw me in cuffs.

  Three months later, I realized that among the many courses I purchased, I had paid for a hypnosis weekend, but never went.

  That’s where everything changed for me.

  Lesson #3: The Master Program: A Culture of Responsibility, Accountability, and Mastering Your Own Mind.

  “Power.”

  I remember him going through some strange exercise. We were lying on the floor and had our eyes closed. I can’t be hypnotized, I thought.

  “You are in control of your own thoughts. If things are to change, you must change. Take responsibility and move on, bigger, better, stronger, from all your failures.”

  Interesting, I thought. He went on….

  “You blame your partner for ruining your life? He grabbed his dough and ditched―got you good, didn’t he? Looks like he wins. And you will now reset your life and will never recover.” I could swear he said this…I heard it.

  And then, my head replied, OWN UP. This is YOUR fault. YOU didn’t do enough due diligence. YOU didn’t know enough about real estate to know what to ask. YOU were not resourceful enough to get a better team together. MAN UP.

  To this day, I still swear I can’t be hypnotized, but that was the first (and not the last) time I found myself having a heated conversation with my other, older self.

  The only thing more foolish would be not to learn from my mistakes.

  Lesson #4: Get Back on the Horse – No Matter What

  I knew that real estate was still a great tool to build wealth, with proper education and training.

  I learned that sometimes, no matter how many background checks you perform, someone can still choose to be unethical at a moment’s notice. All I can do is mitigate that possibility as best I can.

  I learned that I was the ONLY ONE responsible for my future.

  My success, OR my failures, are a direct result of what actions I take. My actions are a direct result of how I think, plan, and react. No one else was going to look out for me. I had to look out for my financial future. This meant making some serious changes.

  This meant taking my phone back out of the sock drawer.

  Looking back now, this sounds so stupid. But with an almost paralyzed neck and upper back, in the hole over $500K, with a negative credit score, and knowing how far I had to climb just to get back to ZERO, I placed all my emotional baggage onto that phone.

  Real estate was my way into this mess, but I still felt real estate would be my way out. I spent hours going over all those courses I had taken, refreshing my knowledge, and making RULES for my own investing strategies that would force me to not lose money ever again.

  I still couldn’t touch my phone, but all the gurus told me I needed to prospect. I thought back to my shampoo bottle. “Come on, Nick, just SHUT UP AND DO IT .” My inner voice was practically yelling at me.

  I finally realized the pain of me NOT taking the actions I needed to take would be way more painful than the anxiety I’d feel by just plowing through and making those calls.

  Lesson #5: Staging the Comeback

  It wasn’t easy, but I fought through it. Using my rules, I began to prospect and slowly overcame my fear of the phone.

  I started going to networking groups again. I met a guy there who was buying triple-deckers in the Boston area and turning them into condos. I decided to start working for him and learning from him. I began making deals on his behalf and getting paid to sell him my contracts, which is called “wholesaling.” It’s really the only strategy you can do with no cash or credit.

  By the end of 2006, I had enough sta
shed away to do my very first triple- decker on my own. And I broke dead even on the deal. I’ll take that as a win―the first of its kind, where I didn’t lose my shirt in the process.

  That seems like a lifetime ago. Since those learning experiences, I’ve come to realize that I could not have come to where I am today without those valuable mindset changes. Indeed, today, my company tagline, “Shut Up and Do It!” is framed on our walls and in our own educational products and mentorship workspaces as a reminder that we can accomplish anything if we hold ourselves accountable.

  I’m now a millionaire, but I don’t use dollars to measure success.

  I founded the top Greater Boston home buying firm, where we help over 100 property owners a year with gross receipts in excess of $50M and focus on assisting sellers in tough situations―like the ones I was in. I’ve been blessed with an extremely active real estate sales and brokerage company that has grown 100% year over year for the last three years and is now competing with other behemoths within our territories. I’ve been involved on the management and ownership side of over 400 rental units in six different states, and we currently have broken the mold with a completely unique approach on asset and property management with Peak Performance

  Property Management. Using what I went through, my partner Maryann and I have one of the top debt negotiation firms that services and educates real estate agents, attorneys, and investors alike throughout 16 states. Being passionate about people who overcome personal, physical, or professional struggles, I started the #ShutUpAndDoIt podcast where we interview those who have grown from their own adversities.

  I’m humbled to learn from this experience and never forget what it feels like to have lost everything so early on. I paid back those notes and judgments via monthly payments five years later, and while I’ve had other “resets” since then, I now take them for what they are―learning experiences. And whatever life continues to throw at me, and how many times I fall, getting back up and overcoming has become my #1 thrill in my life and business.

  You know what you have to do. Get out there and #ShutUpAndDoIt!

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  TWEETABLE

  Looking back on failures is easy. Going through it is difficult. Learning, recovering, and moving forward despite the setbacks and fear―that’s the hardest there is. Squash the fear, stop the excuses, and just #ShutUpAndDoIt.

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  Nick Aalerud is a real estate investor, developer, broker, speaker, and business coach based in the Greater Boston and Southern NH area. His acquisitions department (AA Real Estate Home Buyers.com) routinely assists over 100 homeowners each year and closes over $50M in transactions. He also has founded or is a business partner in eight related companies including a real estate brokerage, property management company (Peak Performance Property Management.com), and short sale negotiation firm (Short Sale Mitigation.net).

  Subscribe to the #ShutUpAndDoIt podcast at www.ShutUpAndDoItRealEstate.com

  Connect with him at AARealEstateGroup.com or via email at [email protected] .

  CHAPTER 33

  Stupid Little Girl to Commercial Pilot

  by Tara Hamilton Howard

  W e were patiently sitting on runway 36 at Orlando International Airport as I waited for the all-clear for take-off. I was back, not for the first time. It felt surreal. How could a 23-year-old “stupid little girl” like me be a commercial pilot? It felt like I was in a universe parallel to the one in which I had spent my first couple of decades.

  I wasn’t very bright as a kid. That could be considered an understatement to most of the significant people in my life growing up in England.

  It was a great place to be, the youngest of four and the only girl. I was a long-awaited addition to the family. I arrived into the world enveloped in cotton balls of love from my parents. They thought me a welcome, perfect, amazing, right, powerful, incredible human being, and I had no reason to think otherwise.

  My three brothers had a very different take on the situation.

  You see, my father was born in 1910. While he was a progressive man, his parents were born during the height of the reign of Queen Victoria, and he naturally shared some of their Victorian values. In his youth, he developed a love of flying. He often shared with me that he used to fly at what is now Heathrow Airport (the world’s busiest international airport) when it was still a grass field. He went on to be an officer in WWII in the Fleet Air Arm Division of the Royal Navy where he met my mother.

  Looking back, my brothers suffered from his stiff upper lip attitude towards boys. He placed on them a pressure to succeed, and showing emotion was not encouraged. I get the impression they didn’t feel the same “cotton wool” protection I had enjoyed. Perhaps out of boredom or to compensate, they made sport out of catching me out. I often bore the brunt of their jokes, and I played the villain in their games.

  They often assigned me the role of cowboy and tied me to a tree while they circled, hollering and rhythmically slapping their mouths. I’ll never forget the feeling of helplessness and loneliness as I watched them run off with my ropes still firmly in place.

  I enjoyed my moments of peace. One time I was quietly and obliviously playing underneath the treehouse my brothers were building. An excruciating pain blasted on the top of my little head. I didn’t know what had happened. Lying on the grass was the rogue hammer. The delicate little housing for my brain had been attacked. Thankfully, there was no blood.

  What slowly grew was what felt like the birthing of an egg out of my head.

  The day my brothers officially announced my role of stupid little girl (SLG) hurt more than the hammer and the games. My brother Denham casually asked me what 10 percent of 100 was.

  When I couldn’t answer, I was officially anointed the title of SLG, and my brothers made sure everyone knew it. The sad thing is, so did I.

  I loved my brothers, and they loved me. They were just being kids and couldn’t have known the effect their games would have on my self-image.

  Having played the role of SLG well, it was my last year at primary school, and I had to take entrance exams to get into the high schools my parents wanted me to attend. I had drudged through various tests for that next chapter in my life and was rejected by all schools I had applied to except for one.

  My SLG status was again confirmed when Miss Gittings, the headmistress at my junior school shared with me.

  “You’re not really very good at anything, are you? St. Peters School only accepted you because they are desperate for girls.”

  The words “not good at anything are you” replayed in my mind like a hit record on the radio. What was the point in trying anything? I felt I was worthless and useless as a person and a human being.

  Rather than bothering myself with algebra and history, the only thing I did “work on” in class was practicing my handwriting on little white notes I would swap with the other no-hopers in the class. I enjoyed school―perhaps not for the right reasons. Leaving school at 16, on the advice of mom and pop, I pursued what was considered the only option for a SLG and shorthanded my studies to secretarial school.

  Destiny dropped me into a typing pool of a big four accountancy firm until I split up with a long-term boyfriend and decided, with the little savings I had, it was time to travel the world. I ended up down under and falling in love with an Australian 10 years my senior. My parents were not impressed. Drastic action was required. They hatched a plan. I was to attend pilot school in Florida. Considering my track record, they didn’t have much expectation for me to qualify.

  I was devastated to be leaving the first man with whom I had ever felt the pitter-patter of love. I worried. Were people going to laugh at me? Was everyone going to find out my lack of intelligence straight away, or would it take time? It was my Aussie beau who convinced me this was my opportunity to resign from the role my brothers had given me. He helped me see I wasn’t stupid and now was the time to put on my big girl pants (metaphorically speaking). The
choice was in my hands: I could just go along for the ride or I could embrace a new side of myself and become a pilot. After an emotional goodbye and buzzing with nerves, my mind went to my new life and new challenge.

  One of my three older brothers was also trying to qualify as a pilot, although in the UK, at the same time. It was apparent to me that most everyone assumed I was not capable or even had the desire to qualify. I was there to get my MRS. degree. At 20 years old, it was assumed the biggest achievement I could possibly hope for was to “marry well.”

  Well, I did marry well (more on that later).

  A new me emerged when I landed at Orlando International Airport, one that had separated my assigned SLG role in life from my self-identity. I was going to prove them all wrong. I was going to make it.

  That feeling of achievement and a new me didn’t last long. The very first test was a multiple choice. I would have gotten a better score if I had randomly chosen the answers without reading the questions (my math was good enough to figure THAT out). Perhaps they were all right. Perhaps I was never going to get rid of that stupid little girl. Instead of quitting, I chose to up my game.

  I wasn’t going to let my worries about what others thought of me get in the way of my goal. When math questions on percentages were posed in class, I wasn’t sure of the answer, so I asked. The response I received was, “If you are studying to be a pilot, you should already know this.” Fair enough response, but it was not going to deter me. I realized that if I was going to get over this, I needed to put my hand up WHENEVER I wasn’t sure, despite the reaction I received and despite what anyone thought of me. My hand seemed to be in the air as much as it wasn’t over the following months. I no longer believed I had to be the stupid little girl I had believed I was. I could learn if I put in the effort.

  Jim, one of my lecturers, was experiencing some trouble of his own after being labeled a scab for breaking the strike at Eastern Airways. He didn’t like me or my questions. He would regularly put a metaphorical bullseye on me in class. One time, we were covering the contents of a test all cadets in my class had just taken, and I, of course, had many questions. He aimed verbal arrows at me, as usual, and this time tiny tears forced themselves onto my cheeks. Instead of extinguishing Jim’s fire, they seemed to fuel it.