The Danger of Instant Story Telling

A NEW EXPERIENCE DOESN'T NEED TO BECOME A STORY.
Whether empowering or disempowering, a new story can stay exactly that... a new story. 

Imprinting a new story is often not too helpful as stories require unlearning.  
And if that isn't painful enough, consider all opportunity costs - the moments that you walked right past what you wanted most but couldn't see it because of that unhelpful story.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Welcome to Weekly Wins and Losses. My name is James Hepner, former real estate entrepreneur, churn self-development hacker, coach, and fulfillment strategist. Each week we bring you a thought to wrestle with that'll help you live fully alive and gain more life. Real life is made up of both wins and losses. Both were designed for your good. That's basic reality. Without facing and learning how to embrace your losses for greater gain, you miss out.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

You leave 50% of your life experience on the table.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

So with that, let's begin the show. Hey folks, it's good to be back. It's been a bit of time. It's I think probably two, three, maybe four years. Gosh, uh, a long time. I've been busy working on other projects and I just had to get back in the chair. I'm flying out tomorrow uh for an event. And I had so much stuff in my mind. I'm like, I gotta get some stuff out. Where am I gonna do it? And so I'm gonna share some stuff that I hope will be of value to you, and and I'm gonna I'm committing to anyway, to keep this podcast uh really short, uh substantially shorter than what it's been in the past. And I'm doing it for a couple of reasons, primarily so that when I throw something down that you have something to chew on, and uh it doesn't take up too much of your time, but uh, the idea that I'm gonna throw down offers you an um you know invitation to uh go a little deeper into that specific thing. I want to keep things really simple. My concept uh in all that I do is simplicity. So uh I tend to oftentimes um throw down things that require a little bit of thinking. Uh I know that's just how my brain works. And so uh gosh, I know for myself when I when I bite into a podcast and I'm you know sipping on a noodle and I really like it, and then there's a lot of those noodles that I gotta sip on and slowly, you know, ingest. Um it's I tend to get spitty sauce on my face and it gets a little bit messy. So I want to keep things really tight and keep things um just organized and really uh succinctly, you know, clean so that you guys can get after things and get after your life. And and the idea again is to throw down um little ideas that you can use to integrate into your day. So as many of you know, I am an investor, I'm a business person, and I my primary work is uh I work with uh CEOs, I work with um founders, leaders, creatives, operators, and high capacity and high-value decision makers who need a trusted perspective. So a lot of people call me their trusted private strategic advisor, and I offer strategic clarity. And uh, to be honest, I do my best to offer wise counsel during those important seasons of decision making. So I kind of chuckle when I think about wise counsel. I don't consider myself wise at all. Um, wisdom to me is something that you hear. Um I really enjoy uh conversations with other people because you pick up on all types of things, and um, that of course helps to evolve one's thoughts forward. So uh I think better said, uh strategic clarity so that you can make better maybe decisions or wiser decisions. I mean, whatever that looks like. But um just an offering today. I'm here showing up and I'm allowing you to you know borrow my brain for half a second. Like I'm always privileged that I can do the same with you folks. Whenever I talk with you, if I have that opportunity, I think that's what we do for each other. We are all wise and we help each other in that way. So I hope this podcast just serves in that way, and um, you know, you're able to grab a couple of nuggets and go from there. So um, my goal always is to offer a different perspective and again just that clarity so you can make decisions uh for really complex um seasons of life. So uh the goal here and all the work that I do is never dependency. The goal is simply for clarity, discernment, and that wiser forward movement. So I had an experience um a little while ago, uh about a week ago, actually. I have an investment property that's not been so great for me. It's been an alligator property ever since I purchased it. And I normally don't get close to those things. Cash flowing for me on real estate is essentially um a necessity typically, but I I really like this beach home and it was um had a really nice view, ocean view, and it's just fantastic. And so I decided I was gonna purchase it, and we did so about eight years ago, and um it's been an upside-down property ever since we got it, and I knew it. You know, a couple thousand in the negative every month. Uh, so the holding cost pretty intense um when you consider over the year and you consider eight, nine years of holding. Um, so I knew I was in it for a bit of time. Um, but make a long story short, I don't think I was fully aware of some of the economic climate. I uh I mean, I I am an asymmetrical investor. I do mitigate my risks away the best that I possibly can. I do think I bought a good property. Um, it was, you know, really good, uh, pristine location, uh, one of the lower price point lots at the time. And um, you know, the little house on it was was really not cool. Um, it was just a garbage house, basically. Um, and it came with the tenant. And so the tenant's character, you know, uh character not garbage, but it's just an interesting guy. So I'll put it that way, been extremely difficult. Now, here's the thing. I when I bought the property, I I learned years ago. I don't know where I heard this. It may have been from an event or something, but we we often the speaker said we often don't. Um we often don't um have difficult clients. We have we are inflexible people. And so I just I've onboarded that for everything that I'm involved in. So tenant included, uh, this guy was pretty difficult. Uh but then I told myself I gotta be more flexible. So I worked on myself, and he was a really good um uh person for me to work through certain things, and and so I try my best to, you know, just stay open and stay flexible with him and just work different angles, and and uh basically I came to the conclusion that to no avail, this guy is stubborn and he's determined to you know make people's lives difficult. And and I think that became apparent when I decided that I was gonna sell this property, and I had a um my realtor, who's also a broker of an agency. Uh, I like him tremendously. He's a really good guy, and he's become a close friend of mine actually now. Um, he was gonna go and you know measure up the property and take some pictures and do all that good stuff. And so when he approached my tenant, my tenant, you know, made it extremely difficult, firstly, to communicate. And then my tenant did to my agent what he's been doing to me, for me, whatever, but to me for the last eight, nine years, which is using a whole bunch of superlatives constantly, like throwing F-bombs and just being very dis disrespectful and uh just not having any respect. And one of the things that I, you know, learnt about myself in that moment, and I've always known this, but uh, I'm able to handle people treating me like garbage. Um, I don't like it, but whatever, it is what it is. And I try not to make a story of it, and it's just what what what happens, and you kind of keep moving, right? Like that that's kind of part and parcel of um this world, right? If you're an investor, I mean if anytime you get emotionally involved, uh you folks will know you are when I say upside down, um, as far as finance, yeah, you're upside down and you have a lot of upside downness going on. Like you have double time upside downness. So um, yeah, no, this this this guy anyway, he is a tenant, uh, being super rude and just harming, basically, not just hurting my land or my um uh my agent, but you know, just just being not helpful. So um that kind of hit a chord for me. So, like I was saying, if people take advantage of me, I can hang on to it for a bit, but if they do it to my people, then that's it. So it's a little bit like my family. If somebody were to, you know, bring harm to my wife or kids, I don't handle that very well. I go into protection mode pretty quickly and away we go, right? So that happened here with the tenant, and I'm like, okay, this guy clearly has to go. And make a long story short, I decided this tenant, when I say how to go, I was gonna need to evict them. And here in British Columbia, and I'm imagining whoever you're listening, uh, the rules are probably similar, where the tenancy laws are set up to really support uh the tenant over the investor, and for a lot of obvious reasons, and I think a lot of them are appropriate. Um, you know, you know, they are appropriately set up so that it isn't just where people with money who buy property have the ability to displace people and put them on the street, right? We want to make sure we treat people kindly and fairly and all those good things, but anyway, it's probably gone a little bit too far. That's my opinion. Uh it's gone a little too far here in BC. Um, and I knew that uh when I bought the property years ago. Um, however, uh now I had the real experience. And I've never had to evict a tenant, I've had many um properties. Uh typically, like again, cash flowing positive, you know, tenants are in there, and oftentimes we'll have um, you know, a manager manage for uh me. And uh this property I chose not to, and I was gonna do it myself. And uh make a long story short, um trying to victim has been a bit of a nightmare. And um to the tune of having to drive down to the location, which is only about 10 minutes from where I live. However, it's just a hassle and it's a bother and it's an annoyance. I've had to do that probably, I don't know, like 10 times. I've had to post multiple um eviction notices and then different um uh different notices because he comes back and then he um when I say he, the you know, the tenant will um let's take a look here, it's recording. Okay, the the tenant will file a dispute, and then I have to come back and file another response, and then I have to go bring that to him and post it on his door, and so it just goes on and on and on. So as you can imagine, it's a bit of a hassle, a bit of a bother. And so one of the days that I drove over, I asked my wife if she'd come with because I needed a witness. I had to take a picture and I had to post that to the uh file so that I had a good case, um, which by the way, we're almost to the point now where I think he's gonna be evicted in about a week or two, if it works out. Uh we may have to go through Supreme Court, apparently. I didn't know the Supreme Court in Canada, but apparently we may have to do Supreme Court in Canada. So I'm driving over with her, and um I'm feeling like there's a story that's wanting to develop. And so I want you to think about in your life when something new happens, what happens inside of yourself with creating a story? Now, this is a new situation for me. I'd never had a tenant be this aggressive and be this committed to being difficult. So it's brand new. And while I was contemplating this, my wife realized I was in a certain space, and so she was quiet. It was kind of we had our our moment just driving in silence, and then I just perked up and I said, Wow, I just realized there's a new story trying to formulate, and it's saying that real estate investing is horrible. And then I heard a little voice that said, This is why you don't want to invest in real estate anymore. I'm like, holy smokes! Firstly, I didn't say it, but that was what was going on, that was a narrative behind it all. And I thought to myself, gosh, this is so fascinating. All that this is is a new story of having a new experience. I've invested many times in real estate, but this is a new experience. I've never had this before. And and I thought to myself, this is fascinating, actually. And so I want you to consider for yourself. Again, when something new happens, does it instantly become a new story? Or what do you do with it? And if it becomes a new story, is it a beneficial story? Well, clearly for me, had I adopted that story, that would not have been helpful. That would have been very detrimental. And of course, the reason I share this is we all know that in life we have two things typically that we do. We build and then we tear down. So we build, we tear down. We build, we tear down. Okay, so after the tear down, we root rebuild, right? To learn, I wouldn't say is easy, but learning is much easier than to unlearn. So what you take in is very important. So if you take in a shitty story, like a really crappy story, there will come a point in time in your life when you're gonna have to unlearn that. And to unlearn that story, gosh, what did you miss during the time that that story was in circulation in your life? And so I guess just wanting to offer you folks that little nugget, that is really simple, but I'm just gonna challenge you. When there's something that happens that's new, ask yourself the question Is this becoming a story? And if it is, is it empowering? And when I say empowering, be very careful because empowering isn't, well, this really sucks, and then flip that very quickly into it's amazing, I love it. It's not real. Okay? That doesn't help. That's positive thinking BS. You know, when you're experiencing something that you don't like, it's always more helpful if you bring it to a place of neutrality before you go from the negative straight to the positive. Your subconscious knows that it's not an alignment or your experience is not an alignment with your words. And I understand the concept. Use language to create the experience you want. However, let's be honest. If a tenant would do this again, I don't need my mind to think this is fantastic and it's awesome, it's positive. I can just be like, well, it is, it is what it is. Like I want to accept reality for what it is, but I don't want to put the expectation on myself that I gotta be all positive, like be flying high as a kite so that this is fantastic, like doesn't make any sense to me. So just ask yourself the next time something happens and it's new, and maybe it's not a good new experience. Ask yourself the question is this worthy? Is this beneficial? Is this helpful? And let's say it's not. Well, just be aware that it doesn't become a new story. And I would also caution not to reject it, not to push it away. Because if you push it away, you will have to deal with it at some point in time. Right? You're gonna push it down onto your little haunted house, and that little trap door is gonna fling open at some point in time, and you're gonna have to work that stuff through. So I just wanna you know give you that. For me, it was a gift. Do with it as you wish. New stories, new experiences, let a new experience be a new experience. If a story wants to build, stand guard at the door stand guard at the door of the mind. Be careful what you take in. If you take in the wrong story, you'll have to pull that thing apart, you have to unlearn the story, and who knows how much time you've wasted. What have you missed with that story in circulation? So anyway, enjoy new life, enjoy a new experience, and enjoy creating stories that actually matter.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

My sincere hope is that you've gleaned a few nuggets for yourself and a few pieces of interest that help you move forward in your unique journey. So, again, I thank you for joining me here. This is James Hefner clocking out. Until next time, peace out, rock up.