Most of my clients have been slammed by the real estate downturn and economic recession.  There are a few notable exceptions who were well positioned to ride out a storm and actually take advantage of the opening market as their competitors fell to the wayside. 

No matter what has happened to your business and your investments since this started, there is one thing that is true:  There is a story you’re telling yourself.  

As human beings we distill large amounts of facts into easier categories.  We all do it.  And then we assign some kind of meaning to those categories.

There is an interesting phenomena occurring right now in parts of the middle of the US.  If you’ve noticed it’s primarily the west coast and the east coast that have gotten slammed by the plummeting real estate values.  There are areas in the middle of the country where there haven’t been any significant drops…until now.   What’s happened is “perception becoming reality.”  In other words, home sellers have been watching the news and have started to panic.  They are selling their houses for thousands less then they need to, just because they’re sure that what has happened in Southern California, Virginia and other places in the country is going to happen to them.

Be careful when you hear news.  Is this really news for you?  Is this really true for you and your circumstances?  Be careful what story you create from the stories being spun for you every night.

And what if you really are getting hammered by real estate downturns?  I have a client right now that is a prime example of a guy who is getting it right.  He got hit hard, very hard, and lost millions of dollars on real estate.  I think he might be the biggest ‘loser’ of all my clients.  But he’s not a loser.  I compare him to people I talk to who have had a house or two drop maybe a total of $100,000 and are creating stories of:

Everything I do turns bad.  I’ll never invest again.  I hate real estate.  I’m no good at this.  My family is going to starve without a roof over their head.  and so on…

In the case of my client who lost millions, he worked out what he could on the severely upside down properties, took the hit on his credit and has already got a few months into a new business that is doing great!  He’s packaging up REOs in areas of the country that are hardest hit and then reselling him.  He made as much in his first month of business as he ever made in his previous real estate sales business.  

He clearly recognized where the losers were.  Came up with a workable plan for the lenders and the moved ahead, with no regrets and no second thoughts.  He put his energy into the next deal.  The other thing about him:  he talks in such glowing terms of his wife who is his true partner in this.  They are building the next company together and they each respect and value the other.  I am uplifted every time I talk to him.  

There is courage in getting through adversity without regret and moving on. 

Other clients are repositioning their businesses.  Many businesses are in a unique opportunity of seeing their sales drop as customers demand lower prices (mainly because they just don’t have the income they used to) but at the same time, the business also has the opportunity to drop their prices.

I’ve seen it in my business.  Two years ago I paid $2,500 per month for hosting that I now get for $270 per month.  I am moving my email server from in house ($3,000 per month plus program updates costs) to an outside source for just a few hundred per month.  We can get products designed for just $47 per item.  I could go on and on about all the cost savings I’ve seen.  Here’s my story on that:

Business is changing, faster than ever before.  The greatest survival skill is flexibility.

The times have changed.  Most of us have seen huge changes in how we our businesses work and how much our investments are worth.  That could mean a reason to not get out of bed or it could mean a reason to spring alive, full of the possibilities of a new day.

I choose to be grateful for the challenges that make me better.

This post is for all the people