I heard something the other day that stuck with me. It wasn't the specific quote (because honestly I can't remember it) but the idea was powerful, here's my take on it: Procrastination is really just a misplaced fear of the immediate discomfort of taking action over the true fear of not reaching your full potential. If you do nothing, what happens? You stagnate, struggle & eventually look back on your life with regret. And if you take action to achieve your dreams? It's painful - you have to do difficult things out of your comfort zone. Neither way is pleasant - life is hard. Personally, I'd like to be the master of my own destiny and choose to seek discomfort... What do you think is worse, the pain of discipline or the pain of regret?

The reason we're all here is because we think mortgage notes are the best way to invest in real estate. Yesterday reinforced this belief for me. Let me set the scene: I'm in an ultrasound appointment with my wife (baby #3 coming in April!) and I get a frantic text from Amber, the tenant living in the 2nd floor apartment of my mixed-use building in a town about an hour away. I had missed her text at 6:43am: "Rob - sorry to bother at this hour... Woke up with an incredible headache and the carbon monoxide alarm going off. I have opened windows to air it out but that is speeding up the no heat. Can you get someone out here today?" Her follow up text sent me into a panic. And after calls to the furnace repair company (that had cleared screwed something up when they tuned up the machine last month) & the utility company to turn off the gas I called my tenant back with the instructions: "evacuate the building" But when the phone went straight to voicemail, text messages left unread - my blood went as cold as the icy wind coming through the windows in her unheated apartment... I feared the worst: she was passed out from carbon monoxide poisoning, unable to escape the apartment. I dialed 911 and an ambulance, fire truck and police were shortly outside the apartment. Tried to call her again, RELIEF - she picks up & is on the way out of the apartment. The firefighters get inside the basement of the building and find the furnace spitting out flames into the surrounding area - lighting cobwebs and anything they touch on fire. "You got really lucky..." was all the fire chief could say over the phone while he caught his breath. The furnace is toast but everyone survived. And my tenant sent me a text memorializing the close call: "The FD said the heater is “a mess and probably should be replaced as the issue has to have been building for a while as the reading in the basement was at 70 ppm and 50 will kill you!” It’s down to 17 in the apt now and had been cleared for me to go back in."

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