Part 3 - What differentiates a successful accredited investor? What makes them successful?

Continuation of previous article:
This the third article in the series describing my thoughts on what makes many accredited investors successful. How do they think and work? What differentiates them from those who have not achieved their goals? In the previous articles - Part 1 covered the first three elements that make them successful: having a dream that forces action, having desire to overcome challenges along the way, and having an end goal for reaching your dream while Part 2 covered the next three: understand change is hard, don’t let fear win, have a plan, and executing the plan. This article covers the final elements: constantly learn, continually improve, never give up, and giving back to others.

Constantly learn:
Successful people are always learning about things. They take advantage of spare time by reading or listening to tapes covering subjects of interest. They love to learn from other successful people how they overcame their fears and eventually succeeded in reaching their initial goals. These people never feel they have fully arrived at the end point. New challenges present themselves. New dreams are beyond their current ability to achieve without learning and moving forward through the required changes.

Continually improve:
When executing your plan, there most certainly will be new changes required as you find out about things not foreseen initially. Look at your plan and make adjustments as needed to keep moving forward with the new information incorporated into the plan. Keep improving the plan and associated actions over time as you get closer to the end goal.

Never give up:
Look at the Olympics - many of the Olympians at one point or another wanted to give up. Think about Great Britton during the World War when Winston Churchill told them never give up – what would have happened had they given up?

There is a difference between giving up out of fear and giving up because your dream was unrealistic (you want to be the first trillionaire). If you give up completely, then that is most likely due to fear. If your dream is unrealistic, then you should down-scope the end goal to something more achievable, but still beyond your current abilities. Remap your plan of action and work toward this readjusted goal. Once achieved, then look for another goal that again is achievable, but beyond your abilities. This process of continually achieving and creating new goals is what many successful accredited investors do over their lifetime. That has lead many to achieve things they would have never dreamed possible when initially starting on their journey of change. By continually growing and moving forward, each smaller achievement built upon another until their current success was achieved.

Give back:
Successful people give back. They want to help others achieve their dreams, if these people are sincere in their desire and show action toward working on the associated changes. They want to help their community and those less fortunate. They want to help the underprivileged learn to become self sufficient by providing tools (education, supplies, scholarships, etc.) these people can use to build a life of success. If you have not seen the recent movie “The Pursuit of Happyness”, I highly recommend it. That is a true story of an overcomer. Watch the bonus material to see how this once homeless man taking care of his son became an extremely successful Wall Street trader eventually owning his own firm. He now travels to Africa and helps many people there.

Summary:
These are my personal thoughts on what differentiates most successful accredited investors. These could also be true for anyone who dreams and works toward achieving their dreams. Be a dreamer and don’t give into fear. Learn from your fears and face them head on. Constantly facing and overcoming your fears will give you new confidence and belief in your ability to make things happen. Understand that you will always face some failures in life. We all do. The difference is how you react to those failures. Will you let them stop you or will you let them teach you? The choice is yours.

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Copyright 2008 Ole Cram. Ole Cram is President of Marcobe Investments, Inc., a corporation that invests in various oil and gas ventures and refers accredited investors, investment managers, financial advisors, investment funds, and others to the associated oil producer of these projects for their consideration to also participate. We are not licensed to sell any interest in a project, nor are we registered advisors. Feel free to email us at MarcobeInvestmentsInc@gmail.com with any questions, thoughts, or requests for other topics to cover in future articles.

This article was posted at Accredited Investor Blog: http://accreditedinvestortalk.blogspot.com/. Past articles can easily be found at http://www.MarcobeInvestmentsInc.com/Oil_and_Gas_Investor_TOC.html. This article is provided for educational purposes only and is not meant to be a substitute for tax, legal, financial, or other registered professional advice for your specific situation. Always seek the advice of a professional before making any related decision. Sphere: Related Content

Part 2 - What differentiates a successful accredited investor? What makes them successful?

Continuation of previous article:
This the second article in the series describing my thoughts on what makes many accredited investors successful. How do they think and work? What differentiates them from those who have not achieved their goals? The previous article - Part 1 - covered the first three elements that make them successful: Having a dream that forces action, having desire to overcome challenges along the way, and having an end goal for reaching your dream. This article covers understanding that change is hard, not letting fear stop you, having a plan to reach your goal, and executing that plan.

Understand change is hard:
Most times change involve an initial period of very hard work trying to keep track of everything, making sure you don’t forget something as you work on the change. Without a strong desire to make the change, most people give up. Not the successful accredited investor. Most know they can’t keep doing the same thing they are currently doing. Their desire to do something different forces action toward change, whether they have fully visualized their end goal or not.

Think of the forces needed to initially get a large object to start moving on a flat surface (think of a very long train on tracks). It takes continued action to keep pushing this object faster until you reach the desired speed. Once at that speed, then much less energy/action is needed to keep the object moving at that constant speed. This is also true of change. When you initially start on a path of change, there are many forces/actions required to get the “large object” to start moving faster while also controlling the direction the object moves – toward your goal.

Don’t let fear win:
Fear of change is the biggest killer of dreams. All our lives we have experienced negative events that make us not want to repeat them again. We fear getting into a similar situation again where the possibility of experiencing the associated pain and anguish is high. Think of when you were rejected by someone during a sales pitch, presentation, proposal, love, etc. The first time you experience the associated rejection, it can be very painful. In general, people therefore react in two ways (from my experience): type 1 - they internalize and fear the event and do everything to avoid being in a similar situation again, or type 2 - they overcome their fear of the event by learning from it and figuring out how to change the outcome should a similar situation comes again. Again, your desire for change must be strong enough to move you from being a type 1 to a type 2 as an overcomer who learns and continues moving forward toward the end goal.

Personal story:
I have a fear of heights. However, I make it a point to do those things that make me uncomfortable. When we visit a city, I make it a ponit to go to the top of the highest sky scraper and walk around the top looking down. One of the scariest was walking around the top of the Stratosphere in Las Vegas. But I didn’t stop there. The Stratosphere is a very tall tower with rides on top. I saw the roller coaster called High Roller that goes around the outside of the observation area several times. I made it a point to ride that coaster no matter how scared I was. Boy was I in for a surprise. The ride is amazing since you don’t see anything under you but the city hundreds of feel down below. It feels like you are barely being held to the tower and could easily detach and fly down to your doom! THAT WAS SCARY! But, I did it. I felt proud for making myself face this fear and tackle it head on. I left Vegas that day feeling a bit more confident about my abilities to take on a challenge and win! You should also do the same for your fears. Face them a little at a time. Keep moving forward toward your goals as you overcome these large obstacles.

Have a plan:
As I mentioned before, you need to fully visualize the end goal and all the changes that will be needed to get you there. Create a list of all the changes needed. Don’t limit yourself at this point. Just write everything down you can think of. Once you have a complete list, then you can start figuring out which changes are realistic and which are not. You can then start grouping and categorizing the changes. Understand the sequencing of the changes – what order must they be done in. Prioritize the changes in order of importance. Continue reviewing these changes until you have a final list that is in chronological order so you know what to do first, next, and next after that. You can then guess how long each change will take, along with what you need to make that change. Place dates on the calendar for when you will start and achieve each change. Complete the calendar until you have a date when the final end goal will be achieved. At that point, you will know all the changes, when they need to be started, what things you need to execute each change, when the change will be completed, how they relate to each other (the order they need to be done), etc. This is your plan for success toward the dream.

Execute the plan:
Believe it or not, many people actually get this far, but never execute their plan. This is the critical point of no return. Either you truly overcome your fear of change or you don’t. Executing the plan can only be done by actually facing your fears and making the required changes. Doing nothing ensures status quo and no achievement of the dream outside of winning the lottery or some other unlikely change of chance.

Stay tuned for next week's continuation:
Next week, the next article will continue this series by covering the need to constantly learn, continually improve, never give up, and the importance of giving back.
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Copyright 2008 Ole Cram. Ole Cram is President of Marcobe Investments, Inc., a corporation that invests in various oil and gas ventures and refers accredited investors, investment managers, financial advisors, investment funds, and others to the associated oil producer of these projects for their consideration to also participate. We are not licensed to sell any interest in a project, nor are we registered advisors. Feel free to email us at MarcobeInvestmentsInc@gmail.com with any questions, thoughts, or requests for other topics to cover in future articles.

This article was posted at Accredited Investor Blog: http://accreditedinvestortalk.blogspot.com/. Past articles can easily be found at http://www.MarcobeInvestmentsInc.com/Oil_and_Gas_Investor_TOC.html. This article is provided for educational purposes only and is not meant to be a substitute for tax, legal, financial, or other registered professional advice for your specific situation. Always seek the advice of a professional before making any related decision.

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Part 1 - What differentiates a successful accredited investor? What makes them successful?

Overview:
This will be a little different from my usual articles. Rather than talk about a specific investment or investment technique, I felt it would be beneficial to talk about what makes many accredited investors successful. How do they think and work? What differentiates them from those who have not achieved their goals?

The information provided will be largely biased toward my own experiences and not necessarily representative of all accredited investors. With this in mind, I share my thoughts on what traits you need to be a successful accredited investor. I plan to complete this series in several parts with this article being part 1. Read the blog next week for part 2.

Common elements of a successful accredited investor:
In my view, elements of a successful accredited investor usually include the following:
- Have a dream: They want something that motivates change

- Have desire: They have a strong desire to reach the dream

- Have an end goal: They can visualize what life will be like when the dream is achieved

- Understand change is hard: They know change is hard

- Don’t let fear win: They don’t let fear stop them from moving forward

- Have a plan: They create a specific plan of action for changes needed to achieve their end goal

- Execute the plan: They work their plan

- Constantly learn: They love learning about new things, skills, how others overcome, etc.

- Continually improve: They refine/improve their plan of action while moving closer to the end goal

- Never give up: They don’t give up, but may readjust their end goal to be more realistic

- Give back: They want to give back by helping others succeed

I will cover each of these in more detail in this series of articles on the successful accredited investor.

Have a dream:
Deliberate success begins with a dream, not being satisfied with status quo. You need to see something beyond your reach that requires stretching yourself beyond your known current abilities and means. The dream must be strong enough to create desire to take action.

Have desire:
Your dream must create a strong enough desire to take action toward making a change. Most people have a very hard time making change. They may not be happy where they are in life, but they understand it and know what to expect. Even in misery, the person involved can find some strange level of comfort. The misery is familiar to them. They have learned to live within the associated environment and, to some extent know what to do, what to expect.

Have an end goal:
Visualize and understand what the end goal is. Where do you want to be and what do you want to be doing once the dream has been achieved? How will achieving the dream change your life? What does it look and feel like? Think about all the things that need to change in order to get you to that end goal.

Next article in the series:
Next week, the next article will cover understanding change is hard, overcoming fear, creating a plan of action toward the end goal, and executing that plan.

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Copyright 2008 Ole Cram. Ole Cram is President of Marcobe Investments, Inc., a corporation that invests in various oil and gas ventures and refers accredited investors, investment managers, financial advisors, investment funds, and others to the associated oil producer of these projects for their consideration to also participate. We are not licensed to sell any interest in a project, nor are we registered advisors. Feel free to email us at MarcobeInvestmentsInc@gmail.com with any questions, thoughts, or requests for other topics to cover in future articles.

This article was posted at Accredited Investor Blog: http://accreditedinvestortalk.blogspot.com/. Past articles can easily be found at http://www.MarcobeInvestmentsInc.com/Oil_and_Gas_Investor_TOC.html. This article is provided for educational purposes only and is not meant to be a substitute for tax, legal, financial, or other registered professional advice for your specific situation. Always seek the advice of a professional before making any related decision. Sphere: Related Content