Nothing is as constant as change

Napoleon once said, “One must change one's tactics every 10 years if one wishes to maintain one's superiority.”

If Napoleon was still around today, I would argue he would look to shorten the timeframe in the above quote. Compared to 1821, when Napoleon died, the speed of modern living and the advancements in technologies would probably have him spinning in his bicorn hat & knee-high boots.

Evolve or die has been a tenet of evolutionary theory for hundreds of years, so my question to you is from an investment point of view: what changes have you made recently, or at least in the past 10 years?

How has your investment strategy changed since the GFC, the Greek crisis, the recent Chinese stock market roller-coaster ride or Australia’s potential impending recession?

Do you still believe that what might have worked over the past decade is going to work the same, or better, over the next decade? If you answered yes, well, good luck with that! And if you answered no, what are you going to do about it?

There are many reasons why some investors resist change…

First, for some it is the fear of the unknown. They would rather continue to get the same or even worse results because they fear that it could be even worse if they try to change. So ask yourself would you still rather be watching a 14-inch plywood box with rabbit ears in black-and-white, or the 60-inch colour plasma TV with surround sound every night? Would you rather by driving around in a horse and buggy, or a new BMW, or even a Tesla electric car or a new driverless car that Google is working on commercialising right now? In other words, do you really want to live in the past, or make the most of right now for an even better future?

The second reason some investors fear change is that they feel they don’t know enough. In other words, they do not have the necessary financial education to be able to make informed investment decisions. For some people this represents an absolutely valid reason to be paralysed and, without wanting to cause offence, if I knew as little as some people know about how to make money from property, I’d be very scared as well. However, what is stopping you from becoming better financially educated? Driverless cars are not the only thing Google is good for! I guess the problem with Google searches, though, is that it is not a shortage of information that is the problem, but rather a shortage of your ability to critically analyse that information and make intelligent investment decisions based on it.

And third, but by no means least, some people put off making the changes that deep in their heart they know could improve their lives, because they just don’t have the time (or more accurately, don’t prioritise the time) required to make the changes. Like an ostrich they choose to bury their heads so deep into their work or their family – or anything else, so long as it takes them away from actually having to face up to the changes they should be making – that will ultimately make their lives so much better. They become so ‘busy’ running around their own self-made hamster wheel, that they can’t actually see the forest for the trees. Well, if you want the type of financial future most only dream about, at some point you will have to get off that wheel!

So what are you waiting for?

I am not saying you have to do everything yourself to become a successful property investor, or that you will be able to set yourself up with a passive income for life after reading one article. No, the process of becoming financially educated will be a Journey and it is going to take some time.

Would you not agree that the best solution would be to first become better educated, then over time create a trusted team of professionals around you and delegate certain tasks to those people in your team best suited to carrying out each task required to get you a better result?

Let me leave you with another quote, attributed to Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, which under his leadership between 1981 and 2001 saw the company's value rise by 4,000 per cent... “Change before you have to!”