Find out why this investor always keeps a notebook by his side

“I always think, why do I invest in property? Because sometimes when I get so focused on the numbers, it’s just ticking the next one off, ticking the next one off but I first started because I wanted financial freedom. I wanted to retire off of passive income and for me property was what made sense as a vehicle to get me to that passive income,” he shared with Smart Property Investment.

He added: “I was reading a lot of personal development books and reading a lot of things around financial freedom and how to create wealth and with that, they generally came around three key areas: (1) Investing in shares. And at the time, even to this day, it doesn’t really resonate with me; the intangible nature of shares. Don’t really understand it. (2) Creating your own business. I would love to create my own business one day but don’t really know what that is yet so that was put to the side. Then, (3) there was property. It was simple to understand, it was easy to get. You buy property, you put tenants in, money comes out and if you buy relatively close to capital cities, good amenities on a nice big block of land, over the long run it’s generally gonna go up in value significantly as well.”

While most of his peers choose to live life a little more loosely, Taku let his desire to succeed help him make the hard decisions at a young age.

At his 20s, he has set both short- and long-term personal and financial goals for himself, and essentially, he is just getting started.

According to the young investor: “I’m quite ambitious, quite driven and after I saw the success of that first property and really came to fruition and it was real, then I just got addicted to it and I just got completely immersed in property investing and I knew this was the vehicle to get me to where I want to get to if I wanted to retire early. I have the short-term goal and the long-term goal. The short one first would be have equity of at least a million in this time next year, so in 12 month’s time; and have at least 10 properties by this time next year as well, so it’s a bit of a balance of both. Then long term, by 36, I want to have a net passive income through property of one million dollars,” he added.

To keep his head in the game, Taku makes sure to always “keep in touch” with his aspirations.

One of the most important rules he follows as an investor is also one of the most basic: Write down your goals.

He shared: “I follow a guy on YouTube and on podcasts called Grant Cardone, and he’s just completely shifted my life 360 [degrees]. He’s all about goal setting. He writes his goals once in the morning, once in the evening, so he’s always got his mind on what’s important. I do it, (too) – once in the morning, once in the evening as well. It’s a lot more difficult than what I first imagined, to continue that discipline, but it keeps your mind on it every single day.”

“These are essentially all personal goals. I have a couple of work goals where I’m currently at right now as well. I write those down from an income perspective ... It’s more financially driven. Pen to paper, just old school. As soon as I get out of bed, write it down. Before I turn the lamp off, write it down. I keep it next to the bed, yeah. Just a little notebook. It’s in the same notebook until I run out of pages and then on to the next one,” Taku added.

Who knew the secret to success could be as simple as keeping a notebook by your bed?

Tune in to Taku Ekanayake’s episode in The Smart Property Investment Show to know more about property management and picking the right mortgage broker for you.