My Muse

by Brandon · 3 comments

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Real Estate is my muse.

 

In Tim Ferris’ book “The 4-hour Workweek” he discusses the need for a “muse” in which to satisfy that little craving in our life called “money” without needing to fight rush hour, punch the time clock, or suck up to your sexist boss. (If you haven’t read my review yet or want to buy the book for yourself, click here). To quote The 4-hour Workweek:

 

Our goal is simple: to create an automated vehicle for generating
cash without consuming time. That’s it. I will call this vehicle a
“muse” whenever possible to separate it from the ambiguous term
“business,” which can refer to a lemonade stand or a Fortune 10 oil
conglomerate—our objective is more limited and thus requires a
more precise label.

 

For Ferris, it was an online business that sold nutritional supplements for weight lifters. For me, my muse is real estate.

 

A muse is simply a tool you use to generate income, that is not dependent on you working a 9-5 job to make it happen. In the investment world, we call that “passive income”, which comes to you passively (as opposed to “active income”, which – shocker – comes to you through active work). Stocks are passive income, but require large amounts of cash to begin with weak returns.

 

Real Estate, for most, is not a passive activity. Many investors are (literally) knee deep in crap half the time and saturated with headaches the other half. Buildings require work, tenants require training, and toilets will always need to be plunged.

 

But that won’t be you.

 

Hacking Real Estate is about using shortcuts, tips, techniques, and systems to turn a normally “active” investment into a “passive” muse. Its about making the choice to automate your investments. Its about making the choice to control your investments, not have them control you. Its about making the choice of how you want to live, rather than simply following the herd.

 

Your muse can be real estate, a supplement company, stocks, or an infinite number of other sources of income. The important thing is making your muse passive. This doesn’t mean you will never do any work to maintain it. It takes time, patience, and work to create a muse. But it does mean you make the continual and conscience choice to fine-tune your muse into a well oiled cashflow machine that will allow you to live the life you want.

About Brandon

has written 199 Awesome posts in this blog.

Brandon Turner (G+) is the BiggerPockets.com Senior Editor and Community Director and owner of RealEstateInYourTwenties.com. He is also an Active Real Estate Investor (Flips, Apartments, and Buy-and-Hold), Entrepreneur, World Traveler, Third-Person Speaker, and Husband. Come hang out with him on Twitter!

P.S. looking for hard money loans in California? Be sure to check out my friends over at northcoastfinancialinc.com. They have very competitive rates, can fund within a week and specialize in fix and flip loans and other hard money loans.

P.S. Looking for more real estate investing knowledge? If you are interested in a top-notch course to help you understand the nuts and bolts of creative real estate investing, I would like to recommend Ben Leybovich's Cash Flow Freedom University. Ben is a close friend and has been my trusted adviser for years. He's a smart guy and CFFU is pretty awesome. The course is waitlisted, but while you wait for an opening Ben will send you tons of FREE content. Seriously. Click here to check it out.

(yes, that's an affiliate link!)

{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

Denny Jenrette March 19, 2012 at 10:14 pm

Interesting read, looking forward to a few more posts on this subject, found your site through bing and have been enjoying your posts, great stuff!

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Carlos Garbiras October 29, 2012 at 9:43 pm

Hi Brandon,

Thank you for all this info. I’m a big fan of Ferriss’ work and I’m interested in learning more about investing in Real Estate. Never thought that the two subjects could overlap. This is going to be interesting.

I’m a construction manager in San Diego and right now my company requires a lot of my time but I’ll keep reading your thoughts and see how I can apply them into my profession to free up some of my time.

Keep up the good work.

-Carlos

Reply

Brandon October 29, 2012 at 10:11 pm

Hey Carlos – yeah, I find the ties very similar! Thanks for the comment and keep in touch!

Reply

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