The Viable Alternative

As I child growing up, in our house it was hammered into the heads of me and my siblings by our father that we had to “work our ass off” in school and get good grades due to the fact that he was paying “thousands and thousands of dollars in school fees” for us and wasn’t going to be wasting his money on “useless kids.” lol

Of all the subjects, it was explicitly stressed that we HAD to do well in math and science related subjects because when our father was “our age,” we were told by him that he excelled in these subjects. The other subjects of course we had to do well in as well, but math and science were of particular importance because they were also the ones that supposedly led to all the “good jobs” i.e. the jobs that paid a lot of money (probably with the exception of being a lawyer).

To get an “A” (or an “E” as grades were marked in the 6th grade and under at my school) in math and science was considered the crowning achievement in my house.

Well, I remember the joy I had in the 6th grade when my report card for the second trimester came in and on it, I was given an “E” in math. I knew my father would be proud of me and he was indeed happy to hear of the news. As a reward, I was given extra allowance.

However, shortly after, one Saturday morning, my father came to me with a bunch of blank sheets of paper and some pencils. I remembered being confused as to what they were for, but my father would soon dispel any confusion by telling me that he wanted to see if I really “earned” my “E” in math, so he wanted to test my mathematical aptitude.

Feeling proud of my achievement, I felt I was more than up to the task.

Let’s just say that everything was downhill from there.

For the whole rest of the morning and throughout the entire afternoon, I was at the receiving end of shouting, insults, verbal abuse, and periodic open handed slaps to the face when I got a math problem wrong or I couldn’t understand what he was trying to explain to me. On top of that, I was called a useless student, told that he was wasting money on my tuition, and that he didn’t see how I earned an “E” because I was so stupid.

Now, in my strange, dark sense of humour, I’m laughing as I write this, because I actually see the humour in stories like this, and have told this story with the intent of making people laugh at the “humour” of growing up under the “character” of my father, and have laughed along with them when they did find the stories funny, and in addition, have also laughed hard at similar stories other friends of mine have told me about their childhood. Had someone told me this exact same story about himself, I would’ve laughed at it myself (as my most of my close friends and sibling would have as well). You gotta be able to see the humour in things.

In any case, what I learned from that experience was that if success came too easy, it wasn’t worth it. I also came to feel guilty when success came to me too “easily” and that I didn’t deserve it. I felt that everything in life worth having had to come from a hard fought battle otherwise there was no point in acknowledging or accepting it. Somehow or another, whenever I had success it had to be “logically proven” that I was worth having it.

I Deserve to Struggle

Fast forward years and years later to the early to the middle of the first decade of the 2000s when I did my first stint of real estate (2003-2006).

Real estate is interesting because a lot of it is based on “chance’ in that things are out of your control.

You put up ads for apartments, hoping to get leads that you can turn into clients that you can in turn turn into deals where they rent or buy a place through you. You put up ads for an apartment, but it’s not certain that anyone will respond to them, in addition, when you’re working with a client, it’s also not certain that you’ll close them or not. In essence, though I hate to use this word, there’s an element of “luck” or “chance” involved that comes with closing clients.

Sure you need to be competent or qualified, or to have success you at least be able to come across as being so, and sure a whole other litany of skills come into play among all the different individuals who have success, but luck or chance does play a role.

In my third year of real estate during my first stint, I started to get the “hang” of things. I wasn’t by any means a superstar because I had my own blocks of success to work through, but I never had a problem getting clients, and doing a deal was no big deal for me, I always expected sooner or later one to come along in such a way that I remained more or less consistent. I remember one of the owners of the companies who had this uncanny sixth sense about people and money telling me that he saw me making a lot of money in the business and he saw that in me from the beginning.

Here’s the thing however. Since there is a small element of luck involved, as I started to get more consistent in closing deals, and I would get my steady stream of clients, I always felt guilty about it. I felt I didn’t deserve small success I was starting to have because the factor of “luck” was something that couldn’t be explained, quantified, or put in a box. Sure, the harder you work, the luckier you are, and sure, you create your own “luck,” but it’s still something you can’t directly control.

There was no way for my “rational” mind to explain this luck to its satisfaction, so it always ate at me, and I would ask myself, “Why do I even deserve this if it can’t be proven. What if it all one day ends and you won’t be able to get it back because you can’t explain it?”

I remember during my first year there was this Asian guy in my office. After starting off in the business slow, he started to do deals but then all of a sudden he started losing deals left and right until they just stopped coming to him. Soon after, he stopped getting clients and he would just wind up sitting in the office twiddling his thumbs. Sooner after, he wound up losing his place because he could no longer afford the rent and was asked to leave the company.

This also troubled me because I would think to myself, “What if this happened to me? Why would this not happen to me? There’s no way I can prove that I’m worthy of this not happening to me.”

Somehow I felt I deserved this guy’s fate because my “rational” mind couldn’t wrap itself around why I wasn’t struggling like this guy. Because it couldn’t be figured out, I didn’t deserve to have it.

Fast forward a few years later, it “finally” started. A month or two after I had the talk I explained earlier with one of the owners of the company where he expressed his belief in my potential, the deals I had would fall apart due to one mishap or another until a few months later I couldn’t close a deal to save my life. Simultaneously, the flow of clients started lessening until they were at a trickle. Eventually, I became like that Asian guy a few years earlier, sitting in the office, twiddling my thumbs with nothing at all going on with my business.

Eventually, I wound up choosing to leave because I took it as a sign from the “Universe” that it wast time to move on.

Funny, below all the turmoil, stress and frustration I was going through at this time, in retrospect, now that I’m more aware of what’s going on inside of me, I remember this deep sense of satisfaction I had because I felt I was where I finally deserved to be – struggling. No longer did I have to worry about any “luck” I had because now, if it weren’t for “bad luck” I’d have no luck at all.

Remember the story I told in the beginning when I was told that even though I earned an “E” in math I was told by my father that I wasn’t worthy of it? Well now with all the struggle, turmoil and frustration I was experiencing, finally this was my chance to prove to my father that I was worthy of his love and approval.

On a deep, unconscious level, despite all my external frustration, I was content that my life was a reflection of what I felt my father would approve of – one of constant struggle.

Well, a little over five years later, a couple of spiritual people told me a couple of months apart from one another that I should go back into real estate, that I’ll do well in it. When I heard it the first time, I shooed it away in my mind, but when someone else told me with an additional assurance that this time would be different, I took it as a sign from God that maybe it was time I make a go at it again. When I hear or am told something in twos or more, I take it as a sign that I need to take heed and move forward on it.

Needless to say, when I got back into real estate, I picked up right where I left off – few clients, no deals on top of me already being rusty for being away for so long.

It took me six months to close my first deal, and even after that, I still struggled to have some type of consistency. I would repeatedly bang my head against the wall (figuratively of course), and prayed and prayed looking for the answer to, “What the hell was blocking me from succeeding?”

It was one of the two factors that drove me to start therapy. I wanted to get to the bottom of what was blocking me and I couldn’t figure it out on my own.

The Light at the End of My Struggle

Well, thank God for therapy combined with God’s wisdom because I recently had a realization.

I am quite aware that success comes from hard work, persistence, consistency, proficiency and other tangibles that can be explained by the rational mind, however I have to come to terms that just because the “irrational” component of success, call it chance, luck, timing, fortune, grace, Divine or Godly favour, can’t be explained or quantified by my rational mind doesn’t mean I can’t accept it as part of my reality.

For years, any situation or potential opportunity that came my way that I felt was a result of chance or luck and not as a result of what I thought were the logical components of success I immediately felt I didn’t deserve and I would wind up sabotaging it in one way or another.

In fact, just today, I was checking out an apartment with an associate that the landlord had given her to rent, and we wound up getting into a conversation with the super of a nearby building who told us of a vacant apartment in his building and gave me the number to contact the landlord.

Immediately, upon sensing a new opportunity, this voice went off in my head, “But you don’t deserve this. You still have problems getting into the office before 9:30. You messed up doing this and that last week. You haven’t earned this opportunity and if you get it it won’t make any sense.”

Thankfully, I am finally aware enough to catch myself in the midst of listening to all this nonsense, however, it’s no wonder I’m not having the success I want. Not only do I sabotage myself, but by being totally closed to it, I block any good fortune that may come my way. This “good fortune” is what many successful people attribute to their “big break” that made them successful.

I’ve started to open myself up to the possibilities of luck, good fortune, blessings, Godly favour for nothing else but “just because.” I’ve started to tell myself I deserve this things for nothing else but “just because.” Screw checking in with my rational mind, it can catch up later…or never.

There is now a curiosity and an anticipation as I now ponder ways I can be “lucky” as I accept that possibility into my life. I wonder how it will turn up for the unique person who I am.

I accept the irrationality of success.

This is The Viable Alternative.

Hope this helps,

Ike Love