I sometimes feel like there might be something wrong with me because I have this extreme drive to succeed in life. This feeling has lived within my soul for as long as I can remember. I feel like I have to become successful and that it is my mission in life to do something positive to improve the world. Regularly, I stop and look over my life and realize I have achieved many things, but I always feel like I should have achieved more. I am truly obsessed with creating something of value for myself, for my customers, and for the world.
Even though I am very thankful that I have this drive, it can also be a curse. More often than not, I have driven myself insane or become so stressed out that I can’t sleep. My first true passion (and still is) was real estate. I started with both pockets empty, and for 5 years I lived as cheaply as I could and spent all the money I could on real estate. At this point, I had a few rental properties that all had positive income, and the profits I was making on each property seemed to be growing with every deal I made.
All of a sudden, the Icelandic economy crashed, and my assets in the properties turned into horrible debt. So in a very short period, all of my hard work over the past years disappeared and, even worse, it turned into debt. This was like a punch in the gut, and it took me a few years to recover from it both financially and mentally.
Mentally, I broke down after the punch—not right away, but after I had been struggling to swim out of this pool of debt for almost two years. Losing all you own is not so difficult, but being thrown into an invisible prison of debt for years can truly kill your spirit.
But I was able to build myself up and overcome this hard lesson in business, and last year I finally finished tying the final loose ends of my financial debt and was able to start again from zero. I still have that extreme drive to succeed, but I must admit that after you get the wind knocked out of you that badly, you don’t run quite as fast toward the next fight. But slowly and surely, I am getting back to my good old obsessed self.
Even though I haven’t really gotten back into real estate, I did start an internet company 2 years ago, and it has been growing steadily and becoming more profitable by the day. The good thing is that a lot of what I learned in real estate can be transferred over to my new company, giving me a unique perspective that most of the competitors do not have. I am starting to feel that burning drive again, and I know it will not be long until I return to buying rental properties.
When starting out in business, I knew that it wouldn’t be easy, and most business people I know today have had their share of rough times. The truth is that the people who always continue working toward their goals, no matter how often they get knocked down, are the ones who become successful in the end.
Frumkvöðull í meira en 20 ár. Stofnandi 7 fyrirtækja og Frumkvöðlar-samfélagsins. Skrifar um ferðalagið — gott og illt.
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