Courthouse Update

So I pulled myself out of bed early today and headed to the distant county to pick up some leads. I found a closer parking garage, but it turned out to be for a hospital next door, so the price ended up being higher than the $12 normal. I did manage to snag about 10 leads or so for the zip code my investor wanted me to look in. The housing may be below his normal price range, so we'll see how he responds. The other issue is that I couldn't find the court dates, only the dates the information was filed, so I don't know how happy he'll be about that.

I've been really frustrated recently. I feel like I've put a lot of time and effort into learning about business, stocks, real estate and various other fields. But then when I actually try to put my knowledge into practice I get nowhere. I can't tell if I'm just young and ignorant, if I'm not trying hard enough, if I'm working in the wrong direction or whatever else could be the problem.

I'd like to find a mentor of some kind to steer me in the right direction. I don't know anyone who is successful in all of those fields though, so it seems the only compass point I have is the information I read. The problem though, is that most of the stuff seems theoretical or introductory, so it doesn't help me to determine what I'm doing wrong in my specific situation, only more of an overall outlook or philosophy. I guess that's where the lack of experience comes in, I make mistakes because I don't know and haven't done things before, so I have no way of telling if what I'm doing is correct or not.

After reading Made to Stick, I feel like I run into a lot of situations where I want to get information or learn from someone, but the "curse of knowledge" stands in the way. They know what they're talking about but can't articulate it to me in ways that I can understand. So it seems all I can keep doing is plugging along.

The other thing I've been thinking about is at what point do I reach that big goal. It's like people say about making the first million is the hardest and once you've reached that point it's all downhill. I don't know if it's still the first million now or not, but if I just go by salary it's going to be a long way off before I reach that point. I'm hoping that all my efforts to move my money into less taxable but still profit making vehicles will start to pay large dividends in the future.

I guess I just put too many expectations on myself. A lot of people my age have much less than I do and very little goals or direction. I've only been working for almost two years and I basically started with zero. Most people my age probably have student loans and car payments that eat away at their earning potential, so I should be gratefully that I'm already in the position I'm in, instead of impatient at not being farther.

Regardless, I hope everyone has a good weekend as we slide into the final month of 2007.