Real Estate Investing Guru Goes to Prison
I wasn’t going to post another blog entry today - I really wasn’t. But a bit from the Inman News Blog (a well known online watering hole for the real estate industry) just grabbed me today.
Spotting a brief article posted today outlining the details of real estate guru Wade Cook’s recent federal conviction, I feel compelled to throw a thought or two out for you to chew on here as well - especially after yesterday’s integrity-related mortgage fraud post.
Wade Cook has been in the hot seat a while now for allegedly filing false tax returns and obstructing the investigation, and according to Inman guest blogger Marlow Harris of 360 Digest, apparently was convicted last Thursday on seven counts and sentenced to almost seven and a half years in federal prison. Ouch!
So what happened? What when wrong? Was it a slow spiral down a slippery slope, or was this cab driver turned real estate flipper and seminar teacher a bad seed from the start?
We all love to cast stones, don’t we?
But believe it or not, I’m not here to throw rocks at Wade Cook. I’m not here to tell you what a bad real estate guru he was (I’ve actually got zero personal experience with his teachings at all) or to stand in judgment over him for what he did. I don’t want to minimize the weight of it, mind you. But I also don’t want to try and demonize him.
The fact is, he messed up. He lied about his taxes, then lied again about lying about his taxes. And now he’s got apt consequences to pay.
But another fact to consider is that we don’t know his heart, or what he was or wasn’t thinking.
But for the grace of God…
The fact is, we’re all human. Even the best of us, we’re all susceptible to errors in judgment – sometimes really big ones (just ask my wife). No one is perfect and no one is without blame if you put their life under a microscope.
You may think you’d never be capable of doing things like that. But no one’s perfect - not even you. And when the circumstances before us are attractive enough, even the best of us can be tempted to start fudging on things.
I mean, if you’re really honest with yourself, who among us isn’t guilty of the occasional “little white lie”, right? Some would even say that if a lie is “little” or “white” enough, there’s really nothing wrong with it. The temptation is to think that “no one’s getting hurt” or it’s “not that big of a deal”.
Little white lies? Still lies.
Listen: Integrity is the biggest deal of all. Period.
Your integrity is the most important asset you possess. You may not be able to spend it, but the cost is the greatest to you if you dont have it. Burn that idea in your mind so that it’s bigger than any core value or success principle you’ve ever learned.
Your integrity is more important than money, business success, or anything else worthy of entrepreneurial pursuit. If making any decision means sacrificing your integrity, the consequences before you will far outweigh the immediate benefits of veering from the straight and narrow path. I believe this even applies to little white lies.
The Slippery Slope…
Frankly I think that’s how it starts most of the time – with little white lies. Most folks who go to prison for federal tax evasion, mortgage fraud, or whatever – probably don’t start their day one day thinking, “Hey, I’m gonna go make a killing with some scams today!”
No, it’s one little white lie – one bad decision – one tiny compromise in judgment. And that leads to the next one, which is a little bigger, but also a little easier. After all, no one got hur the last time, right?
So the lesson I hope we take from this is, don’t fudge, even on the “little stuff”. It’s not really little, and the consequences are far bigger than you think.
Being a real estate entrepreneur is a fantastic business, pregnant with opportunity for those who seize it. But please be always vigilant to walk the “straight and narrow” path, even in the small stuff. Because no one’s perfect, but once you start down the slippery slope – well, it’s just dang slippery!
What do you think? Leave a comment below…
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