The ‘Olympian values’ that will lead to property investment success

According to Mr Abood, the mental resilience that he has honed throughout his sports career has prepared him for a long-term commitment to property investment. His main inspiration to keep going: A clear end goal in mind.

Mr Abood highlighted: “One of the biggest things I took out of the sport was probably the mental aspect—using dedication, diligence, goal setting.”

“I am anchored by the end game in my mind. It’s always the long game and I think that's the right way to approach property investment.

“But that's something that is hard, so I have to keep on top of my patience,” he added.

Self-evaluation

Back when he was actively competing as a swimmer, Mr Abood knew he wanted to represent his country in the Olympics someday.

Having this specific goal set in his mind made it easier for him to craft strategies that will eventually lead him to achieve it. It also has given him the flexibility he needed, such as taking risks, because he knew exactly where he wanted to end up.

According to him: “I reset the goal posts and then worked towards that. I made some changes along the way.”

The athlete-turned-investor believes that these same values that were able to help him succeed in swimming will also help him succeed in property investment.

Mr Abood said: “I think if you don't succeed the first time, it's about evaluating honestly where you're at and what may or may not have gone wrong.”

“Sometimes, it's purely things out of your control and you might be on the right path, you just got to have a break, refocus, maybe make some small tweaks to freshen up your mind or your approach—reset and get at it,” he added.

Continuous learning

His self-awareness has also instilled in Mr Abood the importance of education.

While he understood enough about property investment to be able to buy his first asset, according to him, there will always be more to learn.

According to him: “You can never learn everything and that's why I'm always really keen to meet people like yourself and others that've been in the industry longer and sort of walked that path. Learn what they're doing, why, how.”

Whether it be through resources like books, websites and magazines or through mentorship from experts and professionals, he encouraged his fellow investors to always strive on gaining more knowledge as they go on their journey.

“If you can see how others have done it before you and see how they're going about it, you can learn a lot. And you can even benchmark yourself against those people to strive to get to where they are,” the budding investor highlighted.

Passion

Finally, Mr Abood emphasised the importance of loving what you do.

If you have a passion for whichever venture you choose to get yourself in, then it won’t be too hard to work at becoming your best self. In order to keep the passion alive, the investor encouraged everyone to surround themselves with people who carry the same passion.

He said: “Lean on to people to help you go through this and make it happen. Even the best-performing people doing anything, whether its swimming or sport or business or whatever, they've surrounded themselves with quality people.”

“Build your own A-team to get you where you need to go,” Mr Abood highlighted.

Tune in to Matt Abood’s episode on The Smart Property Investment Show to know more about how he intends to succeed in property investment the same way he triumphed in sports.