Anyone who knows me knows I love to read. I'm always looking for ways to educate myself on my interests, but I also enjoy a page-turning novel as well!

I wanted to put together a list of resources for you, books that I can honestly say have impacted me both personally and professionally. As you can tell, not all of these are real estate books, but they are all related to the success mindset! I strongly believe that in order to succeed, you have to surround yourself with the right people, the right resources, and the right attitude and these books are a great place to get started! If you're wanting to become a more successful investor and entrepreneur, I hope you check these titles out - each book image is linked to Amazon for easy shopping!

When you think of an investment opportunity, what comes to mind? If we’re thinking generally, we likely have images of handing over a few thousand dollars to a broker, taking on a healthy dose of risk, and hoping that our investment pays out in the end.

In traditional investments like stocks and buying shares in a company, it always feels like something of a gamble. An investor doesn’t have all that much control over what happens—all they can do is hope for the best!

What makes a company good? We have many different metrics that define our standards of service. When we work with a company, whether in a short-term engagement (like purchasing a product or dealing with their customer service representatives) or in the long-term (like buying a subscription service or partnering in a long-term arrangement), there are certain expectations that we have. Certain ways we desire to be treated.

New to passive real estate investment? You’ve probably realized that it’s quite a bit different from other forms of investing. You’re not expected to be an expert. You’re not making this your full-time or even a part-time job. As a real estate investor, you likely just want real estate investment to be an avenue to earn passive income to help secure a solid financial future.

As real estate investors, we are bombarded with a metric ton of information each and every day. The amount of information out there to consume and digest is overwhelming at times.

That makes it difficult to discern what's truly at the heart of it all. What actually makes an impact on your investing career? What really makes a tangible impact on your success?

Businesses are often compared to machines. It’s a tired metaphor, but it doesn’t make it less apt. Machines rely on many moving parts to function, and it is true of investing in real estate, too.

Unlike businesses, these parts don’t come in the form of jobs to be filled, departments, or complex infrastructure. Most of the time, the “parts” that a real estate investor’s business needs to function rest solely in his or her hands.

Even passive real estate investors are responsible for the moving parts of their investment portfolio.  Memphis Invest learned long ago that addressing those moving parts with investors honestly, from the beginning and including a willingness to tell some investors that they simply were not ready to move forward, was the only way to build a Turnkey company.  Why?  No matter how passive an investment is or an investor wants to be, the investment success or failure rests solely in their hands.

That’s a lot of pressure!

We’re surrounded by busy people. You’re likely one of them! We always have a million and one things to do and it doesn’t seem like we can squeeze in one more thing. No matter how hard we try, it’s always a challenge to fit in those trips to the grocery store and that time to visit relatives and spending quality time with the kids.

In a world that never stops, how do you find time for something like real estate investment?

Every real estate investor has different goals and a different journey. No one’s really to say what is and isn’t the right or wrong way to do it, unless legalities are in question, or if something can be done more effectively to maximize cash flow.

That said, there are some distinct advantages when it comes to investing in real estate passively. Here’s the thing: investing in real estate only becomes a full-time job when you make it one.

Certain ways of investment might demand more of your time, but you can find great success in this business without dedicating all of your time to it.

We’d even argue that passive real estate investment is the best way to go! You earn money to fuel your financial goals without doing any of the heavy lifting. With the help of a turnkey investment company and a trusted property management team, you can find success in passive real estate investment.

When investing in real estate, all of us want to get better at it. Grow. Start earning more passive income than we were before. For those of us involved in passive real estate investment, feeling progress is a little more difficult. We’re not in the trenches and involved in the day-to-day nitty-gritty that really feels like things are constantly moving.

For the passive investor, it can be all-too easy to allow your investments to get ho-hum, even stagnant.

Here’s the thing, though: there’s plenty of room for passive real estate investors to accelerate and multiply their successes!

You may not be constantly flipping properties for profit or caught up in the buying and selling game, but a lack of a fast pace doesn’t mean you’re not capable of leveling up.

Here are five ways you can move your portfolio forward to start increasing your margins to meet your financial goals.

You started off investing in real estate hoping to earn passive income. Your idea was to buy a property, rent it out, and generate positive cash flow that would help you gain financial freedom, save up for retirement, or have the disposable income you’ve always wanted.

Somewhere along the line, though, something got out of sync. You found yourself doing more and more work. Suddenly, investing in real estate wasn’t so much passive as it was a full time job. You probably went into this knowing there would be some work involved, but didn’t expect it take over your life!

Some investors enjoy investing full time. They want it to be their life and a full-time job. But many don’t. They prefer to keep their investments passive and in the background—and when they’re not, it’s a big red flag. Something has to change.