I am proud to say that I have overcome a major handicap to become a successful entrepreneur. It took me 33 years to figure out how to get past this obstacle… but I did it.

I’m proud of that fact because very few people with this fate in life become successful business people and even fewer become successful investors.

What was this handicap you ask? Well, you see…I was born an A student.

I got good grades in high school and college and graduated at the top of my medical school class. I even got into one of the best neurosurgical training programs in the world. Did you know that more people become professional athletes every year than neurosurgeons?

Yes indeed. I reveled in my academic success. I pumped out scholarly papers and book chapters like there was no tomorrow.

In fact, I remember telling my dad that I was published in a journal called Neurosurgery two months in a row.

You know what he said? “Congratulations. How much do they pay your for that anyway?”

Silly dad, I thought. He just doesn’t get it. He’s too busy being a slum lord to understand my world. What I’m doing is important. It’s meaningful. It’s not just about the money.

I thrived on academic achievement and being recognized as smart and important. It was my currency. And for those who are good at school and who constantly get positive feedback, it’s addictive. The accolades create a feedback loop. With every accomplishment, award, or title there is a dopamine hit that makes it harder and harder to ever get outside of your own world.

That’s why I call being an A student a handicap to becoming an entrepreneur. A students don’t get to experience failure. In fact, they become so accustomed to success in school that they are often unable to function without someone telling them what to do. And the idea of going into free fall as an entrepreneur terrifies them.

Think of the smartest people in high school—did any of them become entrepreneurs? Probably not.

Most entrepreneurs come from the school hard knocks. Life doesn’t hand them an easy out and most of them weren’t particularly good students. They had to wing it and develop the ability to improvise and deal with failure. That quality also happens to be the hallmark of the successful entrepreneur.

That describes my guest on Wealth Formula Podcast today. Kevin Bupp went from a middle class family and little aptitude for school to starting multiple successful businesses including a highly successful venture into the mobile home park world.

Listen to his story on this week’s Wealth Formula Podcast!

Kevin Bupp has been an entrepreneur all his life. He completed a degree in business at a small community college in PA, but eventually decided to focus all of his energy on real estate. This turned out to be a good move, because for more than thirteen years Kevin has been investing and consulting with tremendous results, having personally completed in excess of $40 million in real estate transactions. Currently, Kevin is a candidate for CCIM, the highest commercial real estate designation around.

Shownotes:

[00:07] Intro

[06:21] Buck introduces Kevin Bupp

[07:47] Kevin’s story

[14:59] The magnetic field of real estate

[24:08] Kevin’s mobile home parks

[29:50] Contraction in this business now

[33:04] Sunrise Capital

sunrisecapitalinvestors.com

[35:21] Kevin’s podcast

Real Estate Investing For Cash Flow

The Mobile Home Park Investing Podcast

[37:37] Depreciation of mobile home parks

[40:45] Outro