Never tell a young person that anything cannot be done. God may have been waiting centuries for someone ignorant enough of the impossible to do that very thing. (John Andrew Holmes)
At times I really feel like I’m one of those ignorant young people. My personality is one that is sweet and charming but there is a part of me, which is often blamed on my Samoan side, lol, that is very direct and staunch. I can be told ‘No’ but it only leads me on a journey to discover a new way to get what I want done. For example, last year my husband and I were finally in a position to take our first step as property investors. 2 years previously we had shifted our family from Auckland to Invercargill, purchasing a property at a price of $74,000. Life in Auckland at that stage was one of no time together as work ran our lives. My husband was on call all day every day and we often missed holidays together due to the nature of his job. Traffic kept us apart longer than neccessary and money kept getting more and more scarse as weeks progressed. It wasn’t at all what we had invisioned for our family. So off we went to Invercargill.
I want to share a story of what happened last year which proves just how much the word ‘No’ can, or should I say can’t, stand in my way.
We were finally ready to make our first move, our Invercargill home had now doubled in value thanks to great capital gains from a property boom in the market. Since relocating we had added another child to the family and taken up a few hobbies that required extra room. Needless to say our old villa was no longer suitable for our evergrowing, active family. We figured our next move was to have that house become our first rental and we would purchase a more suitable house for ourselves for the next wee while. This has meant a lot of paperwork and such for us to get it all working properly but the effort will be worth it in the long run. So heres where the real story begins:
Our car broke down. No real surprise there but it wasn’t what we needed (is it ever?) It went to the garage for a few days, came back and broke down…again… but worse. It came time for us to go over figures to figure out what we would do. In a time that should have broken our backs financially it opened our eyes to a great opportunity. We are budget freaks so we always review and manage to find more money every few months. This time however, we managed to find a way to get the car fixed and purchase that new house we had been talking about since we relocated. It was time!
We called Mike Pero mortgages and we spoke to the mortgage broker. He said sure, we’ll find you something. He came back (eventually) and gave us the price of $170k. Whaaat! We thought to ourselves, you’ve got to be kidding me. If we sold our original house there would be plenty of money to get a really nice house in Invercargill but that wasn’t one of the options we were open to, so hubby and I went back to our budget and reviewed it again. Our figures told us we could afford another mortgage of $230k. A far cry from $170k.
My husband was pretty upset and felt like throwing in the towel when we were told this minimal price but I get these overwhelming feelings where I believe things will work because they make so much sense to me so we talked together and we called another broker. We told the new broker our figures, how we got to them and he sat back and smiled. He was a bit weary and couldn’t confirm anything but thought we had a brilliant way of working figures and wanted to give it a shot. We had a week of waiting for an answer but step by step, passing through the different authorities we were finally told that yes, they would give us the money. Yay!
When the broker came back to tell us the good news it didn’t stop there. He once again sat back and smiled and told us that because of the way we had worked our figures to come up with our budget, that the bank was so impressed by all of our ideas (including the brokers persistance in this) that the bank had taken the ideas and put them into a new scheme to be used nationwide to help people into their first homes and that in the one week we had been waiting, as the word had spread, the scheme had been used to help 3 more families into their first homes! I can’t even begin to imagine what the number is at now!
So as you can see, No doesn’t always cut it with me. Just because one person may not be willing to take upon my ideas, it doesn’t mean everyone feels the same. I think it also relates really well to my art. My style may not be suited to all out there, but for myself and others it speaks clearly. At times it gets hard to keep my head up but ultimately, remembering this brings so much motivation and support. On a side note, we bought a new car. CASH!
Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal. Thomas Jefferson
So 3 days until I’m on a plane to Auckland to see family and friends and experience (somewhat) what it’s like to be single again. I’m actually really excited at the moment. I’ve just begun working on a piece to give my friend as a wedding present.
Yesterday I met a lovely local lady interested in some gorgeous polynesian art for a new home she is building. She was great, she comes from a diverse family like myself. She purchased one of my latest ‘Polynesian Blood’ pieces. I will post up a photo before I drop it around to her. I’m looking foward to coming up with some new polynesian inspired pieces for her.
