I'd like to ask you, Jake Harris, what is the biggest risk?
Jake Harris
So, I mean, I'm gonna give you kind of It depends, because depends on who who you are, as an investor, an LP investor investing into a deal. I think your sponsor Are as your biggest risk. And so because they're the ones that's kind of captaining the ship, I think if you're someone that's buying real estate, your biggest risk is the purchase, actually, because and maybe you've heard this or maybe you haven't heard this is you make all your money on the purchase. And if you overpay for an asset, it's very, very difficult to correct course, and trim out the expenses. And then you're kind of, you know, writing this, you know, failed investment out. And sometimes it takes so much more energy to even get out of it, then, you know, and you'd be like, all I'm trying to do is get my money back. And I see a lot of that right now. And alas, and actually, this morning, I was talking with a buddy, I realized I did not buy a single property and 2021. And actually, so far in 2022, I haven't this is the longest period of time that I have gone without buying a property. I think in the last 20 years, I think this might be one of the only years I have not actually bought real estate at all, any property, and over a year time period. And so I was looking back at that. And I was like, Wait, I didn't even realize that happened?
Well, because I have a very disciplined, you know, like buy acquisition model that I'm looking at. Part of it is because I lost my ass in the subprime meltdown, I became a millionaire. And then I had a negative network. I remember sitting on the street corner in Tucson, I was crying. I was like, you know, a grown adult, crying, and sobbing and praying, dear Lord, can I be worth no money. And there are so many aspects of my life that I look back at that moment of that rock bottom. And the least important of it was the losing the money. The least important of it was going from a millionaire to a negative net worth and wanting to start over at zero, I was 7580 pounds overweight, my relationships sucked with my family, the girl I thought I was going to marry it dumped me. You know, there was so many other things. And so lots of people focus on the money risk of things, and they forget about them 80 or 90%, that is the real life. What is your relationships like, you can make more money, you can't rekindle the time of your relationship with your spouse, your kids, they kind of go away that opportunity to live those those, you know, Bucket List adventures, you grind, grind, grind, grind, and all of a sudden you realize you're 60 7080 years old, and you don't have the health to go travel and do those other things. Those are important. And so it depends on the category.
As a human, I think the biggest risks that we're currently facing, is not pursuing the things that excite us that we truly, really want and living a very fulfilled life. And so I'll give you a Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs of premises. When you get and you're trying to figure out how to pay bills, you're just in a survival mechanism, you get to a levels of and I'm assuming that your audience members are starting to elevate up into that, because they're thinking about investing is they've gone beyond some of those levels. And they're starting to get into the self actualization kind of topper end of the pyramid of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And so then they're trying to figure out what they are or who they are, what's their purpose in life. And myself, and this is a constant struggle. And I think everybody has it is like they need to give themselves that validation or approval. Sometimes it might be a millionaire, sometimes it might be making the New York Times bestseller list. But what happens is you stop thinking about what everybody else wants for your life, and you start leaning into the purpose of what you are put on this planet for.
And then, because money doesn't equate to happiness, your success and making money is not what makes you happy, you've elevated up to that. And I think there should be an extra category on Maslow's higher hierarchy of needs, is when you're living your purpose and life in the service of others, is when you unlock true happiness is when you unlock the ability to then really impact the world. Because what you're doing is you're serving people that couldn't give you back and just not about a transactional equation of how do I make more money or know how can I benefit them? And they give me $1 back? How can I do this and you're elevated out of trading time for money into an investment that you have a certain free, you're living your purpose, and you're pouring it into the world in the service of others is when you will unlock true true value and I think that's what we're all really Seeking, we have to get through some of these levels of validation, we have to get through this of self actualization we have to get through this. And again, this is also part of my own journey. So to me, the risk and the biggest risks that we're all facing is not pursuing that. However, that mechanism looks for you.