Hyperinflation and Happiness

Speaker 1: [0:02] Welcome to the collecting keys real estate investing podcast with your host, Mike DeHaan and Dan Austin. From wins, losses, horror stories, and tactics for optimizing your business, Mike and Dan take a real uncensored deep dive into the ins and outs of running a full time real estate investment and wholesaling business.

Mike DeHaan: [0:25] What is going on, guys? On this episode of the collecting keys Friday focus, I am speaking to you today from Zimbabwe. I have been traveling around Africa for most of September. I'll be back in early October. But I wanted to do an episode while I was abroad because I feel like I always get a unique perspective kind of just on life and just everything in general, you know, once you get really out of your comfort zone, especially because me and my wife, we tend to like to travel to places that are, you know, different cultures, different kinds of people, different economic situations, because it just gives you a different view. You know, those of us that live in The United States, our main view is mostly, I guess, controlled by the media, you know, and, like, sort of what they choose to present and, you know, the stuff that we are given via movies and TVs and the news and, you know, all that sort of stuff, which isn't usually an accurate representation of how the world actually is, especially when it comes to a lot of these countries that, you know, The US kinda has no real interest in such as Central Africa. So, yeah, I've been traveling around and, you know, Zimbabwe is somewhere that is relatively famous. You know, it has Victoria Falls, it has safaris, things like that. But the reason it's really famous is because of the hyperinflation situation that occurred here not too long ago where, you know, the government started printing a bunch of money and, basically, the value of their currency went to zero. You know?

Mike DeHaan: [1:50] And now you can actually go around and you can buy here, like, trillion dollars, Zimbabwean dollars, and they're not worth anything. Like, they're literally just pieces of paper. And so what the country's done now is they actually used USD. And, ultimately, when that situation occurred, you know, it completely crashed the economy. It ruined the savings and financial futures of their entire population. And it's something that, you know, it's relatively recent. And going around, it's something that's that's very prevalent in people's memories here. You know, a lot of people, they still talk about it and all sorts of stuff, obviously, because it was a very big incident. One of the things that always stands out to me when I travel to places like this where, you know, people have a simpler sort of view on life in general, you know, they don't have as many opportunities as we have, and then something really traumatic like that happens. All the locals that we've met here throughout the various things, you know, not even just at the tourist activities that we've done, but even just the random people on the road or on the bus that we've been chatting with, they're always just sort of give off this aura of true happiness and just gratitude for being alive, even being able to, you know, meet with us and and do anything with us.

Mike DeHaan: [2:59] My wife and I, we were at an event the other day, and there was just a bunch of local guys there, And they were just laughing so hard. And we realized that that's kind of something that seems to be the normal here is people here are always laughing, and they're always just having a good time despite the fact that, you know, they will never have the opportunities that we have in The United States, you know, or any of the Western countries. While so many of us are worried about having FOMO and fear of missing out and fear of having a nice car and all these sort of things, a lot of these people couldn't even begin to dream to have opportunities like that in general just because their financial situation and their very limited skill set makes that not even really possible. You know, in their wildest dreams, they could never do that. It would take literally generations and generations of change and, you know, just people grinding for that to really be a thing that they could potentially do. You know? And so as I'm going through, it always just really makes me feel full of gratitude for what we do have. But at the same time, you know, it always is kind of eye opening to me that I realized how disillusioned most people really are about what it takes to be truly happy in their life. And so as you're going forward with, you know, your business, you're investing everything that you're doing, make sure you take a step back and realize that, you know, it doesn't always have to be about getting, like, the next best thing or growing or hitting the ground. Like, that won't necessarily bring you happiness.

Mike DeHaan: [4:24] There's literally hundreds of millions of people throughout the world, more than that. Billions of people throughout the world that don't have nearly as much as you have right now, don't have nearly as much opportunity, and many of them are still finding happiness just the same. And there's no reason you can't do that as well. So, ultimately, as you're going through, you know, just think about what it is you really want, and don't be afraid to look at the little things. Appreciate what you have, and make your goal to be to find that happiness and whatever that is more so than trying to chase material things or trying to hit the next big milestone. Because ultimately, if you're not happy right now, unfortunately, you're not gonna be happy then either. So anyways, guys, thanks for listening. Short one today. And if you wanna follow me on Instagram, go and check me out at Mike underscore invests. If you want to learn how to invest from Dan and myself and how we started our business, go and check out instant investor program dot com. Besides that, guys, please subscribe to this podcast and share it with anyone who might find it interesting. We always appreciate any sort of good reviews and notes that we can get out there. So lose five star review. Go ahead and share it. Thanks so much, guys.

Mike DeHaan: [5:28] Talk to you next week.

Speaker 1: [5:30] Thanks for listening. Please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, and check us out at collectingkeyspodcast.com for tips and guides on starting your own real estate investment and wholesaling business.