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About This Episode
Episode #317b – Discover how small steps, the right mindset, and managing fear can transform you into a confident investor. Get inspired to take that leap towards financial freedom.
Episode Transcript
[00:00:07.560]
Welcome to the podcast, Real Estate Investing with Coach Carson. I’m your host, Chad Carson. You can also call me Coach, and this is a show to help you get out of the financial grind so you can do more of what matters. One of the most common problems I run into when I’m teaching or coaching other real estate investors is they get stuck. It’s this phase of overwhelm or analysis paralysis where you just get frustrated and you don’t know how to make the next step. Well, in this episode, I’m teaming up with Michael Zuber. This was originally on his show, One rental at a time, and he let me republish it here, where we share our experience over the last 21 years in my case. I’ve also been teaching and coaching other investors for the last 13 years on how to get unstuck, how to move forward, how to figure out a practical way to take those next steps. That’s what we’re going to cover. Hope it’s helpful for you if you find yourself in that situation. Really quickly before we get started, if you get any value out of the show, I have a quick request.
[00:00:57.940]
It’ll just take a few seconds, but it would mean the world to me. One of the main ways we get new people to listen to the show is when they read a review. My request is if you could leave a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify, letting people know why you like the show, why they should listen, it would be extremely helpful to me. It would help us spread the word to new people, and I would really appreciate it. Now, let’s get started with the interview.
[00:01:19.220]
There are lots of folks that just don’t get started, and I want to know what Chad thinks. Buddy, how are you doing?
[00:01:24.740]
Doing very well, Michael. Thanks for having me again.
[00:01:27.380]
Absolutely. I love having you. I love having these conversations. You’ve been doing this a long time helping thousands and thousands of people. I got to ask, why do you think it is people just don’t get started?
[00:01:38.470]
Yeah. The first word that came to me was fear. Although I think everything you just mentioned, I’m thinking of individuals who had some quality. But I think we could peel the layers back a little bit. Ultimately, fear is a big one. I mean, we’re all human beings. We’re all animals who have these emotions. And when it comes down to it, real estate investing is a decision that has bigger stakes than seemingly some of the other investments you can make. Like you can go buy a stock, put a hundred bucks in just to dip your toe in the water, buy a hundred bucks of S&P 500 and oh, okay, let’s see how this works. You can understand how the under the hood how it works. Real estate is a little different. I mean, it’s like you’re taking this leap over this chasm, it feels like at least, and you’re all in the down payment, the debt, the consequences of buying in a certain location. So I just think that magnitude, that feeling of magnitude of buying real estate is just a little different than even maybe starting a business. I know when I’ve started businesses, I’ve found ways to get in with not a lot of risk.
[00:02:42.530]
Let’s just test this out. Let’s sell it to one customer. Let’s figure it out. I don’t know. I think to me, that’s the top layer. It’s just that real estate is a little bit different animal. It has pluses and minuses to that, but you can’t halfway do it. You’ve got to really take that step, otherwise you’re not in.
[00:03:01.620]
Yeah. Let’s peel that back because again, when I look out there, the world that we try to help motivate, encourage, sometimes we have to realize where the message is not being received. If we put it out there as a teacher or a coach, but it’s not being received correctly, that’s on us. Our message just needs to be different. I think there’s a lot of people out there that will just use the word fear because it’s one of those four-letter words. I think something that we as advisors, coaches, mentors, whatever you want to call us, could do is address that head-on. When I think about the fear, again, trying to break down the layers, there’s the fear… There’s people today that were directly or indirectly hurt by the Great Recession. Maybe they didn’t lose their property, but their parents did, or their aunts or uncles, and they’ve heard the horror stories. All they know is that so and so bought something, lost something. It was a horrible outcome. That’s real, right? That’s a real thing that we need to acknowledge.
[00:04:12.300]
Yeah, absolutely. Your personal experiences and sometimes the second hand experiences are even worse because you don’t know all the details and what went into that. Because when you make your own decisions, you’re going to get to choose the location. All the stuff you teach and I teach as well, you’re going to choose every part of your process where you invest, the type of investing, the type of financing you get, the type of property you buy, how much down payment you make. Those are all decisions that we know that affects the success of your decision. But if we’re a kid or if we’re a second-hand family member watching our uncle or mom or dad or brother lose a property. That is real. That makes an impression on you.
[00:04:51.570]
Yeah, absolutely. Again, there’s a lot of folks that are carrying that baggage. I’ve seen it in relationships where somebody, like maybe the wife wants to do real estate, but the husband doesn’t or vice versa. There’s real history that people need to talk about. Now, what I would advise people, again, in most instances that went through that, and I’ve had hundreds of these conversations, the crux of the matter was the debt was the problem, not the house. It’s the debt that blew up that caused the house and the whole… You go watch the big short and realize it was just an era that likely, hopefully will never be repeated. The other thing around fear is these devices that most of us carry with us, most of us have some, if not many, social media apps on them, it is a reflection of what you believe. There’s a lot of folks, Chad, that have gravitated to doom, crash, bro, economic collapse. The world is out to get you. That they don’t realize that these content creators are simply capitalists that are tapping into the vein of fear because it pays well. Some of these guys who are preaching crash bros are trying to buy a home.
[00:06:14.180]
I mean, how… I mean, how wild is that to think about? They’re just content creators that tapped into a vein that are okay, sell in their soul for a penny a click. It’s crazy. Yeah, agree.
[00:06:26.750]
I think my comment on that, too, and I’ve noticed just from talking to you, it seems like you have a pretty good schedule where you quarantine your life into certain segments. I know I’ve done this, too. This is something I think I tapped into this early on in my career because the internet magnified this, but this has always been a thing, whether you’re watching news or reading newspapers or just gossiping with your friends, there’s always going to be this negative vibe coming. I found that you have to look at yourself as an entrepreneur. And as an entrepreneur, your number one asset is the information, what’s in between your two ears, in your brain, the attitude, the mindset, the thoughts. And you got to look at it like this input device. If you input garbage in, if you input negative vibes in, and particularly what time of day you do that, for me, I have this little one to two hour period in the morning that’s just sacred space. That’s when I’m getting ready. It’s almost like you’re warming up a vehicle. You got to warm your mind up a little bit. I know this has nothing to do with real estate, but to me, it’s like everything to do with it is how you approach your mindset and the schedule you have.
[00:07:29.830]
Do you have habits? I don’t know. You don’t have to exercise, but most people I know are pretty successful do some walking, some exercise. All of that stuff put together matters in your confidence level of making an offer on a property. It really does. Because if you’ve been feeding your brain two hours of nonsense and crash pro stuff for the first two hours of the morning, there is no way you’re going to make a confident offer on a property and use your brain and your creativity. You’ve got to deliberately architect your day and your life in a way that your time, your energy, your focus is in the right spot because this is not just a real estate thing. Every athlete I know, and I played football in college, people are super guarded about what goes in their head and what goes in their schedule, and they don’t tolerate a lot of the nonsense, a lot of the crap that comes into people’s life, into their day. They’re just like, No, I got a lock on my door and that doesn’t come in.
[00:08:26.530]
Yeah, that doesn’t serve me. So I’m just going to leave it there and just move on. Not judge anybody for it, but just not move on because it doesn’t serve me. And the last thing when I think about folks that come into our world that don’t do the work and make forward momentum is just self-doubt. That’s hard for me because I think real estate investing is a skill. Because it’s a skill, Chad, I believe it can be learned by anyone. It’s a skill that everybody could be better at. You and I included, right? We’re still investing, we’re still learning. We’re just a little bit better every day. We just have 10 or 20 years of experience. Those little improvements, they compound to a big number. If I could do one thing for people in our world is I just want to give them belief that it’s possible. Real estate investing is always hard, but it’s always possible. And some people just don’t see it. They think it’s just impossible. Can’t be done today. Sorry, can’t be done today. Oh, it’s not true.
[00:09:42.230]
Yeah, I’ve gotten dozens of that. I’ve been reading my YouTube comments the last couple of days, catching up. It’s like 25 % are can’t be done, can’t be done. There’s two little quick stories. One is about my daughters. I coached their volleyball and youth soccer and volleyball. And it’s amazing to me how we adults are just big kids. I have these little kids who are learning how to serve in volleyball, and they’re awful at first. They can’t even… If the ball falls out of their hand and they’re like, talk about self-doubt. They’re just like, Oh, I can’t do this. And you know what we have to do as coaches? You have to start with little bitty steps. All right, let’s just learn how to hold it in your hand. Let’s just do the first step. We’re not going to try to hit it over the net. We’re just going to hold it in our hand. And then you get to that part and you put another piece together. And it’s the same way the second story is like learning a language. My daughters and my wife and I move to Spain, and it’s overwhelming to talk about self-doubt when you’re trying to go speak to someone who’s a native speaker and you thought you knew Spanish until you go out and try to say something and they’re like.
[00:10:40.530]
And then you don’t know what they’re going to say. So I guess my point here is we have been learning to do these kinds of things our whole life, and all of a sudden we get into real estate because of that magnitude I talked about. I think we freeze. We’re adults. We’re not supposed to be silly little kids who make mistakes and who act like an idiot. When I’m learning language, you have to be willing to make a mistake. And to me, when I’m coaching people, it’s like, all right, let’s break this entire big process down in these little bitty steps. Do the work like you say. Let’s just do the work on a very low risk step. Let’s go to the neighborhood. Let’s call somebody. Let’s talk to a real estate agent. Let’s even make an offer and have a deposit that you might lose a thousand bucks on your deposit. Worst case scenario, if you can break it down into these pieces where it’s not quite a chasm, but it’s these little baby steps just like the little girl learning how to serve, then you can develop confidence and prove to yourself that I can do something bigger now and I’m not so scared of it.
[00:11:37.340]
Yeah, I think that is the key. Because when I think about all the people that come to me with self-doubt, I think you’re right. I think it is that kid, it is learning to serve, it is learning a language. Because most people want to ask them, Hey, did you ever learn to play an instrument? Have you learned a second language, or have you learned a new sport? Most people say yes. I say, Great. How did you do that? Well, I practiced. I did the little things. I knew where to put my hands. I learned the nouns and theverbs and the conjugation or whatever it is for the thing. I’m like, You know what? Real estate investing is the same thing. It’s just a series of little steps that ultimately get you. Don’t just decide to do something and suddenly you’re a landlord. Man, there’s hundreds of steps in order to get you there. I think you break it down pretty well. I think that’s awesome.
[00:12:27.330]
People can do it. This is at Rocket Science. Yes, there’s some things to learn, but I promise you that this is like adding and subtracting. This is like middle school level in terms of just it’s not rocket science. So that’s my message. You’ve all done a lot of hard things than real estate. You can do this.
[00:12:44.140]
That’s right. I agree with that. You’ve done a lot harder things in life than learning how to invest in real estate.
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