How Much Pure B.S. Can You Handle? Or Want to Handle?

These last few months have been eventful. We grew our Inner Circle Membership to a little over 1,000 members, and in February we had our largest Your Life. Your Terms. Event ever. There were over 900 people in the room!

Perhaps because of these two things, we've been receiving slightly more comments than normal about how great things are going for us.

People congratulating us on the business, on the amazing people that happen to be members we get to work with, the great team, the content we deliver etc., etc.

It's great. Enough to make you feel special.

Who doesn't want to hear compliments right?

And many people think things are all roses over here.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

If you decide you want to go out on your own you should know, right now... Very clearly... That there is a ton of crap, pure unfiltered B.S., that you're going to have to deal with.

E-V-E-R-Y  S-I-N-G-L-E   D-A-Y

And if you're not prepared for that then don't leave Start, stop now, save yourself!!

Here's just a sampling of the things we deal with over here regularly...

• Mortgages blowing up right before closing, leaving first time investors shell shocked... Lawsuits threatened.
• Various random people who we don't know thinking we're trying to rip them off at all times, and if we accidentally make a mistake, use it as proof of this... And bring it to our attention, repeatedly and forcefully. We used to let this freak us out for days and then cry in frustration... Today we laugh at these and then cry in frustration... Not sure which is worse.  LOL!
• Lawyers (not our current ones) promising to meet our investors at certain times and then just not showing up at all.
• One of the professionals we refer people to accidentally messing up and we get angry calls to accept the blame and be responsible for the solution (which we end up doing even if it costs us time and money).
• Guest speakers at our own events pulling off a "no show," leaving us with a huge gap in the event that we have to scramble to fill... With literally zero notice. One time, Nick had to fill in as the guest speaker for an event with no preparation.
• Other past guest speakers being insulted when they are not invited back.
• Our own old office landlord not paying his own bills and having chains around the door to the Rock Star offices... With no notice and not our fault! We paid our rent to him... He just decided not to pass it on to the main landlord.
• Moving the entire office into Public Storage for a month and operating with a phone line and a fax line in one rented room.
• An attendee at one of our events expressing disappointment to someone on our team in how poorly we run an event... Getting compliments on how great our events are by someone else at the exact same time.
• Other real estate professionals literally screaming at us over the phone for one of a million ridiculous reasons.
• One of the owners of the first brokerage we were in telling everyone who would listen that we would fail. Told one of our first team members to save themselves and not to work with us.
• One of the owners of another brokerage we were in trying to steal our content, then telling people not to work with us.  LOL!  OMG, crazy flashbacks going on as we type this!
• All sorts of people thinking and acting for "short term" gain instead of "long term relationships."
• Banks depositing cheques in wrong accounts leaving balances all messed up for weeks.
• Marketing that stops working, websites that go down for no reasons, stamping machines that smudge stamps but charge you anyway, classes cancelled with short notice, cheques mailed to the wrong address, air conditioning breaking right before a summer class, parking issues at events, sound problems at events, video content that doesn't live up to expectations, advertisements that fail badly, deadlines missed, people convinced you hate them when you're really trying your best, having your agreements stolen, content copied, phone lines going down unexpectedly, internet issues, hall's charging $400 for 3 hours of wifi usage, food poisoning at a large member dinner, being overcharged for that same dinner, printer's breaking at the worst times, fax lines going down for days, super long hold times with our paging services, signs stolen, lock boxes not working, people feeling insulted when you thought you were treating them extra nice, etc. etc. etc.

We could go on and on.

If you read all of that mess did you notice how little of it actually involves the process of helping a new investor buy a property and rent it out?

That's what our business is all about.

And that process is actually the EASY part.

No one told us that when we started.

The actual real estate business itself is not very complicated at all. It's dealing with all that other, never ending, continuous noise that is completely insane.

And please don't think we're complaining about any of this.

We're not.

All of this stuff is completely normal. It's par for the course.

The reason we're sharing some of these ridiculous items is that so you know it's normal.

If you're about to go out on your own and you're struggling with the most ridiculous problem that throws your whole day off and wastes hours and hours and hours of your time, then know this... You're not alone!!

We're all doing the same.

If you've already started your business, you're trying to grow it, and you're facing the most insane issues... Know that you're not alone.

We're all fighting the same daily battles.

If some days you want to close up shop and run away... Know that it's normal!

Dealing with all of this B.S. is what it takes to get things done.

Don't let any of it break you.

Keep going, keep pushing forward.

As long as you continue to do the right thing and give 100%, you will persevere.

Building your real estate portfolio or building your own small business is chalk full of dealing with crap, it's 100% normal.

There are some things in business you can put in place to ensure your success... Namely marketing and operational systems... Keep focusing on building those.

Accept the problems as they come, find a fix and move on.

Some days, we just ignore all the problems until we get the important stuff done. People will be freaking out all around us and we're just ignoring it all.

We know that some of it will just take care of itself and the other stuff can wait an hour or two. Not everyone likes this approach, but it's the only way to get things done.

Otherwise, you spend all your time fire fighting instead of building your life, your portfolio, and/or your business.

Your ability to deal with crap is directly related to how large of a real estate portfolio you can build.

Or how large of a business you can build.

Or how large of a life you can build.

Crap is normal, try to enjoy it.  LOL.

We'll never forget the advice of one Russian billionaire we heard interviewed on 60 Minutes.

He said that he felt his ability to deal with stress was his "competitive advantage."

That comment was hugely insightful on may levels. Keep it in mind next time you're stressing out.

There are routines and practices you can do to lower the stress levels but that's a talk for another day.

Until next time .... Your Life! Your Terms!

(img: bernard goldbach)