If You’re Not Throwing Interceptions Once in a While, You’re Not in the Game
Wow! What an amazing football season we’ve had both on the college level and the pros. I am not a fanatic football fan who has six HDTV’s sitting in my “man room” along with the NFL package or 400 satellite channels and multiple picture in picture with TIVO running 24/7. Saturday or Sunday afternoon when it’s cold outside and I’ve done my “chores”, I will reward myself with watching the game, eat waaaay too much cholesterol laden food and have an adult beverage or 2 (I prefer bottles to cans).
The college bowl games were good and this season’s pro playoffs have been real good. At least I think they’ve been good. A lot of number 6 seed and wildcard teams thumping the number 1 guys. My home team didn’t even sniff the playoffs with a stellar record of 2 and 14. Suffice it to say, I don’t have a dog in this fight. We do get the overall #3 pick in the draft. (small consolation)
Anyway. As I watched the various games and saw the premiere quarterbacks in the college ranks and the pros throw interceptions, I would hear the commentator say “I’m sure he wishes he had that one back”. To which you have to say “Duh”! The best way to never throw an interception is to never throw the ball. Wayne Gretsky, the famous hockey player (I thought we were talking football?) said: ” You miss every shot you don’t take”. The same is true with football. You must take action. Study the defense, practice regularly, prepare a game plan and then execute that plan. Sometimes it just doesn’t work the way you planned.
Isn’t this blog supposed to be about real estate investing? Yes. You can have a game plan, you can study the trends, you can see the deal come together in your head. But if you never talk to anyone or make an offer you’ll never know if it really works. Yes you run the risk of throwing an interception. Buying a house you thought was a slam dunk deal (how many different sport metaphors is he going to use?) and somehow the deal turns to crap. The market shifted, the end buyer you had lined up seems to have gone into the witness protection program, you found more problems with the house than you originally thought. You wish you could have that throw back. The point is: even the premiere quarterbacks throw interceptions: even the premiere real estate investors buy one wrong from time to time. No one is a hundred percent. If they tell you they are 100%, they are either lying or they’ve never done a deal.
Do your due diligence. Get some training or mentorship. Plug into real estate groups like MOKAN REIN (Missouri Kansas Real Estate Investors, see www.MOKANREIN.com). Check out the training material at Real Investment Mentorship & Coaching. This is a great place to get started on your trek to real estate investing and financial freedom. Remember: get trained, plug into a team, throw the ball often. When you do throw that “interception”, learn from it. Think of it as a right of passage. Don’t dwell on it. Make up for it on the next deal. Deals are everywhere, you just have to study, prepare and fling it towards the endzone somtimes.
As always, let me know what you think.
