Shaking In Your Boots To Suicidal Missions – Deadly Mistakes In Real Estate Investing, Part 1
By: Matthew Trainer
Take a moment to answer the following questions:
Are you waiting to invest? Are you scared of something? Are you paralyzed by fear?
The main reason many people never become real estate investors is fear. Fear takes many forms but the three most common forms are the fear of failure, fear of success, and fear of the unknown.
Fear of Failure
When I first thought of investing, my grandmother asked me how I would feel if I lit a $100 bill on fire. She said that anyone that invests has to be able to feel nothing when money is lost. (My grandmother, bless her heart, never made more than $30,000 a year and never bought more than her permanent residence.) As a matter of fact, most of the people that I shared my dream with warned me about real estate investing.
Of course none of them had done it themselves, and all of them were willing to share their horror stories of a “friend” who tried to invest in real estate. They filled my head with “what ifs”.
What if you cannot resell it after you buy it? What if you cannot do the repairs? What if someone gets hurt on your property and you get sued? What if you cannot make the mortgage payment?
Fortunately, I don’t listen very well. I tend to be on the opposite end of the “mistake spectrum” which I will discuss in a future part of this series.
The quickest way to overcome fear of failure is to fail! After that you realize it’s not such a big deal. It may sting. It may even hurt. But I GUARANTEE you one thing. You will learn. You will overcome it and you know what, you just may succeed!
Fear of Success
It sounds silly but the fear of success is a very common fear. Many people have this fear and don’t even realize it. There are many reasons and almost all of them deal with the past. The fear of success haunts many people because they feel undeserving of the success.
If you suffer from the fear of success, it’s time to face whatever problem you had in your past, understand what it is, and why it happened. Come to terms with it so it doesn’t continue to affect your future.
Forgive me; this will start to sound a little “preachy”.
Each and every one of us has had struggles in our past. What we have to realize is that the past is the past. It’s extremely counter-productive to continue to re-live something you can’t change anyway. To allow the past to continue to haunt your future is like suffering a slow death. The most powerful thing you can do for yourself is forgive.
Whether it is yourself or someone else, all of your power is in your ability to forgive. Forgive and move on. Forgive today and enjoy your success tomorrow.
I had to do this very thing. I had to forgive myself first of all and then I had to forgive others that had caused me pain. Once I did that, a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders and success came much easier. It’s worth it, believe me!
Fear of the Unknown
This is by far, THE most common fear. Everyone everywhere has this fear at some level. If someone tells you they are not afraid of the unknown they are probably either crazy or lying.
Who wants to go into a dark alley late at night? Who wants to go to a party where you don’t know anyone? Who is not nervous about buying their first investment property? Whenever the outcome is uncertain, fear rears its ugly head. The great thing is that it’s the easiest fear to overcome
In real estate investing and in much of life, the way to conquer fear is through knowledge. The way to get knowledge is to read books, listen to tapes and network with people who are already doing what you want to do. Prepare yourself for battle and you will be victorious.
In all fears there is some lack of knowledge that is causing the fear. In fear of failure it’s the lack of expertise in solving problems when they arise. In fear of success it’s the lack of understanding that the past doesn’t really affect you now. In fear of the unknown it’s a very clear case of lack of knowledge.
Think of it this way. When you started your very first job when you were a young kid you didn’t know what to do and I’m sure that first day caused some level of fear. But after a few weeks or months you got the hang of it and the fears went away. Real estate investing is no different and education is the key.
These fears cause many would-be investors to have stuttering starts if a start at all. Of the few that do start and move forward through their fears often have regrets that they didn’t start earlier. The reason that they consider their delay a mistake is universal. If they had started earlier they realize that they would be much wealthier today.
They realized that after they took action, their fears melted away. They found out what they needed to learn to successfully invest and became wealthy as a result. If they had started earlier, their lives would have been easier faster.
This leads me to one of my favorite quotes. It’s by Thomas Edison. He failed in over 10,000 attempts to make the first light bulb. When asked how he felt about all the failures he said, “Those were successes not failures. We found 10,000 excellent ways to not make a light bulb.” He saw failure as one step closer to success.
Step outside your comfort zone and fail fast!
Have a great day! 
Matt
Part 2 of this series deals with the mistake of not having a plan.