For my fellow newbies

I just got finished reading a chapter from a book called "The Gifts of Imperfection". The chapter was about courage and vulnerability. This business takes alot of courage when you're starting out. I think what happens to alot of us, or at least in my case, we do as much learning as possible because we think having complete knowledge of everything will give us the courage to eventually take action.

But then we reach a point when we realize we've been educating ourselves for days, weeks, even months and still don't have the courage to do the things that really make us nervous. For me, it's picking up the phone and calling people, for others it's meeting face to face, for others it's having confidence in your calculations to make an offer.

Whatever it is that holds us back from moving forward does so by creating great anxiety within us, and anxiety can be crippling. The book calls this "sacrificing authenticity to chase perfection". I take that as meaning we are trying so hard to be perfect that we fail to be ourselves. We're afraid to be ourselves so we try to pretend to be who we think they want us to be. The key words here being "we think".

Maybe we're afraid of making a mistake and being judged, or not being taken seriously because we don't know everything. We try to call ourselves real estate investors but it feels like a lie because we haven't done a deal yet. Hence the inauthenticity that causes anxiety.

The truth is there's no reason to be anything other than who you are. You may not know everything and no one expects you to. You already have an "unfair advantage" over everyone else out there because of Dean's education and this site. If you have a question, post it in a forum, it will get answered. But most importantly, just be you. When you pretend to be something you're not, it takes the joy out of what you're doing and people can sense it. Just be yourself, as you are, and people will sense your authenticity and appreciate it. You'll even make them feel more comfortable and they'll respond positively.

Don't worry about being judged. If someone judges you it's not a determination of who you are, it's a determination of who they are. We're only truly happy when we are being ourselves.