Episode #23 – Filtering Out the Noise
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Welcome to another episode of EarlToms podcast.
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Today, I want to talk about basically filtering out the distractions, the noise, and how you can stay the course, given everything that that you have to deal with on on on a daily basis. The before I get before I get started though, I want to give you an update to the last two, the last episode, the the guy that was going to sell the house to my buyer wound up selling it to a nother buyer for $8,500 less. So we’re all kind of chuckling at it, because basically, he just cost itself at $8,500 no one really knows why, except a I’ll show you mentality, I guess might be the right way to say it. But you know, that’s an $8,500 lesson that wasn’t necessary. Had he just signed the contract and, and sold it. But you know, that’s one of the things that you deal with in real estate. And that’s noise. That’s, that’s an outside influence that, you know, can put you in a bad mood distract you from what you’re doing in your business. The the ironic part is, is we’re you know, myself in the bar, just sitting there laughing at him. Not positive that that buyer will ever even talk to this person again. So today, it was an $8,500 loss. But how many houses could they have sold because this buyer put just in my city. with about a million people in MSA, this buyer put 35 houses under contract just last week. So how many of those houses Could he have sold to this buyer. So it’s just one of those things where you just have to take take it as it comes. Pride, ignorance, who knows but but this wholesaler, once again, made a made a bad that was gonna be lumpy, that he’s gonna have to sleep in. So it’s one of those things in this business to where you really just have to focus on the bigger picture. And realize that these, these little things that happen along the way, can’t slow you down. It’s it’s a gradual process that if you stay the course, you wind up being successful. But enough of that we covered that last week, I just thought that I would share an update with everyone on that episode. Because I find it funny. You know, I mean, $3,500 might have paid a couple of bills for me. But at the end of the day, I still have a buyer that put 35 houses in my small little market under contract just last week, so I’m good, I’m staying the course, I maintain that relationship, we have a good time we laugh about it. And we move on to the next deal. Which I sent him one yesterday that they’ll wind up buying. So I’ll get my $3,500 back. I guess you could say but but moving on, let’s let’s look at some of the things that happen, you know, in society in life that could impact your ability to do your business, kind of some things that that you could do to kind of push that noise, those distractions out of the way so that you can focus on your business.
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The first thing that a lot of people don’t pay attention to is the amount of times that we hear no now a lot of people will send text messages, emails, calls, you know, talk to the sellers. So whether you have to go through 10 no’s or 100 no’s before you find that that one yes, that’s going to make you money. A lot of times depends on your attitude towards it and whether or not you can just let those noes just kind of bounce off of you and continue down the road of the next person I talked to could be the the deal. You that mentality is probably one of the most important things that you can do. Because it’s hearing no so much. They always say that laughter is contagious but so is hearing no so or negative Feelings having people around you. Which that is another very, very, very big aspect of how you control your business, the culture that you surround yourself with? Are the people that are in your family, your friends, do you work for a company? What is that culture? Is it a positive culture? Or is it a negative culture, because all of these things that are inside you, you absorb them, and then you let them out. It’s almost like breathing, you take air in, you absorb the air, and you breathe it back out. So it’s important to put yourself around positive people. years ago, I made a decision because in my life, I was just surrounded with by a lot of negativity, the people in my life, unfortunately, some family members were included in that I haven’t talked to some family members and four or five years now. It’s very hard to do, I know, they’re going to continue their negative ways, they’re negative talk, things like that. But it was a decision that I had to make, just so that I could actually have a positive healthy life. Because when you stress yourself out, when you give yourself anxiety, those kinds of things, it’s gonna come back out. So when you’re taking that negativity in, you’re breathing it back out. And that’s something that everyone needs to pay attention to it is, I will never minimize how difficult making a decision to change your life and surround your people with surround yourself with positive people would be, I would, I would say that is almost a last resort. Because in some ways, you can influence the way others act around you. But you can’t completely influence it. So you can pick and choose the terms that you’ll be around that person. The interactions that you have what you do with them, things of that nature, but you can’t completely change that person, that person’s attitude is completely dependent on themselves.
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So when you go through, and you try to change someone, you’re not going to be able to do it. You can you can rub off on them. But there’s only so much that you can do because their experiences in their own life, you know, how they were raised, what they were around as children, those kind of things have a have a big impact on how you function as an adult, some overcome it, but some never escape it. So you have to look at things in a way of what’s the best thing for me, that doesn’t mean that you don’t like or love whoever it is on the other side of that. But you have to look at it in Is this the best for me. And if it’s not, you know, just go through and say, you know, hey, I love you. But there are some things in my life right now that I’ve got to get changed, I’ve got to focus on myself. So if you don’t mind, give me some time. Let me see if I can do it. So if it takes you a week, a month, six months, a year, whatever it may be, you go back and revisit that relationship and see if maybe that person hasn’t had a change in their life as well. So now it’s a healthy relationship with a lot of positivity that goes goes in that relationship that you have, instead of constantly trying to win them over to get them positive, and be able to maintain the positivity in your life and the positive outlook so that you can function the way that you need to to be able to do your business. So it’s you’re looking at at how things in your own life. Determine how you react if your emotions get in the way? Or are you are you doing the business the way that that you need to so that you are able to be successful? Because there is that that saying, somebody living in your mind rent free. How many people are living in your mind rent free? If you actually sit there and think about that, it will astonish you of how many people can just be in around them, talking to them, whatever it is, you go from the beginning, when you walk in, you’re happy. But then when you leave that conversation or that interaction, you’re not in that same mindset. And how many times like if you look at it over, say a week, month, whatever it is, go into every one of those interactions and think and even If you’ve got to keep a journal, right in that journal, hey, I was happy when I met Johnny, when I left, I was a little bit irritated, I was happy when I met Johnny, when I left, I was still happy. It was a, it was a good, I had a good time. Keep track of that. And then in that timeframe, go back and see how many times the interaction with whoever it is changed your mood and changed your outlook. So that now your next interaction, you’re looking at a different perspective, because instead of being happy, now you’re a little agitated, or you’re not as happy as you were, you know, not everything is going to be perfect, but you have to minimize the negativity in your life. So you can actually be positive in your interactions, because it does go back to what we talked about a couple episodes ago, the power of Yes. When you hear no constantly or you have the negativity in your life, it’s hard for you to be a positive person to relay that influence to whoever you’re interacting with, to get them to say, yes, if you’re going into a situation, oh, I have to make $50,000 on this house to be able to do it. And you’re just coming out like that, would you have approached that that situation the exact same? had you gone in and been happy with that interaction? before you went into it? It’s important, a lot of times people don’t pay attention to it. But if you can’t go into a business situation, with positivity in your mind, put that appointment off, put that phone call off, send a text that says hey, I need to reschedule or call them and say, Hey, I need to reschedule, I had something that came up, you’re better off doing that, then going in and losing that business. It’s hard to it’s hard to fathom that. But I can promise you, if you go into a situation with an agitated mind, or an ad or negative outlook, you’re gonna cost yourself money every single time because you may lose the deal. But you also may, you could have made $15,000 to $20,000 on this deal Had it been a good interaction with whoever was selling that or whoever was buying it. But because you were agitated or feeling down. Now you only make $5,000 it affects your ability to conduct business in the in your interactions. So that’s, that’s the personal side of it.
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Let’s look at kind of society as a as a whole, like your, what goes on in the world. One thing that I do, and I’ve and I’ve said this many times is I wake up in the morning, I have my coffee, and I get on the internet and just kind of read the news of the day. there’s a there’s a way that I do it. If if I’m not happy, because of something going on in the world, I shut it down. I had I had something like the and I’ll just use this as an example. Honestly, I could care less who wins the presidential election. Because either way, I’m still gonna make money. Because I’m in real estate. So if let’s say Trump won, I’m still gonna make money because the markets moving. If Biden wins, I’m still going to make money because the market is going to move. There may be different directions, the market moves, but the market is still going to move. You can look at say the last four years where it was hot market, things were going up. Or you can go back to the 2009 when bush or 2008. At the end of Bush’s term. We’re in the middle of the foreclosure crisis. business was still moving because it was just in a different direction. But houses were still moving, you could still make make money. So to get caught up in the politics of things is not a good idea. It doesn’t control your life. I mean, it has an impact on your life. But it doesn’t control your life in real estate. There. You’re going to be able to make money, regardless of who’s in office. And I had someone that I know call me and they say, Hey, have you heard this? Have you heard this? And I told him I said, You know what, I’ve just shut it off. Because I’m hearing fraud on this side election. Accepted on this side, everybody’s up still arguing. I’m just sick of it. I’m absolutely sick of it. So I have shut that down. Because it’s something that that will put me in a mood that I don’t want to have. So I just remove that from my life so that I don’t have to focus on it and they they don’t I understand that but it’s a, it’s a self discipline to be able to remove negative things from your life, because it will affect you in a way that is not good for you. Now, in a week, I might pick it back up, I have no idea. Now I still check on things to see where things stand. Because an uncertainty is, no one really likes uncertainty. So until this is decided, I’ll check on it, but I’m not going to consume myself, or, you know, come home and watch, watch the news every day, things like that. I’m not gonna sit there and read 10 articles on the internet, that have to do with the election. It’s just not healthy for me. I don’t, I don’t care. Like I said, I don’t care either way, who wins, because it’s not going to affect my life, I’m in real estate. And that is a beautiful thing to be in. To know the politics and who’s who’s the elected official is going to have no impact whatsoever on my life, or my professional life, it will have no impact whatsoever. But you’ve got a lot of people right now that have drawn their line in the sand. So if you’re a Trump supporter, you’re pissed off right now. Because everything that’s going on, if you’re a bobbin supporter, you’re still pissed off, because Trump won’t concede or you’re going to lawsuits or whatever, you’re still mad. There’s there’s nothing right now, no side is happy. So what’s the point? What is the point of all of this, it’s not going to affect your life at all, so to be upset about it, you’re wasting time you’re wasting energy, you’re giving yourself anxiety, you’re putting yourself in a negative attitude, that’s going to affect your business. It has no bearing on your business whatsoever. if the market goes up, great. Just keep doing what you’re doing. if the market goes down, switch how you go about it. Mr. Seller, the market is going down, I’ve got to be I’ve got to be careful what i doing. Because I know we’re going down right now we hit and hit the bottom. So I’ve got to be careful that I don’t lose money on this. You put that in their mind now. So if you might have more foreclosures, if the market goes down more short sales, if the market goes down, the business is still going to be out there, you just might have to switch your approach, but it’s not going to affect your business, if you remain adaptable to the environment. So don’t worry what’s going on, let those things influence you.
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If you if you look at the the whole situation, all you’re really concerned with is how you pay your bills. If you let other people or other things, live in your mind rent free, you’re not going to be productive to the point that you could. So what I would almost tell you to do so that you can, you can figure out where you are, is keep notes. Just keep note, this made me happy today, this upset me. This person, I wanted to punch in the face, or this person, I wanted to give a home to keep that and then go back every so often. And look at that. And it will astonish you your interactions and things that upset you that shouldn’t. And then you go back and you like, what I would say is this person made me want to hug him. And then right next to that if you’ve got an appointment to go meet a seller to get a house under contract, or you’ve got a a buyer or something like that. Go in there, make that note right next to it. And say I had to meet with the seller today, I got the contract or I didn’t get the contract. Or I thought I would be able to get the house for this. But this is what I really got for it. I had a I sent this over to a buyer today we talked about it, I thought they would pay this, they paid this for it, whether it was more or less. And go back and look at what’s happening in your business right after you have these interactions. And it’ll prove what I’m telling you is right. The more negative interactions that you have, the more things that upset you, the worse your business is going to be.
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So you’ve got to be able to kind of push the noise out of your head to be able to to be successful, get these houses under contract for what they should be under contract for and then turn around and sell them for a little bit more than what you should be able to sell them for. Because, I mean, for example, the house that, that I sent a buyer yesterday that I want to get my money back home. Well, this buyer had already seen this house a while back because it was a foreclosure they made an offer, they didn’t get it. Their offer six months ago was $63,500. But yesterday, they offered me $73,500 for it. So they went up $10,000 versus six months ago. Now, if I would have gone into that with a negative reaction would have been the same case. But we had just been laughing about the wholesaler that cost themselves $8,500. So when they’re sitting there going, I can, you know, I can pay you this for it. Now that becomes a deal. When if I would have had a negative attitude it wouldn’t have if I wouldn’t have had that relationship established it wouldn’t have. So it’s it’s an you’ve got to look at these things and the whole, because every single time it like, it doesn’t stop. It’s a continuation. So if you’re having a conversation, good or bad, what is the follow is a continuation of that.
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Make sure you’re filtering out the noise, getting the distractions, regardless of what’s going on in your life. You know, if your football team or sports team, whoever you like, they got beat on Saturday, Sunday, let it go. Don’t let it impact you. If your husband or your wife upset you before you left the house, let it go. Because if you keep it with you, and this is this is a funny thing. And everyone that’s married can attest to this. If you take that with you, whenever you get back home, and the husband and wife says did you make any money today? And you go No. Well, now it just got worse. Well, you’re not paying the bills. Now it just got worse. So you cannot take what is going on in your personal life to your business. If you do, you are setting yourself up for failure. Make sure you’re you’re keeping the keeping the focus, tunnel vision. This is what I have to accomplish today. If you have a list and your list taker to this is what I have to accomplish great. Personally, just because of what I do. Meeting sellers dealing with tenants things like that. I can’t make a list because I do but 10 o’clock in the morning, my day is already sideways. So I have to do things in a flexible way. I just wait. I just honestly I’ll have to wait a lot of days on the day to call me. So what the day needs me to do I have to go do that. Does that work for everyone? Probably not. It’ll work for some but you have to make sure you’re accomplishing things or staying on focus, getting your goals accomplished. Because you’ve got to get to the end somewhere somehow the end is down the road. And you’ve got to do those means to be able to get to that in it’s it’s a it’s a hard thing to do but what I would honestly tell everyone, stop paying attention to society. Stop letting friends, family, co workers, society.
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Stop. Stop letting all of that stuff live in your mind rent free. Because it is hurting you more than you realize. If you will sit there and take all of that noise and move out. You’ll be surprised what what they what happens. When I was growing up playing sports. My coaches used to always tell me, when you step in between these lines, nothing else matters. You’re here to win. You’re here to your team. You’ve got to you gotta you got a goal to accomplish and that goal is to win. Leave it inside this court. Everything else that’s that’s outside, leave it there. Businesses the same way. When you step in business, leave everything else outside, you’re inside those lines. Your goal is to win. Don’t leave anything to chance. Put it all out there every single day. Let it go. Well, that’s pretty much all I’ve got for this episode. I want everyone to to keep in mind that outside influences are just that they’re outside. Stop letting them stop letting them control your life. Stop letting things live in your head rent free. It’s not good for you If you get the noise out of your head, you’ll start increasing your margins, you’ll start the assignment fees, the money you’re making on deals will start going up. But it is a process, you have to really make sure that you’re keeping track of your interactions, what’s going on what’s making you happy, what’s upsetting you, what’s getting you off track, and what’s keeping you on track. Once you figure that out, it’ll be easier to keep the things that keep you off track, it’ll be easier to keep them out of your life, the things that that help you stay on track, it’ll be easier to keep those in your life and at the forefront, so that you don’t have time for the negativity. Once you do that. Like I said, your success, your profits, the money that you make, will go up because your relationships will get better, you will stop having negative relationships in your life, you’ll become a positive person, everyone will want to be around you after that, because you you leave them better than they found you. So it’s, you’re rubbing off on them, but they’re rubbing off on you. And everyone’s happy.
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If you want to find some more things, you know, help grow your business, feel free to, to go over to EarlToms.com. There’s plenty of stuff over there that is not necessarily guru speak. It’s more of business functions, things that you can use to help your business grow. Things that will make your business easier. It’s there, there’s not any coaching or anything like that over there. I know. We have the only thing that we have for sale on the site is a is a spreadsheet, kind of like a deal analyzer. But it’s the one that I actually used the one that I developed years ago. So it does the rent calculations, you know whether or not you should buy it based on the returns, and it also does a flip analyzer. So it’s in depth if, if it seems kind of over the top, is because it is because I developed it right after I stopped appraising. So all of those appraisal things that were taught to me, they’re in those they’re in that analyzer, it’ll actually tell you to buy a pass, or to get approval, if you’re looking for, you know, the part of it to see if it makes sense for you to buy it as a and hold it as a rental, or if another investor would want to buy it. But I send that to my buyers whenever whenever they’re looking at a deal, because it breaks down everything I mean, even gives you a basically a return on your tax liability. So when they look at things like this, it helps them to understand, you know, what’s my tax liability going to be honest, what’s my return with my tax liability? What’s my return without my tax liability? How much is my insurance going to be? I’m going to calculate all of that. So when you go through, you’re basically plugging in a couple of numbers. And it’ll it’ll give you the results of it. The, the spreadsheets, there’s two tabs, they actually talk to each other. So you put information on one spreadsheet, it’ll put it on the other one. But it does help whenever you send it to buyers. It’ll help you when you’re analyzing your own deals. You can play with a little bit to fit your market. But but that’s the only thing on the site that’s for sale and I think it’s $7. So it’s even it’s not gonna break anybody’s bank, but it’ll definitely help you down the road. But again, you find all of that over EarlToms.com. This free information on that one thing is for sale.
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But with that, we’re going to draw it to a close. I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. We will we’ll see you again in a couple of weeks. Thanks for listening
