My ONE Thing

Shout out to Brandon Turner for the awesome book recommendation!

The ONE Thing by Gary Keller

Scratch that, I want to thank the guy who gave the recommendation to Brandon. Why? Well because Brandon gets credit for everything around here ;-). Who is that Josh guy anyway?

Jokes aside, of the many great concepts that the book effectively portrays, my favorite analogy in the book is his discussion about dominos. You know the little white blocks that people spend countless hours setting up just to knock them all down at once to create a 30 second YouTube video? Or the more boring kind, the dominos I use to play with my grandmother. Imagine a line of dominos all in a row that progressively get larger and larger. The biggest domino - the one at the end - is your ultimate purpose. The thing in life that you find the most desirable and what you consider to be your pinnacle of achievement. Imagine standing under it and looking up at it - pretty daunting huh? It feels a lot like the first time you enter a big city and see all the skyscraper's soaring above you – all the while you feel like an ant standing on the lowly street.

Do you have the strength to push this domino over right now? Probably not - and it's not realistic to think you can - at least not today. However, the ONE thing is the small domino in front of you. The 1''x2'' tile that with little to no effort can be easily blown over. The interesting fact about this domino is that with the small push you give it, it has the strength to knock over a domino twice its size. Then as a result, the second domino can then knock over a domino twice its size. See the potential power that can be harnessed from the domino effect?

So how can we apply this analogy to real estate and our real estate goals? We all have various aspirations and outcomes we wish to achieve through real estate, and for me, I feel like I'm staring up at those Manhattan skyscrapers right now. The big picture comes naturally to most; however the big domino at the end is not the difficult one figure out. It’s the single domino right in front of you, the ONE thing.

In a day in age where distractions are at an all-time high, choosing your ONE thing and sticking to it can be a very arduous task. Emails here, text messages there, and that colleague that stops by all the time and just won't leave you alone! (If you don't know that guy/gal where you work, you are that guy/gal). This is where we need to develop the self-discipline to stay on point and work on the most important task of the day.

In spite of the challenges as investors, the most successful will propel their business past their current plateaus with the power of the domino analogy and undivided focus. A wholesaler may focus on developing a marketing campaign. A flipper will develop systems to allow them to complete more projects in parallel. A buy and hold investor may deem it best to just pay the darn loans down. In any case, we must not be distracted by other "shiny objects" and make sure we put first things first.

As for me, my big domino is to manage a sizable rental portfolio so that I can leave my full time job and pursue other life interests more intently: Family, Education, and Exploration. And for my ONE thing, I am focusing on networking and interacting with other real estate professionals to help acquire more deals.

What is your ONE thing? Please comment!