Secrets To Getting Started: Start From Right Where You Are!

"Start From Right Where You Are!"

It's a phrase I have carried in my head for years. I first heard it on a Carleton Sheets infomercial nearly thirty (30) years ago, uttered by Wally "Famous" Amos, the Famous Amos cookie man, who literally started his million-dollar business by baking and giving away chocolate chip cookies on the streets of L.A.

In that infomercial, Amos talked about the tendency of many of us to get stuck in what psychologists call "paralysis of analysis". Amos said, "People research things [they want to do in life] to death. They talk to their friends, they check it out, but they never start, man. People ask me where do I start, I tell them it doesn't matter, start from right where you are!"

The hardest thing for most of us to do is start down the road to wherever we think we want to go. We tell ourselves we need to know more before we do more, we need to  have six (6) months' cash reserve to fall back on before we launch ourselves full-time into a business, we need to take classes or find a mentor or any of a number of other steps we tell ourselves we need to take to help us believe that we are ready to do the only thing we really need to do, and that is to get started.

The truth is, and I learned this, because it took me almost two decades after hearing that Amos quote before I actually started working in real estate development and becoming a development consultant and investor, you'll never be ready enough to start until you actually start. Swimming instructors know that fear of the water keeps most kids from jumping into the pool to learn how to swim. 

So what do they do? Under controlled conditions, they literally throw them into the water. Why? Because they know that once the kid is in the water, they will lose their fear of it and focus on learning  how to swim. But until they are forced to take that leap of faith, they will allow their fear to keep them from that learning opportunity.

It's not money, or knowledge or other resources that keep most of us from starting. It's fear. Fear of the unknown. And until you overcome that fear, and realize that your fear is always bigger than the reality of the challenge you are confronting, you'll always be stuck. 

I used to think I needed a great deal of money to get started, or contacts, or experience to start becoming a real estate investor, Well, I learned that once I got started, all those things would make themselves available to me. There is a saying, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." When you're ready for the resources to come to you, they will come. I know from my own experience that when you're ready and you start, the doors of opportunity will open for you. So don't let yourself stay stuck in fear. Get going, get started, make it happen now. Robert Schuller said, "If it is to be , it is up to me." He's right. 

In the next blog, I will talk about how I bought my first property with no money or credit, and how I became a development consultant taking the lead on two deals: a $3,500,000.00 renovation dela and a $17,300,000.00 redevelopment project.