As you will know by now, at the Property Investors’ Crash Course I regularly run challenges to get people to get up and find deals. The best deals are presented at the front of the room and I offer the winning team a chance to choose between a cash prize and keeping the deal. If they keep the lead, they can go out and try and make the deal work for them. If they take the cash prize, I keep the deal and go after the deal myself.
This time, however, the guys who brought the best deal refused my offer of £500 to take over their deal. That's because they knew the value of the deal and how much they could get for it in the real market. I am always impressed when people are able to put off quick cash if they have good reason to think there is a lot more to be made in the future. There is nothing wrong with quick cash, of course. Sometimes it can be very helpful in building up a pot of money for future deals. But it is important to know when to take the money and when to hold on to a lead.
The Power Of Delayed Gratification!
We live in a world where everyone wants everything now. People would prefer to take out credit card debt to pay for a holiday than take out good debt on an investment property and use the rental income to pay for many holidays. People want the £500 now and not the £10,000 in 6 months. However delayed gratification i.e. waiting for a future reward is a huge part of success. If you can’t wait, you can’t succeed. There is no push one button get £1 million the next day system out there. Everything requires some time and work.
In 1972 an experiment was done at Stanford University. Children were offered the option to have a sweet now or wait and have two later. The researchers then left the room for 15 minutes. The children that chose to wait were later found to do better in life across a range of measures. But even if you are not naturally good at delaying gratification, it is a skill you can learn. Learning this skill will help you succeed in the world of property and business in general.
Making Quick Decisions
Just because you are delaying gratification, doesn’t mean you should delay decision making. In the business world, you need to be able to make fast decisions. That’s why in my challenges I give the teams 15 seconds to decide if they are going to keep the lead or sell it to me. If you can’t make a quick decision, someone else will beat you to it. Once you have the facts in front of you and you have done the calculations, you need to trust yourself enough to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
If you waste time thinking about things that you never take action on, you will stay poor forever! You can’t get rich by overanalysing every little detail; you need to be an action taker too. Once you have the training and the knowledge, you learn most by doing. Start taking action and correct mistakes along the way. Do the ABC before worrying about the XYZ!
