Never Break The Final 10 Meter Rule When Investing In Real Estate

Who do you ask for property advice?

With so many mixed messages and so many people out there with property advice, who can you trust?

Today I’m going to teach you the ten-meter rule, and suggest you never break the ten-meter rule when getting property advice.

The rule will also stand you in good stead in other situations where people are willing to offer you advice.

Then I’m going to have a long chat with you about the reticular activating system.

At the end of today’s show, you’ll have some new ideas and tools that will help you take advantage of our property markets. Introducing the 10 Meter Rule

Now that the conversation has moved away from COVID-19, it seems everybody I bump into has an opinion on our property markets.

They’re reading all the news and while some believe property markets are going to perform strongly there are still many who believe we are in a bubble or a Ponzi scheme that’s about to collapse.

Some are keen on buying off the plan, others are looking at houses and land packages and yet others think it’s better to rent and buy.

I saw something similar when I was having a chat with the young lady who came up to me a few weeks ago when I was sitting in Church Street Brighton having a coffee.

She obviously recognized me from my blogs or my photos on the Internet and wanted to ask me some questions about real estate, so I gave her a few minutes of my time.

The conversation started with what I thought was going to happen to our property markets, but then when I asked her what her plans were, she explains to me how she recently paid a lot of money for a course to learn how to be a buyers’ agent and was going to help homebuyers and investors.

She was going to make that her career.

I know the course she is talking about because it has produced a whole swag of new buyers’ agents, so I asked her a little bit about her background.

She had brought one investment property a couple of years ago in a suburb of Melbourne, which hasn’t performed very well, and up until last year, she was a teacher.

But now with her newfound knowledge and enthusiasm, she was going to charge others to buy real estate for them.

As I listened to her story it reminded me of a blog that I read probably over a decade ago by Canadian property commentator Don Campbell where he explained how a comedian made a significant difference to his property investing.

Now investing in real estate is no joke, but a comedian taught him the final 30-foot rule, which I have changed to the final 10-meter rule, and understanding this will make a difference for you.

Okay, in a nutshell, it comes from the comedian, old-school comedian, Buddy Hackett.

My understanding of The Final 30 Feet (or the Final 10 Metres as I’m now calling it) came from a warning given by Buddy Hackett to a young and upcoming comedian on how to deal with the mountains of advice that TV executives, promoters, friends, and family will give him as he built his comedy career. 

Buddy’s advice was simple yet profound: “Listen politely, smile and allow them to feel helpful… then turn around and seek out and take advice only from those who have walked The Final 30 Feet.”

The obvious follow-up question was: “What do you mean the Final 30 Feet?”

Apparently, Buddy said:

“Only take advice from those who have walked the final and most important 30 feet from backstage to being alone in front of a microphone with nowhere to hide. Then, and only then, will you know the advice comes from reality and not theory. They’ll understand the emotions, the work it takes to get it right. They’ll have made the mistakes and created the laughs, not just read about how to do it.”

This sage advice is obviously very relevant about whom you should listen to with regards to property and wealth advice.

In essence, there are a lot of enthusiastic amateurs out there who despite their best intentions, and even if they’re confident with their thoughts are correct, will steer you in the wrong direction.

And that’s not necessarily because they mean to you or intend to, but because they don’t have the experience or perspective to give the right advice.

So, my advice to you is to be very careful to choose advisors who have the final 10 meters of experience in whatever field you are asking assistance with; be it property investment, business, relationships; because there are just too many inexperienced pretenders out there.

By the way… this doesn’t surprise me. 

I have seen this happen at the beginning of every new property cycle, a flood of new so-called experts trying to make a living giving advice.

And while a rising market may cover up some of their shortcomings, I keep coming back to Warren Buffett’s saying – “A rising tide will lift all ships, but when the tide goes out, you’ll see who swimming naked.”

In the past, I’ve written about the fact that successful property investing is part science and part art.

There’s no doubt that science, theory,  data, and research, are very important.

But they tend to be useless unless you have the art part mastered as well – the perspective and that comes from years of experience and from the lessons of failure.

Perspective is something that you can’t buy – but it’s something you can hire when you get the right team of experts on your side.

Despite my success in investing and business I still have mentors and pay for business coaches.

And the concept of The Final 10 Meters has served me well.

I seek out who people have already achieved what I want to achieve, have solved the problems I need to solve, and have made the mistakes I want to minimize.

Your Reticular Activating System (RAS)

The RAS plays into the psychology of success. The RAS is a filter that sorts through the input into your brain and decides what you’re going to see and what you’ll ignore.

Your RAS responds to your name, anything that threatens your survival, and anything you need to know. It also seeks data to validate your beliefs.

You program your own RAS filters with your parameters, along with your own past experiences. If you learn how to control and reprogram your RAS, you can get the results – and the success – that you want.

Your RAS works like a search engine, looking for what you’ve programmed it to look for. So if you create a clear picture of what you want, your RAS will know what to look for.

But your RAS also aligns with your own preconceived belief system, so it will pay more attention to things that fit with what you already believe.

If you believe you will find opportunity and success, your RAS will help you see them. But if you believe you’ll find debt and risk, your RAS will filter for those and you’ll see more of them instead.

Links and Resources:

Michael Yardney

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Shownotes plus more here: Never Break The Final 10 Meter Rule When Investing In Real Estate

Some of our favorite quotes from the show:

“You see, theory is not real life.” –Michael Yardney

“Be careful who you take advice from and use the final 10-meter rule to sort out who you take seriously.” –Michael Yardney

“You are what you believe yourself to be.” –Michael Yardney

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