The Reality of Real Estate, Part 3: The Kool-Aid
Expectations vs. Reality: An Insider Exposé
In case you missed it, click here for “The Reality of Real Estate, Part 2: The Wait and Bait”.
This is a multi-part insider exposé series on the real estate industry. My objectives are to candidly share with you the behind-the-scenes of the real estate world — from the good, bad, ugly, and controversial — in order to educate and empower those of you looking to make a complete life change and enter into real estate, that you may be fully set up for success. I promise you, no nonsense.
Unpopular opinion here: The modern real estate industry eerily resembles an entrepreneurial cult. It is a religion that worships motivational speakers and mindset books: Tony Robbins is God, and “The Millionaire Real Estate Agent” by Gary Keller, Dave Jenks, and Jay Papasan, is the Bible.
Now, Tony Robbins is a brilliant man and “The Millionaire Real Estate Agent” is practically helpful. But rather than cultivating a culture of thoughtfulness and deliberate business strategy that these resources intend to convey, a culture of the opposite effect — of superficiality and “get rich quick” schemes — is what dominates the modern real estate industry.
Then there is the traditional real estate industry that has existed long before entrepreneurialism was vogue. The traditional real estate industry is marked by fixed mindsets and people with distrust toward change and modernization, who also sit on pedestals looking down upon the new entrants in the industry. Also, an unpopular opinion.
There are two primary subgroups of real estate agents: The traditional, “old-school” agents and the modern, “new-age” agents. These subgroups are not so much distinguished by specific generations such as the Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, or Millennials (though generation does factor in), but moreover by who buys into the old-school ways of conducting business versus the new-age ways. While both subgroups operate their real estate business differently from each other, there is “Kool-Aid” in both. Different flavors, but “Kool-Aid” nonetheless.
Spoiler alert: Do not drink the “Kool-Aid”.
Let me translate: Drinking the “Kool-Aid” is a modern colloquialism that means something akin to being a follower or sheeple. Do not be a follower in your real estate career. Do not be sheeple.
Why?
Because you will fail.
Ouch.
Consider: How many exact replicas of Tony Robbins are out there? How many exact replicas of Steve Jobs are out there? How many exact replicas of Jeff Bezos are out there? How many exact replicas of Larry Page, Travis Kalanick, Sam Walton, Richard Branson, Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey, or any other famous and mega-wealthy entrepreneurs are out there?
The answer is: There are no exact replicas of any famous or mega-wealthy entrepreneurs.
Now, certainly, these famous and mega-wealthy entrepreneurs may share similar characteristics, habits, mindsets, and lifestyles. Many of them also share similar “rags-to-riches” origin stories. But the key insight to note is that there are no duplicates of any one of them.
What does this mean?
This means that no matter what secrets, formulas, or business models they share, your success will never look like theirs.
This is not to discourage you from learning from their experiences, expertise, or wisdom, but rather to point out that success is very much unique to the individual.
In other words, you must assess your unique strengths and weaknesses both as an individual and as a professional. You must understand what your skillsets are and identify the areas where you need new skill development, skill refinement, or support. You must identify your limiting beliefs that hinder you and the environment from which they originated from. You must clarify your values in life and determine your commitment to aligning yourself with your values. You must evaluate your present reality and reconcile the gap between where you are in life and where you want to be through a disciplined strategy. All of this is required to establish your authenticity.
It is only after you have your authenticity established that you can then effectively and powerfully apply what you learn from the mega-wealthy entrepreneurs or the successful real estate agents (of both the traditional and modern variety), as an extension of your unique success strategy. Until then, you will remain treading water in a sea of delusions of grandeur. How long do you think you can tread in this water, until you wear yourself out and sink?
Drinking the “Kool-Aid” means to neglect your worthiness as a unique contributor to the world around you. It is believing in others more than you believe in yourself, blinded by their contributions rather than seeing yours. What successful people have in common are that: They believe in their unique contributions, they align themselves with strategies that support that belief, and they have mastery in shutting down comparison. It is not that they have any special formula. Successful people are successful because they have uncovered their authenticity by identifying their unique contributions that give value to the world around them, and then they continue on that path daily. Success is simply the compound effect of an individual’s unique contributions.
“Success is simply the compound effect of an individual’s unique contributions”.
Okay, so I have warned you about the “Kool-Aid” in real estate. Now let me explain what the “Kool-Aid” is made of.
The two primary subgroups of real estate agents — “old-school” and “new-age” — have distinct characteristics. Below is a chart that outlines the differences. You will also see a “hybrid” category that combines characteristics of both “old-school” and “new-age” categories. These characteristics are what drive business behavior in real estate. The “Kool-Aid” is the social undercurrent to accept and comply with the normative business behavior of each subgroup. Understanding the driving forces of business behavior will grant you strategic perspective that will inform your decision-making in what strategies to adopt and what strategies to reject, according to your authentic business goals. This will challenge the norms that surround you and set you apart from those who blindly conform, but it will empower you as a businessperson. Many agents who enter the real estate industry without understanding the distinct characteristics and how these characteristics drive business behavior, end up drinking whatever “Kool-Aid” is passed around, and become consumed by a lifestyle that is not true to themselves and will burn them out. This then leads to unrealized business potential, disillusionment, and eventual dropout from the industry.
Old-School Agents
“Old-school” agents typically operate their businesses solo and are less willing “team players”. They tend to have a strong preference for their own way of conducting business and are less receptive of new insight. “Old-school” agents are generally protective of their trade secrets and tend to be more guarded in sharing their knowledge. They tend to dress and operate more conservatively and adhere to more conventional and “tried-and-true” business strategies, rather than taking bold risks. Thus, they convey as more transactional professionals in the industry. “Old-school” agents utilize digital platforms less than their “new-age” counterparts and tend to rely more on non-digital methods for conducting business. Organizationally, “old-school” agents tend to think more hierarchically, with a top-down or bottom-up understanding of business culture, which influences their assessment style to be more judgmental in nature. These rigid and hierarchical characteristics tend to enforce a fixed mindset that prefers more standardized, focused (i.e., single-tracked), and routine work, that is then projected onto their clients and colleagues. “Old-school” agents generally appear more stable in their personal and professional lives and are comfortable in their settled states, which contribute to their hesitance to change.
The danger in drinking the “Kool-Aid” of “old-school” agents is that it will promote the development of a fixed, and therefore limited, mindset, and transactional models of business. This will severely debilitate your competitiveness (i.e., your ability to remain in business for the long term), in a rapidly evolving and growing industry.
New-Age Agents
“New-age” agents, in contrast, tend to be more collaborative and team-oriented than “old-school” agents. They are more “open-source” with distributing knowledge and are more generous with sharing trade-secrets, in order to expand the development of existing knowledge through collaborative contributions. “New-age” agents have more radical approaches to professionalism that blend both the personal and business worlds. They are more likely to be fluid and buoyant in their business strategies because they experiment more readily with strategy risks, especially by leveraging new technology and digital platforms. The manner in which “new-age” agents present themselves as professionals and engage in business are largely as extensions of their self-expression and individualism. Thus, “new-age” agents tend to view business culture laterally and relationally, rather than hierarchically. These collaborative, fluid, and relational characteristics tend to promote greater acceptance and tolerance of change, which are valuable in contributing more humanized (i.e., individualized) work and advancing innovation. However, such characteristics are indicative of permeable mindsets that, though advantageous in many aspects, are susceptible to “fast idea consumption” that propagates a business culture of hype, instant gratification, and unfocused (i.e., multi-tracked) work.
The danger in drinking the “Kool-Aid” of “new-age” agents is that it will distract from the development of sustainable business strategies. This will severely diminish your impact in business and cause hemorrhaging of valuable resources.
Coming up next: “The Reality of Real Estate, Part 4: The Politics”.
Click here for: “The Reality of Real Estate, Part 1: The Beginning (and the Easy Part)”.
Click here for: “The Reality of Real Estate, Part 2: The Wait and Bait”.
Click here for: “The Reality of Real Estate, Part 5: Marketing Misunderstandings, Mistakes, and Malpractice”.
Stay tuned for future articles on real estate study and business strategies. Subscribe so you can receive an alert when the articles are published. Comment below if you have any questions about the real estate world, or just to give feedback. I welcome discussion and other perspective. I will address answers to your questions in future articles. Share my articles with anyone you think this may help.
Disclaimer: The specific nuances of the entry process into the real estate industry may differ per state; however, the general principles I write about will still apply. Also, the articles I write are not legal advice, are written in the perspective of an American, and are solely for candor, educational, and empowerment purposes.
