I was just a teenager when my mother lost her job. I had to accept the fact that life was about to change whether I liked it or not. No more carefree days. I had to adapt to our new circumstances and find a way to support our family. Otherwise, we would soon be homeless.
I vividly remember reading an article in the Dallas Business Journal about real estate and
deciding that this would be my path.
Adapting to face that challenge changed my life. It not only helped provide the income we
needed, but it also taught me a valuable lesson.
The lesson was that the ability to adapt is the key to success.
As a new Realtor, I started by following traditional “best practices” and then adapting based on what worked or didn’t. Before long, I was one of the top-producing Realtors in America.
I didn’t stop there, though. Most people achieve a certain level of success and settle into their ways. They think, “Don’t fix what’s not broken.” They don’t realise that what isn’t broken today will, over time, break. We must continuously adapt to life’s changing circumstances. Your industry. Technology. The economy. Everything. So I continuously adapted to ensure I stayed at the top.
I decided that while I loved being a Realtor, I wanted more certainty, especially considering the experience that got me into the industry in the first place. So I adapted again by becoming a real estate investor while continuing to work as a Realtor.
I already had the knowledge, and as a Realtor, I had access to data others don’t. I also heard about properties before they hit the market, and I had built a network of buyers, sellers, and lenders. This was a perfect opportunity because it enabled me to create a new revenue stream from what I was already doing.
And in addition to the revenue, I was now building a portfolio of assets. This gave me more certainty because now I had two streams of income and a real estate portfolio that was increasing in value.
But I didn’t stop adapting here, either.
(Are you seeing a pattern yet?)
As I scaled the real estate investing side of my business, performing hundreds of transactions each year, I realised that the traditional acquisition and disposition channels were not scalable. So I built a software platform to streamline the process, allowing me to profitably scale past my current position. Since its inception, it has already been used to conduct over $170 million in GMV.
And while this is a game-changer right now, it’s only one more step in the constant process of adaptation. Someday well into the future, this may too lose its effectiveness, and I’ll have to adapt yet again.
This is all a part of the process, and it’s what separates great entrepreneurs from average
entrepreneurs. If you want to perform at the top of your industry, it’s exactly what you need to do, too.
