So lately I’ve been listening to the BiggerPockets Podcast a lot and really digging deep into real estate investing. For those of you who don’t know about BiggerPockets, I find it is definitely one of the best websites dealing with everything real estate. They have their own community and provide members with many useful tools to help with their real estate investments such as forums, podcasts, articles, blogs and so on. There is an awesome section that allows you to see all of the members that are located in the same area as you! I am definitely sold on this feature as I have been actively seeking to expand my local connections with very minimal success. Thus, having this tool available to me saves me so much time in trying to find people with the same interests. I highly recommend signing up with them if you haven’t already.
Our “Cash Flow MTL” group has merely expanded to 7 members.. and that is with me solely being the active member of the group and inviting the ones I know for sure who have the same interests. It is getting there slowly but surely. Then again, I have not exactly been marketing my group enough through Facebook status updates and posting relative content on my wall to advertise this group.
If you think about it, creating this group is sort of like a product because you still need to market it, engage and interact with people and try to “sell” it to them for them to be interested to “buy” your product. Therefore, by not involving myself in the marketing and selling process I have not been getting enough members to join my group. Right there I have already identified what I am doing wrong and what I need to start doing in order to fix the issue. Engage with my “customers” more. You can now see how important marketing and selling is in order for a product to be successful.
My problem is that I am way too shy and think too much about what other people think of me. This is something I need to change if I want to successful. If I want to inspire people, I need to be powerful. I need to be able to effectively communicate with the audience in order to get my message across. Another thing I need to change is the way I express myself. This has definitely been the hardest thing for me to do. All my life I have always had this issue. I often have trouble articulating my words or organizing my ideas in my head before I say it out loud. I prefer expressing myself through writing. I think the reason this is is because I don’t feel as if I am put on the spot at the moment that I am speaking to someone. I don’t feel pressured and I feel that I have more time to organize my thoughts before I put it in writing. It feels good for me to know that I am not the only one that has this problem. My friend and I that I always hang out with has the same issue. I never noticed this and have only realized this until recently.
That is how we decided we should join a toastmaster’s class. I think doing so will really help us to deal with this drawback. If you have weaknesses don’t look at them as something that will only slow you down or hinder your progress towards your goal. Look at it as a motivator and as an indication that something needs to change. Anything can be rectified if you make the effort. No one is perfect, we all know that. You can be the best that you can be, there is nothing stopping you and there are certainly no excuses to be made either.
That is why I have been so caught up in self-improvement books lately. I believe there is always room for improvement. Happiness should be the feeling you get working towards your goals. Happiness should never be sacrificed for success but rather happiness fuels success. All of this is explained in the book, “The Happiness Advantage” by Shawn Achor. That is the book I am currently reading at the moment and I highly recommend it!
Keep working towards your goals and always try to be a better you!
X.O.X.O.
-Fifster
