When you're in the real estate business, you get accustomed to experiencing many emotional highs and lows. One day you're on top of one of the highest mountains you could ever imagine, and another day, you feel as if you're on the floor of the deepest valley. Such is the nature of this business you have chosen.

But one thing is for certain....the more that you possess an unyielding drive to succeed in this business the more successful you will become throughout your career. And in order to succeed in this business you have to be willing to fail---over and over and over again.

The people who achieve the greatest success in real estate sales and leasing and make big money at it are the people who fail the most along the way. However, they don't take their failures personally. They look upon their failures as outcomes to obtain feedback, so that they can completely nail it and succeed the next time. Instead of being afraid to fail and then pulling back from constantly taking all the action that they possibly can, these agents are constantly putting it out there talking to many people and confidently asking for their business over and over and over again.

While we notice that these agents consistently make more money than most of the other agents in our territory, what we normally don't realize at the same time is that these same agents are also rejected and turned-down for business more than any other agents in our territory too.

As a metaphor for all of this, being a fan of baseball, I was curious and decided to do a little research on the batters who had failed more than any other batters in the history of the game. So I took a look at the names of the players who had more career strikeouts while batting than any other players in baseball history. In looking at the top ten list of batters with the most career strikeouts, three of them are currently in the Baseball Hall of Fame, two of them will be in the Hall of Fame when they become eligible five years after they retire, and all of the other five players on the top ten strikeout list are among the greatest, most famous players to ever play the game. The man with the most strikeouts in baseball history, Reggie Jackson, is considered to be one of the most thrilling, exciting players to ever play the game, and a player who could be counted on during the most crucial moments in the playoffs and World Series. And Reggie had a full 33 percent more career strikeouts during his career than his nearest competitor!

So what does all of this have to do with your real estate business? It's simple. Don't be afraid to fail. The agents who succeed the most and make the most money have been rejected by more prospects, have been refused more listings by owners, and have had more deals blow up in their faces than any other agents in your territory. But just like the baseball players mentioned above, these same agents achieve great long-term success by stepping-up to the plate over and over again and learning from their failures. And like Reggie Jackson they can be counted on to succeed almost each and every time when it really, really counts.

Just as in baseball when you do what will have you become hugely successful in your real estate career people will completely forget about your many other failures along the way. The quicker you embrace short-term failure as a vital component to great long-term success in your real estate career, the quicker you will see your results skyrocket to the next level.

Published: May 23, 2003

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