I Bet Many of the Cool Kids Are On the Verge of Greatness

by Jeff Brown

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

I’ve always loved the Cool Kids (CKs). I’ve never been a cool kid, but the kinda sorta quasi-cool guy who seemed to think differently, while simultaneously remaining under most folks’ radar. I’ve been the poster boy for Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours principle, which says we don’t become excellent at something ’till we’ve logged that many hours doing it. The CKs in the ethereal world of 2.0 real estate come and go, but the ones who’ve remained, some hangin’ by their fingernails, are the ones still puttin’ in those first 10,000 hours in the fields. That’s hopefully a diplomatic way of sayin’ they’re still mostly theoretically based and not so much empirically experienced — but gettin’ there.

A few of these CKs are gonna rise one morning realizing they’ve figured out where that last piece to their particular puzzle goes. When that happens we’ll all benefit wildly. ‘Till then? Let’s stop fallin’ in love with all the ‘can’t miss’ marketing ideas tossed at us as if they’re just as reliable as gravity and Grandma’s raisin-bran muffins. It just ain’t the case. If so, most of these kids would be livin’ the life of Steve Jobs, a CK himself, who actually put in the 10,000 hours and leveraged it to the max. Then he kept adding more 10,000 hour blocks to ensure the excellence of results.

What I’m tryin’ to say, and poorly at that, is that the CKs need to keep plowin’ their fields without ceasing. It’s like gettin’ in shape. You begin with a jelly belly and become discouraged after a week cuz you don’t look like Adonis yet. Rely on the universal principles at work — the most important of which is putting in your time. There’s simply no substitute for that part of the process. When working out consistently for a year, our jelly bellied friend is now slim ‘n trim, and wearin’ tank tops whenever possible. 🙂 Meanwhile, the others who haven’t unambiguously logged the hours, day in and day out, failed — but they’re still CKs, right? Maybe. Maybe not.

I’m about to complete my eighth 10,000 hour block in real estate related practice. This last one has been brutally humbling. Thank the Lord for the previous 70,000 hours. 🙂 It’s been the one requiring me to combine my OldSchool experience with the current economically changing times and the online facts of life. OldSchool Training + Monster Economic Changes + Learning Online Principles X 10,000 hours = We’re about to see.

Here are some personal examples of the principle in action, followed by some predictions of what we might be seeing in real time soon by some folks some of you may know.

In the writing of this post I’ve spoken to a couple other contributors, Tom Vanderwell and Brian Brady, both of whom seem to relate to this principle. I’ll let them speak for themselves, but their histories, especially Brian’s, show clear benefits from hours spent in the fields.

I can also point to Greg Swann. He’s been doing houses since roughly 2003 or so, after first spending time in rentals. He works inhuman hours a week, so I’m guessing conservatively he’s already logged well over 15,000 hours listing, selling, marketing and the like in those seven or so years. He’s been doin’ the whole Edison thing, experimenting with every possible aspect of the business. He’s been brutally honest with his failures, learned from them, applied his experience — basically a field plowin’ fool. He reminds me a bit of Jay Leno who was acclaimed as an overnight success after spending almost 20 years of over 300 shows a year. Yet, in these worst of times Greg’s breakin’ out BigTime. Imagine what he’ll do in a kinda sorta normal market when it finally arrives. A staggering thought.

So, to Cool Kids I say — keep doin’ what you’re doin’, cuz we can see how some of you are gonna change how we do things. Log the hours and keep the faith.