If You Can’t Stant The Heat…

We all know what that phrase ends right? If you can’t stand the heat, STAY OUT OF THE KITCHEN! I remember the first time I heard that saying in a business context and I thought to myself, “maybe we shouldn’t simply expect folks to stand the heat, maybe we should work to reduce the temperature!” Over time I learned that both are true, but that the delicate balance between the inherent difficulty of entrepreneurship and the never ending quest to increase efficiency needs to be maintained.

Over the years I started to see that it was absolutely true that building an organization was tough, very tough! At times I felt more like a firefighter than an entrepreneur. I felt like I was constantly fixing problems and dealing with issues versus building and growing. This discouraged me for a long time and eventually I started to grow tired of my day to day activities. Until one day I learned the lesson that helped me properly contextualize the daily struggle of the entrepreneur.

Real estate in and of itself is a stressful business. We’re not selling a simple product, we’re dealing with people lives. We’re dealing with peoples hopes and dreams, their life savings and investment plans. Their retirement, their legacy. I quickly learned that in an emotionally charged industry I have to constantly be on point! I couldn’t afford an off day.

Interestingly enough throughout my career I also learned that no matter how on point I was there were many aspects of a transaction that I simply had no control over. From the other party involved, inspectors, appraisers, underwriters and more I had to realize that I couldn’t control everything at all times. That reality often put me in tough spots that I had no say over at the end of the day. I could work hard to influence the transaction and those involved but in the end many things simply weren’t up to me. Often the temperature of a transaction started to rise higher and higher and I would start to sweat, figuratively and literally.

In real estate as in any worthwhile endeavor the temperature is going to rise. It’s going to get hot! Very hot! I had to change my approach quickly in order to avoid messing up my mental health. I kept trying to avoid the temperature from rising and I often found myself “failing” for issues beyond my control. I realized I didn’t have to keep the temperature low at all times, rather I had to learn to stand the heat! The more experience I got, the more I could handle the heat.

In the same way, whatever business you’re in you must understand that experience makes you bulletproof. The key is to find deficiencies within your company and address those with out becoming overly obsessed with perfection, because again not everything is up to you. So as far as the saying goes, “If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen.” I’d say, “If you can’t stand the heat, check your AC and if it’s running properly stay in the heat until it’s no longer hot! The next time around what was once boiling will seem lukewarm!”