If you're ready, let's take action today.

CRE Success Principle: When you tend to wait rather than act, that sets the tone, and a bias towards hesitation creates a culture of inaction.

Have you been putting something off while telling yourself you’re “waiting for the right time”?

We often convince ourselves that we’re waiting for the right time, but in reality, we’re just avoiding discomfort.

Whether it’s calling a prospect, reaching out to a potential hire, or launching a new initiative, waiting can feel safe, but it comes at a cost. Procrastination becomes a habit that weakens culture and limits results. As leaders, our inaction sends a message, one that can hold the whole team back.

What is the root of this hesitation? Fear. Fear of looking foolish, of failure, of not being ready. But readiness isn’t something you wait for, it’s something you decide.

If you’ve been putting something off, now is the time to act. Don't let fear hold you back. Take one small step toward your goals, today. Your future self will thank you for starting now.

I did. I hosted a workshop that I was initially worried nobody would come to. But I put my fear aside and made connections with 18 people.

Listen to Episode 216 of Commercial Real Estate Leadership and commit to moving forward, because the waiting game sucks. 

Episode transcript:

 Every moment that you spend waiting for the perfect opportunity is another moment that you are wasting.

We all know time is a precious resource, and once it's gone, we don't get it back.

And I get that waiting feels safe, but it costs you progress.

It feels like you're avoiding failure or disappointment, but in reality, you're just pushing your desires further away. And the longer you delay, the harder it becomes to actually get started.

So, in today's episode, I want to have a conversation about committing to take action, real action, rather than waiting for the perfect conditions to start, because that is what leads to results.

This is episode 216 of Commercial Real Estate Leadership. I'm your host, Darren Krakowiak. I help commercial real estate principals to accelerate revenue growth by building the right team, serving ideal clients, and implementing scalable systems.

As I was planning today's episode, I couldn't help but think of an episode of The Simpsons back in season four, where Homer becomes Mr. Plow.

Do you remember? He starts off a snow ploughing business and his best mate from the bar, Barney, becomes the plough king.

And the part of the episode that I'm thinking about, actually there's a number of parts I'm thinking of, like I can remember still the song, “I'm Mr. Plow, that's my name, that name again is Mr. Plow.”

But there is another part that's particularly relevant to this episode, which is when Homer drags his family out of bed to watch an advertisement that he puts on in the middle of the night on some public service access channel about his business.

So, the ad comes on, it's a little bit shabby, and played with the phone number, Homer turns to his family and he says, “Well, now we play the waiting game.”

And the waiting game, of course, isn't much fun. In fact, Homer remarks, “The waiting game sucks. Let's play Hungry, Hungry Hippos.”

And I want you to remember that because the waiting game sucks. It doesn't get you what you want.

We've got to be willing to take action, and that is what today's episode is all about.

You know, we're constantly hearing about the importance of timing the market, of taking the opportunity at the right time. But what we forget is that you only get to take the opportunities if you are willing to take action.

And if you're waiting for the perfect timing in order to act, then you're going to miss out on a lot of the opportunities that are there and available for you, because let's face it, well, timing is never really perfect.

The other thing I think people forget is that your decision not to act is a decision in and of itself.

So, if you've been waiting to call that prospective client or even your existing client to just stay in contact and to make sure you're nurturing the relationship, every day that you put it off is another day that you are giving someone else the opportunity to get in there before you and to be of service.

And if you think that you can be of service to a prospect or an existing client, you probably have that thought because you believe it, right?

You're not thinking of calling them for no reason. There's a reason why you're thinking about it.

If the thought has come to mind, then you should act on that.

Because you're not only doing a disservice to yourself by not acting, you're doing a disservice to that prospective client or existing client by not putting yourself forward and showing that you are available, and instead, someone asking in there and perhaps doing not as good a job as you would do.

I know that this might sound a little bit self-serving, but putting off leadership or personal development because the common answer I get or objection I get is, “I'm just too busy right now.”

Well, that is a decision which is not doing you service. Because the improvements that you make today compound. It increases your base level.

The biggest regret that I hear from my existing clients is not that they decided to get started, it's that they wish they had started sooner.

And you still have the opportunity with everything that you decide or think about from this day forward, the earlier that you decide to take action is another day that you will not regret not having taken action sooner.

I mean, can you imagine if you had taken the advice of people 20 years ago who told you that, “Oh, the real estate market's overvalued. You don't want to buy; we've got to wait for the crash.”

Well, these people who are still waiting for the crash, maybe their definition of a crash is that a real estate market comes off 25%.

But if it comes off 25% from current levels, it's still going to be massively, massively a worse deal for you than if you had actually taken action when you were able to.

And really, we can use any kind of justification to give ourselves comfort in not taking action. But the truth is that you're not waiting for the right time, you're avoiding the discomfort of starting.

Because waiting is a trap. It doesn't solve problems; it creates a habit of procrastination.

And as a leader, your team is looking for you to move first. When you wait, you set the tone, and unfortunately, a tone of hesitation creates a culture of inaction.

It builds a habit of procrastination, and once that habit takes root it becomes really, really hard to break.

So, let's unpack, what's really behind waiting.

It's mostly fear. It's fear of looking foolish. But, what if it's foolish to wait?

It's fear of failure. But what if not acting is what actually leads to failure?

And, it's fear of not being ready. And you know, you're never 100% ready for anything. Don't let perfection be the enemy of progress.

That's not to say that you shouldn't prepare and try and create the best possible preconditions for success. But the real learning comes from doing, not from sitting around thinking about doing something. That's where the learning is.

Can you imagine if everyone, whoever was offered an opportunity said, “Well, I'm not ready. I don't have the pre-required experience. I'm not going to do that.”

Then, no one would ever actually be moving forward in their life.

And the truth is that fear doesn't go away with time. It actually only grows.

And while you are waiting to feel more confident, someone else is out there making moves.

Now, you might not have all the answers before you do the deal, before you make the hire, before you take that pivot. But progress doesn't come in conditions of certainty. It comes from taking action.

So, what I want to encourage you to do, particularly if you are listening to this episode, just as it's released, which is just before the Easter long weekend, I want you to choose to do something just small that you've been avoiding and do it today.

It might be reaching out to a mentor or a peer, maybe there's someone you've been wanting to hire and you could just start to open up the lines of communication.

Or maybe there's an old friend that you've been meeting to get in touch with. Make the call. Send them that text. Open the lines of communication with an email.

Perhaps you need to start building a list of ideal prospects that you'd love to convert to becoming a client.

Take the first step, write the list. That is the first step towards them becoming a client.

And if you're suffering from procrastination, where you're avoiding the real work, by doing busy work, maybe it's time for you to delegate those tasks that are keeping you busy, so you can create time and focus and space to do the things – the bigger things – that are actually going to move the needle.

Readiness isn't a feeling. Readiness is a decision. So, if you don't feel ready, then just decide to be ready.

So, my message to you is: If there's something you've been putting off, do it now. Don't let the illusion of readiness rob your progress, no matter how imperfect or uncomfortable it feels.

And I want you to acknowledge that feeling, right? It's okay to feel that way. But once you've acknowledged the feeling, recognise that your future self is counting on you to start today.

And if you need an accountability partner, you can DM me on Instagram. We are @cresuccess

Or you can find me on LinkedIn. Just Google my name, Darren, CRE Success. Or go to the show notes where we've got the links to our Instagram and LinkedIn profile.

Send me a message and let me know: What is the one thing that you are going to stop waiting on and that you are going to start doing?

You know, I had been waiting for a long time to do a paid workshop, the one that I was telling you about a few weeks ago on the show, which was all about Beating the Bigger Firms.

I had some beliefs that maybe no one would want to pay to come to a workshop that I put on, and that it would be not an effective way to generate more leads in my business.

But I let go of those fears and I took action and 18 people joined that workshop, which then led to more phone calls and conversations and future clients.

And I'm going to do one again in a couple of weeks that I'll tell you about soon. This one's going to be for commercial real estate agents more generally.

I might leave it there. That's our episode for today, and I didn't feel ready to sing on this show, but I sung the Mr. Plow song. So see, I took action there as well.

Thank you so much for listening and I will speak to you soon.