Walt Before Mickey: The Overnight Success Syndrome

In this world of instant gratification, people obsess over immediate results like never before. We have been conditioned this way, and the advances in technology has a lot to do with why.

Want to order a new book, t-shirt, or gadget? Just grab your smart phone and you are only a few clicks away from your order showing up on your doorstep 2-hours later via drone delivery.

The world is literally at our fingertips.

Pretty cool right? Only, there can be a dark side to this world of instant gratification in what I call…

The “Overnight Success Syndrome”

We are conditioned that when we want something, we want it NOW. We expect it very quickly, but what happens when not everything can be obtained instantly?

In business, sports, and everything else, this idea of “instant” can be dangerous.

We dream of being a professional athlete, founding a startup company to make millions (or billions), or becoming a celebrity actor.

Nothing wrong with dreaming, but most of us do just that, dream. And when the few brave choose to take action on their dreams, many go into it with unrealistic expectations of achieving their goal instantly, or “overnight”.

And when it doesn’t happen for them overnight and the “going get tough”, they either give up on their dreams, or spend most of their time looking for a magic bullet that will help them “get rich quick”.

Either way, they were doomed from the very beginning not even aware they never stood a chance.

Do The Work

There is no shortcut or magic bullet in the world that can replace actually doing the work!

This is what’s missing from those with the overnight success syndrome. Instead of focusing on doing the work necessary, they focus on shortcuts, magic bullets, “secrets”, and amatuer tactics all with the hopes the floodgates of instant riches will magically deposit an endless supply of money into their bank account…

We idolize great achievers, sports figures like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and Lionel Messi… Thought leaders, innovators, and entrepreneurs like Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, and Walt Disney…

We fantasize about wanting everything they have, the accolades, fame and fortune, the cars, the women, but do we ever stop to wonder what it cost them to achieve greatness? Where they came from, what their life was like prior to success, and how they actually became great?

Walt Before Mickey

As one of the greatest dreamers, and pioneers of the animation industry as he’s known today, with a legacy and empire that transcends time, the story of Walt Disney before Mickey is far from a fairy tale.

What most don’t know about the story of Disney, is the years of struggle, sacrifice, and despair he went through. For years Disney struggled to turn a profit or even pay his employees. He filed bankruptcy, and was even homeless at one point. They changed the locks on his home and on his studio.

Determined to make his childhood dream a reality, despite decades of pain and suffering, he persevered. Disney was no quitter, regardless how “tough the goin’ got”.

Quitting is easy. Turning dreams into a reality? Damn near impossible.

Bankrupt and homeless, he had plenty of opportunities to throw in the towel…

What if Disney would have given up at any of those many low points? What if instead of picking himself back up off the floor over and over again, he decided “enough is enough” and quit?

The 150 Billion dollar Disney company would cease to have existed, and most importantly, he wouldn’t have made a positive impact on tens of millions of people around the globe, as his legacy continues to do so today, and possibly forever.

If you want to achieve greatness, you have to do the work, put in the time, and be willing to fail over and over again

Disney’s story is eerily similar to many great achievers, but the ones that gave up on their dreams when things got hard? Well we’ve never heard of them have we?

If we boil it down to a few common denominators that Disney, Jobs, Edison, Jordan, Messi, and many other greats have in common, we find the same few attributes…

Passion, sacrifice, conviction, belief, and love for what they do just to name a few.

The two things they have most in common amongst them all however? Doing the work, and Failure! Each of them were willing to put in as much work as it took, and each of them failed over and over again.

Failure is temporary defeat. Failure isn’t failure until you quit

Thomas Edison is a shining example (pun intended ;-). He had a .001% success rate as an inventor.

He failed over 1,000 times trying to invent the light bulb. Quite a lot of failure and plenty of opportunity to be discouraged and quit wouldn’t you say? Like Disney, he persevered all his “temporary defeats” and used each as an important lesson to eventually get it right.

Never give up, you never know how close you might be…

I start early, and I stay late, day after day, year after year. It took me 17 years and 114 days to become an overnight success

Lionel Messi, Argentina Soccer Legend

It’s easy to see their success and want it, but not many realize the amount of time, work, and sacrifice that they put in prior to that success.

Overnight success doesn’t exist.

This Applies to Everyone and Everything

This principle applies to everyone and everything, no matter how large or small your goal. Want to lose 10 pounds, run a marathon, travel to the 7 wonders of the world, or build a million dollar real estate company?

Simple. Put in the blood, sweat, tears, and years to make it happen. In other words, do the work, put in the time, and be ready to overcome any challenges that you are guaranteed to encounter along the way.

The Short Game vs. The Long Game

Most people overestimate what they can do in 1 year, and underestimate what they can do in 10 years

Bill Gates, Microsoft

Amateurs focus on the short game, overestimating what is possible in the shortest amount of time. While Pro’s focus on the long game, and what’s possible in ten years or more.

Amateurs suffer from the “overnight success syndrome”, while Pro’s are are in it for as long as it takes, no matter the challenges.

See the difference in mentality?

Which one do you think most Real Estate Agents have?

The Overnight Success Syndrome in Real Estate

Many agents get into real estate already plagued by the overnight success syndrome.

Their goal is to “get rich quick”, unwilling to read, study, acquire new skill sets, and relentlessly dedicate themselves to being a student of business and marketing.

They are unwilling to put in the time and work necessary to create a “legacy business”, that will flourish long after they’re gone, just like Disney.

Instead, they spend their time looking for that ever-elusive magic bullet. For real estate agents, magic bullets come in the form of tactics; sales scripts, listing presentations, canned “done for you” newsletters no one reads, preloaded email campaigns that will “instantly turn your pipeline of leads into thousands of dollars in commission check on auto-pilot while you sit on the beach and sip on a cold one…”

They hope and pray that one day, one of these things will finally work, and will be the secret they have been searching for, instantly depositing fame and fortune into their bank account…

These agents are what I call the “low-information agent.” The low-info agent jumps from shiny ball to shiny ball, and spends their mornings “generating leads” aka cold calling, door-knocking, harassing and begging people.

I choose to spend my time a bit differently. Most of my time is dedicating to either working directly with my clients, or creating assets (content) that be leveraged multiple ways, and can be used forever.

They focus on the short game; I focus on the long game.

The low-info agent doesn’t know any better, but it’s not entirely their fault…

The Guru Syndicate

There is a large group out there, many times working in conjunction with one another, misleading the low-info agent.

I call this group, “The Guru Syndicate.” It’s comprised of coaches, trainers, and “guru’s” teaching these amatuer tactics such as cold calling and door knocking, all while continuously selling the the low-info agent the latest and greatest magic bullet and shiny object...

Their goal is to keep the low-info agent locked in the hamster wheel with $10/hr activities, while the guru’s sit back and take their money.

In a superhero movie, the real estate industry would be Gotham City, the Guru Syndicate are the Villains, and the Low-Information Agent would be their goons ordered to go out and do their dirty work.

Next month, I will give you a formal introduction to both these characters that, unfortunately, make up the vast majority of agents in this industry.

So stay tuned, as I continue to expose the severity of this “Gotham City” we call the real estate industry, and continue to fight to do something about it.