Monday, August 26, 2019

The learning curve

Learning curves

I just had a great conversation with my son-in-law and fine Nicaraguan cigar on the balcony last night. He and I both have fully stepped into a venture of Real Estate investing and we are making lots of mistakes. Even though we have been studying this process for years, and dedicate time each day to learning more, we are still making mistakes. We had each other howling last night, as we were trying to out-mistake one another!

Perhaps you might think that we are just bumbling amateurs who really don’t have a clue and should sell all of the assets we are building immediately to stop the bleed? Perhaps you think we are unintelligent and lack diligence or patience, and that we are in over our heads? Out of our depth? And perhaps you might be correct in some minor way with each of those, but we are committed. Committed to making more mistakes. Because this is how we learn. It is also how you learn too, and if you don’t believe me, then you aren’t learning anything at all.

This is called the learning curve. Every new venture, relationship, goal, objective, and pursuit in life has one. You go from being a person who doesn’t even know what they don’t know, to a person making regular mistakes, to a person of high competence. There is no short cut to that process. If you aren’t willing to learn, to make lots of mistakes, to fail regularly, then you will never reach the class of the highly competent. The only way to hone these skills is through messing up and taking chances, and falling down and getting back up every single time. You can become the sharpest blade in any drawer if you are willing to face the learning curve.