Overcoming Fear of Other People's Opinions in Real Estate
As a real estate agent, you will be faced with other people’s opinions. You will be putting yourself out there and asking for business. You will be working outside of your comfort zone on a daily basis. How then do you overcome the fear of other people’s opinions in real estate?
In this real estate agent training podcast, you will learn some actionable ways to overcome this limiting belief. Staring with understanding we are all biologically wired to care about what other people think and ending with how we can continue to show up with bravery everyday as a REALTOR.
Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Rev Real Estate School podcast with quick tips and actionable advice to help you sell more real estate in today's world. Moreover, now your host Michael Montgomery.
[00:00:10] Hello and welcome back to Rev Real Estate School. I'm your host Michael Montgomery. Today we're talking about a very important topic. Now, this comes up over and over again. We're talking about FOPO. Now if you haven't heard of FOPO similar to FOMO and YOLO is actually fear of other people's opinions.
[00:00:32] Now I do a lot of work with newer real estate agents and by newer, I mean less than five years in the industry potentially in that production of early-stage real estate agent two about that 50 deal Mark. And that's typically where I do a lot of my work. And by and large this could be one of the biggest things that I see over and over again in this subset of agents. Now that's not to say if you're in a higher level of production or if you've been in the industry for longer than you do not fear other people's opinions. It's just with time and experience comes an increased level of confidence and people's opinions tend to matter less. They still definitely matter.
[00:01:13] For newer agents this can be a huge limiting belief. You get into this industry you don't necessarily know everything that you think you need to know and then you have to grow this business from the ground up. And I don't think I've met one business owner out there whether it be real estate or otherwise that hasn't gone through some period of wondering if there are enough if they're courageous enough to persevere in the face of other people's potential negative points. Now the reason why I say "potential" is because sometimes we don't actually know what the other person is thinking. So let's talk about some strategies. Let's get right into some strategies. And where does this come from?
[00:01:52] The first point I'd like to make is it's important to understand that we are biologically wired to care what other people think. So it's not a flaw it's not a fault of yours. If you're very concerned about picking up that phone and talking to your sphere because we're biologically wired to worry about what other people may think of us now it can be a hindrance to our business. So we have to learn to overcome it. But first, off don't think that there's anything less of you because you have these feelings. In fact oftentimes these feelings come from a place of just wanting to do the right thing and wanting to provide a high level of service. That's where it comes from.
[00:02:31] Now it boils up in the way that can be seen as fearing criticism and fearing what other people might be thinking of us. So how do we start to overcome this first is understanding that yes we are just biologically wired to be like this. So there's nothing necessarily wrong with us if we feel this way it's actually very very normal.
[00:02:48] Next is understanding bravery and courage. Now you may have heard this quote before that being brave doesn't necessarily mean not feeling fear. Being brave is feeling fear and doing it anyways. Now if we have hopes to excel in real estate then we have to proceed with bravery. We have to continue to work in the face of things that may make us fearful. There may be challenges having this mindset to understand that being a brave real estate agent and being a brave person doesn't have anything to do with not feeling that fear and not having the fear of other people's opinions. It means asking for their referral even though you are scared to death of doing it.
[00:03:29] Now some of these next steps come from Bernie Brown if you do need a resource on how to really start to explore this topic. She is amazing I'm sure you've heard her TED Talk. If not do a quick google search for Bernie Brown and you will get tons of information on bravery courage vulnerability all of that fun stuff. So what she recommends is having a small piece of paper basically a 1 inch by one-inch square. And she has this of people's opinions who matter to you. She said the list probably isn't longer than five people. These are the closest people in your life. If they were to give you feedback and say you know what you didn't do a good job on this that or the other thing you would take that feedback and you would learn from it. Because these are the people whose opinions matter to you. We're talking close friends family one to five people. Anybody not on her list. Their opinions do not matter as long as she knows that she is doing the right thing. And as long as in real estate you know you are pushing your boundaries outside of your comfort zone and trying to provide the highest level of service. Then you're fine regardless of what other people's opinions are regardless of if that person at the open house says I do not want to sign in I don't want to talk to you just let me look at the house and then you feel hurt regardless that doesn't matter because they're not on your one inch by one inch sheet. It's a super-powerful concept because it really takes the pressure off of us having to satisfy everybody out there and we feel sometimes as real estate agents that we have to be everything to everybody and that's just not true. So, having that piece of paper and having those people's names on there whose opinions truly matter to us are very very important.
[00:05:07] She goes on to say that in order to be brave it doesn't necessarily just mean that you're going to fall down. She says in order to be brave. You are totally going to get the crap kicked out of you and you have to be prepared for that. It's just the physics of courage that you're going to get knocked down. Now anybody in this industry will tell you that in order to succeed you have to be brave. You have to push out of your comfort zone you have to be courageous and none of these people will say that that came without being kicked around without being pushed down without experiencing failure without having those months of complete fear because we don't have any closings coming up that happens to everybody in this industry. It's not about whether that happens or whether that doesn't happen. What matters is how we respond in the face of it. Do we get up? Do we keep knocking on doors? Do we keep doing open houses and making phone calls or do we fall back? And do we start doing less and do we start making less phone calls? So it's acting in the face of fear again and being prepared for the fact that if you are going to be courageous you are going to do better in real estate. Period. If you are going to be brave you are going to get more sales. There's no question about that but if you are going to choose that route you are going to get knocked down more times than you would like. That's just the way it's going to be. But also as humans we are super adaptable. I don't think we give ourselves enough credit for how adaptable we truly are in the sense that when you start doing things that push that comfort zone and only you know where that comfort zone line really is when we start pushing the boundaries and getting into those areas of being uncomfortable it becomes easier.
[00:06:51] It's like the first listing presentation I ever did I was shaking in my boots I don't think I remember one word I said but now they're just easy because I've done so many of them and this is the nature of adaptability. And as we grow in our real estate careers we will have to continue to push our boundaries even once you start to get to very high production levels. You start to push those boundaries in different ways so don't fool yourself into thinking that as soon as you hit x number of deals life's going to become easy. That's one mistake that I made early on in my career and I said you know if I just hit one deal a month I'd be totally set and it was two and then I was four and then it was five. And it never really has an end to it. It's more about the journey every single step of the way in your real estate career. You know there'll be a different spot where you'll have to show up and be brave when you're new it's just trying to get those first few deals under your belt and man can it feel like a struggle but you really have to push out of your comfort zone when you're experienced hiring a team can be extremely scary and extremely challenging and we have to really push ourselves out of our comfort zones. These are different levels of challenges but there are challenges nonetheless. And don't get me wrong striving to get to the next level is extremely important. But depending on that fact I think that once you get there you will no longer have to be brave You will no longer have to push outside of your comfort zone. That is just not true.
[00:08:15] So coming back to Bernie Brown what did she say in order for us to just continue to push outside of our comfort zone every single morning. She says to herself to thing she says before her feet hit the ground she says I'm going to choose courage over comfort and I'm grateful that I have another day to try. So how does this look to you? Does it mean sending more one more handwritten note does it mean making one more call? Does it mean asking for a meeting at an open house from a potential lead? What does this look like for you? Depending on the stage you're out in your career it's going to look different but nonetheless we do have to show up with bravery every single day. And like we said off the start. Bravery has nothing to do with not feeling fear. It has everything to do with feeling fear and doing it anyways. And when it comes to other people's opinions we have to understand that it's just a fear that we have to let go. We have our one inch by one inch small piece of paper with our five people on there whose opinions matter and then everything else just means we have to act in the face of challenge and fear with courage.
[00:09:20] This is such an important concept for everybody and their real estate career but especially for those I find that are within that you know zero to five-year range less than 50 deals when they're really starting to figure out how they're going to build their business. Thank you so much for listening to this episode remember you can reach out to me anytime I'm at revrealestateschool.com Or on Instagram @the.michael.montgomery. Thanks again. We'll see you in the next lesson.
[00:09:47] This episode of Rev Real Estate School has come to a close. Thank you for tuning in. We will see you back here in the next lesson.