Find Your Water Cooler

Every highly successful person I have ever known, met, admired, read about, heard of, or studied has had the good fortune of being guided by a strong mentor. Every single one. (If you know of an exception to this rule, I'd love to hear about it). Doctors. Lawyers. Artists. Architects. Fishermen. Car mechanics. Real Estate Agents.......Especially Real Estate Agents.

There are obvious mentors, like the teacher at school who takes a particular interest in a student or the intern who finds themselves next to the company's Chairman who makes their way up the ladder to success under their tutelage. But more often than not, mentors present themselves in the most unlikely places.

Finding the right mentor is one of your most important decisions. Who you learn from and sit your ass next to is one of the biggest influences on how successful you will become professionally and personally. I would go as far as to say that having the right mentor is a prerequisite to success. ?

I've been fortunate in my life to have had many mentors. Most were unsuspecting and probably didn't know their profound influence on me. But all of them have shaped me in one way or another, from making my bed every morning to adhering to the guiding principles on which I built a business, brand, and team.

More now than ever, we should be asking ourselves who we are listening to and whose lead we should follow. Instead of being led by the nose by the wrong influencer or algorithm on social media, we should seek out the people and mentors who align with our ideals and moral compass and not allow ourselves to be led blindly by people with different agendas.

When it comes to my learning of real estate, almost all of it has been hands-on. But now, things in our industry are getting more challenging.

In almost every office I walk into now, I've noticed we are becoming less personally connected than ever. A few years ago, people were fighting for a desk, and now they seem reluctant to go outside their living rooms. YouTube and other online platforms have distanced us from personal interaction and eliminated personal connection as a prerequisite for learning information. Online platforms have allowed us to learn trades we might never have been able to with the click of a button at any hour of the day. This is awesome - but it also presents a considerable challenge. A challenge that is only going to get greater - really fast. The wave of Artificial Intelligence will rewrite every industry's roadmap and continue to distance us if we allow it.

ChatGPT, YouTube, and Instagram are powerful tools, but they will never replace the experience of standing around the water cooler with an unsuspecting mentor. ?

Let's do this.?

Shaun