Shiny Object Syndrome

If you haven’t already noticed, there are a ton of Facebook groups out there. In fact, I am probably in about over twenty of them myself. There’s Facebook Mastermind, Facebook Lead Generation, Facebook Expired, Facebook What Should I Spend My Money On, all these real estate groups that are geared toward giving information to the real estate agent. They are all collaborative masterminds. Needless to say, I think these forums are a great tool to be used in the real estate business. However, I do find one fault that is pervasive through these groups and that is what I term the Shiny Object Syndrome.

The Shiny Object Syndrome is when you constantly are looking to what others are doing and asking them, “What are you doing to be successful?” The Shiny Object Syndrome is when you constantly are looking to what others are doing and asking them, “What are you doing to be successful?” “What does your ad look like?” “Would you mind sharing your ad?” “Could you share the email that you sent that got you such successful responses?” and on and on. As you can see, there is this underlying feeling of laziness about this attitude, this “let me just borrow yours” idea like the stealing of a high school friend’s homework mentality. It’s juvenile and slightly pointless. You hear that someone uses x-y-z so, automatically, you are compelled to look into that. You immediately stop what you are doing and head over to this new idea that someone else happens to use, just because one person in Minnesota or some such place has had some measure of success with whatever might not necessarily be relevant to your area and you throw yourself hook, line and sinker into that.

This needs to be a cautionary tale. Don’t just drop everything and try whatever someone else, somewhere else entirely is doing just because it’s new and you’ve never thought to try it and well, they’ve seemed to find success with it. So what? I’ve said this many times before: Pick your three things! One avenue needs to be automatic, the second you need to pay for, and the third is what you want to spend the most time on. Pick your three! Don’t deviate to this Shiny Object Syndrome. It’ll frustrate you, cost you money, time, and wasted effort. Stay focused on the business plan that you have already put in place for 2015. Don’t get distracted based on what others are doing. Understand the knowledge, take it in, accept it for what it is and whatever context it is in and place it on the back burner. Do not go running from idea to idea, product to product. It’s the consistency that brings about success.