Dragging my feet or educating myself

[Kristi R.]

I am naturally an anxious person and worry/plan out A LOT of things, trying to be prepared for surprises.  I know that investing and, real estate in particular, is full of the unknown, especially for a newbie.  I definitely feel like I am in analysis paralysis mode and am trying to get the courage to make my first purchase.  My husband, on the other hand, is much more spontaneous and has the opposite go with the flow mentality.

I'm just curious.... how long did you spend learning about real estate before you jumped on in?  Also, any advice to get over analysis paralysis would be greatly appreciated!

[Brian P.]

Kristi, My father taught me to swim the old fashioned way, he just threw me into the American River one summer day, sink or swim, it is amazing how quickly you can learn to swim under those conditions.

I used the same technique when I started my investing the same way, I figured I would find out what I needed to learn when I ran into a problem and believe me your a lot more motivated to find out the answer when your standing in quicksand. Now days info and knowledge is readily available on sites like this. So I would suggest time management and scheduling one hour a day as your education hour and concentrate on something that you need to know at the present time. The only way to learn how to swim is by actually getting into the water.  Can't tell you the amount of investors that wasted decades or never ever got into the water at all because they thought they didn't know enough. This  a classic case of you don't know what you don't know, but if your in a place where you need to know it now, then you know what you don't know.