Top 10 Takeaways - Podcast 421 with Joshua Dorkin

BiggerPockets Podcast 421: Family Over Everything: How Life Forced BP Founder Joshua Dorkin to Reevaluate His Choices

Hosts @Brandon Turner and @David Green and Guest @Joshua Dorkin

1. Listen to this Podcast . You need to hear ’s story in his own voice. Period. We talk about some deeply, deeply personal family stuff with my daughter, and we talk about some other crazy revelations about this story of finding my origins.

2. These are the core values that we’ve established for bigger pockets, family over everything, serve others with purpose, build authentic relationships. Be insatiably curious, keep things fun and get it done. Challenge what’s possible and value unique perspectives. By the way, if you have not written core values for your business. This proved to be one of the most important exercises we’ve ever done. So the ironic thing is the top thing says family over everything. Here’s the problem. I was putting bigger pockets over everything instead of family over everything.

3. I think it’s the mindset. What do you do when opportunity presents itself? Just seizing opportunity, and not letting other people kind of dictate the terms of the life that you want to live for yourself. We all go through life having all these influences starting from our parents. Our parents are telling us do this. Don’t do that. You get to school and suddenly your peers dictate through various forms of influence how you should act or not act, you know, bullying or whatever it is. And that, that’s how we all live our life. We all make our decisions based upon those external influences until at some point, you can make a decision. At each step, along the way, I’m going to allow these influences to dictate how I go, or you can make that decision, say, you know what, I’m going to take control of my life. And so I'm sure all of you guys have folks out there who tell you what to do. Oh, you shouldn't do that. Come on, man. You're really going to do that with your business. Really, really? You're going to hire a property manager and not save all that money. Wait a second. You’re going to flip houses. Are you crazy? Who hears her? Something like that. Guess what you are going to continue to hear something like that forever. This is your life. You know what you need to do, you know, what’s important, you know, what’s necessary.

4. Find it within yourself to find a cause a purpose, some kind of inner drive thats your decision and your call and you can’t let all the other noise dictate what you’re going to do. You’ve got to believe in, you know, and trust in yourself and your own decisions, in order to move forward.

5. Do not wait until life decides for you. You know what you need to do. You know, what is important, make it happen and plan, write it down.

6. Take action. You can’t just write things down. You got to do it. You got to do it. Do not wait for permission. This is your life. This is nobody else’s life. It’s nobody’s business telling you what to do. You know what to do? In your heart. I see you guys. I see the brains spinning all of you guys. Think about all that stuff, you know, in your heart, what it is that you need to do, do not wait for permission. Take action and do it. Life is short. You can die tomorrow. I implore you guys to think about it. You can die tomorrow, and if you’re going to die tomorrow, what the hell are you going to do today? You better start changing your life.

7. You have your own path. You have your own path, you have your own path. We all have our own paths. And we have to figure out how that path is going to work. And there’s not any single person that is out there that’s going to tell you this is what you have to do. You have to figure that out for yourself. A lot of you guys turn and you look at me, Brandon and all these brilliant speakers up here, all these wonderful people, all the people within the community. And one of the things that stood out to me when I started bigger pockets was there was this group of people who were teaching real estate education. And they knew everything. They knew exactly how you had to run your business. They know exactly what you needed to do the path you had to take, but guess what? They didn’t know anything. They were selling you on that you have your own path. You have your own path, you have your own path. We all have our own paths. And we have to figure out how that path is going to work. And there’s not any single person that is out there. That’s going to tell you, this is what you have to do. You have to figure that out for yourself. So for starters, please don’t listen to anybody who thinks they know everything about everything because they don’t. Go out and find your path. Everybody’s got their own. Figure it out, you know, it, put it down, write it, follow it, do it. Good luck to you. Great, great quote from a very, very smart man. Your time is limited so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Thank you very much.

8. Every single one of you has something happening in your business that, you know, you need to do. And it’s usually the big, scary thing. And you sit and you wait and you procrastinate and say, I’m going to get there one day. I’m going to do it. Let me knock these little easy things out because they’re easy. And then you wait and guess what happens. You never knew that you’d ever do the big, scary thing. And it’s the big, scary thing that helps you to move forward. It’s a big, scary thing that brings you progress in your business and in your life. Now, in my case, it was, I was just working relentlessly.

9. There’s nothing more important than finding your happiness. Life has a way of giving you signals. Maybe you got to tweak things. Maybe you’ve got to change how you do it. Maybe you need to alter, maybe you have to find processes. Maybe you have to simplify your business.

10.  update: I’m pursuing my happy, I’m spending time with my kids. I’m finding hobbies the first time in years I’m getting fit. I’m getting the goods in the woods. I’m taking care of my mental health. I’m taking care of my family and I’m focusing on me. Haven’t done that in a really, really, really long time.

* Bonus Joshua Dorkin: On using downtime during COVID: I would plead to everybody listening to use this time, especially as we’re going back into lock downs again. Take this time, take this opportunity to really. Evaluate your life. Take this opportunity to look at not just your career path. This is a real estate show is a show where we talk about careers, but look every aspect of your life. Look at your friendships. Look at your family. Look at your relationship with your spouse or significant other. Look at how you behave around your kids. The time you spend with your kids. Look at your parents. Look at your neighbors and look at your community. Look at what’s important to your family. Everything else is kind of noise. Use that to dictate and shape the path that you want to take forward. That’s a good quick tip right there.