This comes with time and experience but a book that helped me tremendously (not really a sales book, though) was "Boundaries" by Henry Cloud.The most common challenges for RE Agents early relate to generating leads and focusing on income producing activity.I would consider spending 50-75% of your side-hustle time on income generating activities. 

Another thing to keep in mind is to make sure you have an active income to help you have more options in terms of the strategy you will use to begin investing.

Nevertheless, it's always wise to conduct through research on any business before engaging with them to ensure your interests are adequately protected.Hope this works.

Sometimes I question whether there is some real estate investor challenge I am unaware of where investors actively try to one up one another with new ways to toss their money down the drain. 

--Local active investor.  

I've been researching this quite a bit and am looking into acquiring an STR that I would actively manage and would keep average stay at 7 days or less.

Hello,I'd like for someone who can assist me regarding the cancellation of my active membership that I paid for 2 weeks ago.

Focus on creating active income and use LTRs to shelter your money. 

The IRS requires the hours to be specifically in real estate trades or businesses, which typically means activities directly related to owning, developing, operating, or managing real estate properties.IRS Publication 925 outlines what counts as real estate trade or business activities, like development, construction, acquisition, management, leasing, and rental operations.

Establishing a great relationship with a mentor or group that is actively doing this would be great!