Right Business, Wrong Time

The question I’d like to address in this episode is from a gentleman names Derek, a recently minted new appraiser asking about long term views on the industry and whether or not I think he got into the right business at the wrong time. I really appreciate this question because it means he’s aware and in touch. I’m assuming he reads or is maybe on forums and facebook groups and has seen or heard something indicating an industry in peril, or at least one evolving, and he’s concerned he just got into an industry that may force him to make another career change in a few years.  ​

To listen to the podcast episode of this blog post, just click here...

---

Well, Derek, thank you again for your astute question. I’ll give you my opinion and maybe tell a story or two along the way to help illustrate my points. I like to say that I’ve been in real estate since 1989, which is when I bought my first duplex income property. I was 19 years old at the time and new jack all about the market, real estate, mortgages, etc. I was working at my family’s supermarket and had absorbed the entrepreneurial education my parents had been giving me so I decided the best thing for me to do if I wanted independence was to move out and the smartest way to do it was to buy a duplex so that I could rent out the other unit and basically live rent free.  
 
I’ll be 48 years old this year and can, with confidence, say I have seen and learned a lot in the almost 30 years since that first purchase. The most important lessons I have learned in those 30 years however, has almost nothing to do with real estate, mortgages, appraisals, or any industry for that matter. A couple of the most important lessons I learned were about myself and the belief systems I had, and how to recognize opportunity in areas that almost nobody else sees opportunity. It’s not a trait I was born with or particularly good at for a long time, but I learned that having complete confidence in myself, my ability to think, my ability to respond and be resourceful, and my ability to leverage my skills in areas that are often overlooked would be my greatest asset in life.  
 
What that allowed me to do over those 30 years was flex and bend when adversity arose and, in some cases, pivot and move in another direction if needed, but always with the same confidence that, based on all of the qualities I just mentioned, opportunity would expose itself to me. And when I say that Derek, I say it somewhat as a challenge to you and to all the listeners because I have also learned through teaching people over that same 30 year period that the vast majority of people miss a huge percentage of the opportunities laid at their feet simply because they don’t have eyes or the mindset to see them. I talked in the Giving Yourself a Raise episode about thinking and belief systems that we all have buried within us that literally make the decisions for us on almost every single action we take throughout the day. From how we dry off after a shower to how we brush our teeth, take our coffee, choose our food throughout the day, and the decisions we make on the big stuff as well like what we believe we are capable of, how much we earn, what kind of house we can have, and what our lives ultimately look like. 
 
Now, I know you didn’t ask the question to get a lecture on how to think. But you’ve asked an important question and it deserves more than just a pat answer. I’ve also said in prior episodes how important language and communication are to me and, being a student of communication and relationships, and having studied extensively on patterns of thinking and how we express our belief systems, I know that every statement or question made by an individual is expressing something deeper than what the words may initially convey.  What people say reveals something about them that can help the listener more adequately respond in ways that the person asking the question will absorb better than if responded to a different way. Your question is a very good one and its one that his its roots in fear. You’ve asked a question that expresses some concern over the future and whether or not you need to be on your toes and looking in other directions in case the other shoe drops, so to speak, in this new profession you’ve chosen.  
  
With that being said and in answer to your specific question regarding right business, wrong time, the answer is a hearty NO! In the same vain that I’d answer NO to the question, “do you think Derek was born the right guy but at the wrong time”. I don’t know you yet Derek but, based on your question I’m going to safely assume you’re a smart dude and you have some initiative or you wouldn’t have gotten your appraisal license and started down this path. People have asked me many times for my advice on whether or not to get into this business but they almost always ask me about the market, the business, and the income potential without ever asking me if I think it might be the right career or business for THEM! They focus on the externalities and specifics of this business when the most important aspect of any business or career is the person in it, not the business.  
 
I’m not trying to be deliberately evasive on your question Derek but, being a student of communication and having managed, trained, taught, and spoken with thousands of people over the last 25 years, I’ve learned that all of the external things don’t matter one bit if the internal stuff is incongruent. This could be the absolute best industry ever by almost every metric and measure and have a long lustrous future ahead, but it may not be all those things for you. Conversely, you could be the absolute best appraiser in the business and fit perfectly with everything about this business but find that its an industry that’s not suited for your vision of the future. Your internal game must be congruent with the external stuff for their to be what we call a ‘vibrational match’, meaning your mindset and personality fit perfectly with the external world or business you’re operating in. Where there is mismatch, there is discord, dis-ease, and eventually dismay. For me to simply answer your question with a response about the external stuff without ever making it relevant to who you are as a person would be irresponsible of me and would not be addressing the whole picture. I cant paint a rosy picture or a grim one but it says nothing about what you may see as opportunity. My hope in responding to your question is for all of the listeners to also hear that everything is relative to how we think, feel, and act. Where some see decline, others see opportunity. Where some see roadkill, others see a meal for another species. One mans trash is another mans treasure, as the saying goes.  
  
As you can imagine, I and all of my appraisal, real estate, and lending brothers and sisters have seen lots of change in 30 years. And why wouldn’t we? The world has changed drastically in those 3o years. What is observable, if one takes the time to look for patterns (this is an easy one), is simply how quickly things change relative to how long it took things to change 2o, 10, or even 5 years ago. Information is the name of the game today and it grows and expands at an exponential rate and speed today. With faster information comes faster change. The effect this has had on almost every industry is visible in a variety of ways. The appraisal business has changed since I first got into it when digital cameras were just coming on to the scene. Just prior to my entry into it, but while I was still in the mortgage business, the appraisals for my loans in process were hand delivered twice a week by the appraiser and they literally had 3X5 kodak pictures glued to the appraisal photo pages. Then they began scanning the pictures into the reports which was revolutionary at the time. Then, of course, digital pics and better software, PDFs became more acceptable delivery methods (we were still getting hourly rate change faxes over the fax machine, by the way) and things have evolved extensively since then. We have cloud storage and software services, small but extremely powerful mini computers in our pockets that we occasionally make calls on, artificial intelligence in our homes to set the temperature, order food from the refrigerator, and play music or get the weather for us when asked.  I can start, unlock, or heat up my car seats with my phone now and I can also, more or less, complete an appraisal on that same device.  
  
What I would say to you is this,  the industry is changing. Of that, there is no doubt. It’s changing fast in a few areas. Some changes for the better and some, maybe not. However, with change comes opportunity. There are, and will continue to be, appraisers leaving the business because of the changes they see coming. I know appraisers who have left the business simply because of stuff they’ve read on appraiser forums where there can be a lot of doom and gloom. I love to see that stuff, by the way, because that kind of stuff tends to gather others who think that way and they all sit around the virtual water cooler bitching about things. Eventually some of those people will leave the business. Those are not the type of people we need in the industry and we certainly don’t need that mindset teaching others.  
 
Always remember, like attracts like and low energy systems always suck high energy to stay alive. Since negative thinking has a lower vibration or energy pattern than positive thinking, those with negative thinking tend to suck the high energy from the more positive people near them. With the advent of the internet, ‘near’ becomes a relative term because somebody across the ocean can be in your living room via video feed at a seconds notice. Negativity always seeks more victims and more high energy systems with which to bleed the energy from like a vampire. In fact, that’s what I call people like that, time and energy vampires. They never see anything good or positive in anything around them.  Be careful of these people! This is a little mental and emotional self defense instruction for you: learn to identify those people fast and put cover and concealment between yourself and them as quickly as you possibly can! And if somebody is listening and is feeling the emotion of offense, or being offended, you may want to search your forum history and see if you’re one of those people. See if any of your responses to questions and comments on Facebook groups and forums has delved into bitching about some aspect of the business. You’re either taking from or adding to. You’re either raising up your people, your clients, and those around you or you’re taking from them in some way. You get to decide which one you’re being on any given day or moment.   
  
So, Derek, what I choose to believe is that you’ve come into the business at the exact right time for you and for the industry. You were meant to come into this business right now and probably for a variety of reasons that only pertain to you. Those are reasons only you’ll know. But the industry itself is primed for change and its primed for evolution. What I see is huge opportunity on the horizon, Derek, but the kinds of opportunities I see wont look like the same opportunities that existed 10 years ago, or even 5 years ago. The industry, as many of us are operating, will be around for years, by the way, but the old ways of doing things will be retired along with some of the old guard still clinging to those old ways. And they’ll be bitching the whole way down, by the way. People hate change!  
  
The opportunities on the horizon, for people like us Derek, are opportunities in non-lending aspects of the business, training opportunities, opportunities that leverage technology and speed without necessarily sacrificing quality of information and output, opportunities teaching the new crop of appraisers entering the field, opportunities with realtors and lenders who will choose a good human appraiser over a computer model, and a host of other opportunities I wont mention just yet. Right industry? Yes! This is an awesome industry that has allowed a great many of us to create opportunity and freedoms not available in the vast majority of businesses and industries. Those things still exist in our business and will continue to exist for a long time. The way they’re delivered may change over time, but the opportunities will still be there for those of us who can see them or, more importantly, create them! Keep your eyes and ears open Derek. Look for the things that others are bitching about and ask yourself what that information is revealing to you. Look for pain points in the process for all of the participants in the transaction and ask yourself how you might be able to mitigate or eliminate that pain point with something you’re doing or could be doing. Look for opportunities to do things in your market that the other appraisers simply wont because they’re standing around the water cooler predicting their own demise. (In reality, they’re creating it!).  
  
Develop your ability to speak and lead! There is huge opportunity to those who rise up as leaders in this industry because there are relatively few in that category. There are a good handful of great technicians and teachers of process and practice in this business. But what I’m referring to our real leaders. Those willing to do the difficult work of thinking and envisioning a future that’s better than the current one. That’s what good leaders do. They see the future before you do and then help carve a path that makes it easier for you than it was for them initially. They plow through the deep snow and forge through the rivers to build bridges and clear paths for those behind them. They grapple with the attacks and attackers along the path so that those coming up behind them don’t face the same attacks. Be one of those people Derek and your future will be brighter than you can imagine!  ​

I know you probably wanted a simple answer like, “don’t worry man, its all good and everything is going to be fine!”. But its simply not that easy and I wouldn’t be doing your question justice if I blew it off with a pat ‘positive mental attitude’ response. Of course, positive thinking and attitude are absolutely required to be a member in any exclusive club of visionary thinkers and doers. Negativity simply has no place for people like us actually doing stuff and making things happen.  

Be careful my friend, this industry is filled with vampires! There are some really great, intelligent, uplifting people in it as well, but it has more than its fair share or negative people. I haven’t figured out if time and energy vampires are simply attracted to this industry because they can work in a dark basement or if the industry turns normal people into them. Whatever the reason, just know they exist and typically congregate together. Be one of the positive ones and you’ll attract like minded people to you.   
Which is my last piece of advice for you Derek, don’t wait for somebody to tell you what to do. I don’t mean in your office or your specific tasks. I mean in life. Nobody needs to give you permission to be awesome at what you do and certainly nobody needs to give you permission to go out and kick ass in your market with a little creativity and ingenuity. You don’t need anybody’s permission to tear it up. If anybody gets in your way and tells you that’s not how we do it around here , gently lead them to the side and simply tell them to watch and learn.  

Now go kick some ass Derek! I look forward to watching your journey on this path and know you’ll do great things now that you know the secret! The secret that nobody controls your future. Not FannieMae, not HUD, not the AMCs, or any other entity. As the great Victor Hugo famously said, No force on earth can stop an idea whose time has come! You’re unstoppable Derek and I believe you’re in the right place at the right time my friend! 

That’s it for today my friends and, as always, I’d like to thank you for investing your most valuable currency with me today, the currency of time. Stay tuned for the next episode where we talk about a concept called Future Banking in your business. No, it has nothing to do with the real banking system, it’s a mindset and goal setting process that builds wealth unlike any other!

Thank you my friends, that’s it for me and this episode and I look forward to catching up with you again next week!