FOMO

Fear Of Missing Out. It’s a crazy thing to have.

It works great on my youngest sons. “Come on we have to go,” I say. “No I don’t want to,” they say. “Ok, we’ll just leave you,” I say back and all of the sudden they come running to the car.

They don’t want to be left behind. Of course, it’s something we would never do but in their mind, fear is created by not being apart of what we are doing. So they make a decision to come along.

Just as I use it to get them to do something they don’t want to do, businesses and advertisements do the same things to us to buy things.

It’s a rather tricky thing I must say. One you might not have even recognized unless you take the time to really break down what they are doing.

Which is to get your attention away from you and invest it in them by purchasing something.

For example alcohol commercials. Drink this, and you can become the person your not for a moment in time. But if you don’t do it, you’re missing out.

I’ve learned over time that anytime I’ve had FOMO I ended up with a bad outcome like:

I gotta have a new car. Now I’m broke for six years.
Eww I gotta have that new phone. Now I have a contract for a year.
Guns are selling like hotcakes. I better get one. I end up paying a price that is higher.
Try to impress someone by not being yourself. They end up not being a true friend.

When you have FOMO for yourself though you don’t run into those problems. 

Why? Because they don’t have control of you. You have control of yourself.

The only fear you have is the fear to build your own path. Controlling your own desires.

When you’re building your own path you don’t worry about missing out. 

In the world of real estate, FOMO can be a HUGE problem for partners and agents if you don’t know how to handle it.

You know that all real-estate agents are on commission. Because of that, we don’t get paid sometimes for months. It can really be hard to learn to live this way.

Panic sets in really easily when you don’t have money coming in. This can lead to the FOMO when helping a partner. Which in turn can lead you to not serving them correctly. 

I’ve heard from other partners before even trying to push people into homes because of the FOMO on a paycheck.

The same can happen for a partner in a hot market. When houses are flying off the shelf and it’s easy to get the FOMO and begin to settle for a house that doesn’t fit your needs.

Most recently I’ve been working with a great partner Ludy on finding another home. We are going through this same thing. We’ve looked at a good number of houses, and none of them have even been close to a fit.

We are ok with that as well because we know that if you don’t have the FOMO and have an investors mindset then eventually you will find the one with the right fit.

I’ve done this many times with the Value Driven Approach with partners, and it’s always worked out for the best in the end.

Why? Because we buy from our position. Not someone else.

It’s simply the right way to get a home that you’ll always be happy to live in, and that’s what matters most.

The last thing you want is to see a home you really wanted but couldn’t get because you bought one with the FOMO.

Have a great week.