Let me tell you a story…

I knew something was wrong and I couldn’t quite place it.

Have you ever had that feeling like something is just mismatched, but you can’t exactly figure out what it is?

That little voice in your head is telling you something is wrong, but you just can’t pinpoint what specifically it is that’s bothering you.

Then you finally figure it out.

That’s how it was on a loooong train journey in rural China heading toward a small town called Pingyao.

We were supposed to get off in the middle of the night, like 3-4 AM, and I was unable to figure out what was bothering me because my tickets were written all in Chinese — literally the only thing I could read was the numbers of the arrival time — and nobody on the train spoke a lick of English.

The map on the train wall was all in Chinese too, and I remember looking and seeing something that bothered me.

The map had the various stop names written in Chinese with the arrival times at each.

I realized that the time I had been told to leave the train didn’t match with the map.

Specifically, the time shown on the map had different Chinese characters for the town than the characters for it on my ticket for the town.

I showed the conductor my tickets, but with the language barrier, all I could do was to point at my watch and have the conductor write the arrival time on a piece of paper.

But the time he told me did not match the time shown on the map that was all in Chinese on the wall of the train.

Pointing at the map just seemed to cause more confusion.

I looked up the town in my guidebook, it had the name written in Chinese too, and it matched the map on the wall, not my tickets.

So what to do?

Was I given wrong tickets?

Which stop to get off at?

The wrong choice could leave us stuck in the wrong town until the next train a few days later.

And who knows that that town would be like…

Time to make a gut decision.

I decided to get off the train when we hit the stop that matched the map and book, not the tickets.

And it turned out…

That was the correct decision.

It was the gorgeous town we wanted to see.

Why tell you this?

Because sometimes you need to learn to listen to that little (Chinese?) voice in your head and correct course to make things right.

It happens in all walks of life.

Especially in your real estate investing business.

* Things just don’t always go as planned.
* Sometimes you get thrown for a loop.
* You get shoved off-course.
* Sometimes deals start to go sideways.
* Sometimes it isn’t always clear what to do.

But you have to be able to quickly analyze what’s happening and then make a decision.

That’s a skill you can develop.

And it helps to have solid training and frameworks to lean on.

That’s how I run my business, and it’s how I teach my Total Traction students to run theirs.

We do online Zoom training sessions each month. And at the end of February we’re doing a small group intensive event IN-PERSON at a stunning resort in sunny Clearwater Beach Florida.

All events are included in my program.

Ready to kick it into high gear this year?

Get off at the right stop here:
The TOTAL TRACTION Program

Tom Zeeb
Traction Real Estate Mentors