I worked my first really big deal with Matt McDevitt, a broker who later became a huge player in our industry. I was amazed at how calm he seemed to be through the whole process. By contrast, I was anxious about everything, constantly calling him to see if the deal was still going according to plan.
After a while, he asked me why I kept calling him. I responded that I was calling to see if there was any trouble with the deal. Matt laughed, and then told me something that has stayed with me ever since: “Trouble? I don’t go looking for trouble, because if you keep looking for it you just might find it.”
I’ve been in this industry long enough to know that what he said is the absolute truth. If you constantly anticipate trouble you train yourself to always expect the worst. If you always expect the worst, it tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
It feels strange at first, but I’ve found the best way to avoid falling into this trap is to shift gears and think about positive things that might happen on the deal. After all, in most deals the best-case scenario has as at least as much chance of happening as the worst-case scenario. If you focus on the positive parts of the deal you will naturally begin to think of ways to keep the deal going smoothly instead of wasting time and energy fretting about all the things that might go wrong.
Don’t misunderstand me – some deals do have potential pitfalls, and you shouldn’t ignore them. Focusing too much on the best-case scenario can be just as bad in its own way as always anticipating the worst, because you may miss signs that the deal is going south until it is too late for you to do anything about it. My point is that you should not try to create trouble that isn’t already there. Deal with problems as they come up, but don’t let the possibility of a problem paralyze you from moving forward on the deal.
It goes back to the old saying: “Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.”
Have a great weekend,
Ro