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Are You Scared of Trying New Things??

November 25, 2019

Are you scared of trying new things? Are you in a rut of what you do on a daily or weekly basis? Break the habit now. Try some new stuff. Go hiking. Ride a bike. Join a group of hikers, bikers or real estate investors.

I remember going to my first big real estate group meeting. I knew no one. Introvert is how I describe myself. There were probably about 200 people in the big meeting hall. People were talking, networking, and being friendly with each other.

I worked up the courage to go talk to someone. It was fine. I said something like, “Hi I am Rick, what do you do?” The silence was broken and we had a good short conversation. Nothing happened. I did not embarass myself. All that nervousness to talk with someone went out the window. I thought to myself, why are you scared Rick?

After the guy told me that he was new at this real estate stuff, I told him that I was kinda the same. I was working on my first deal and was hoping that everything was going to go fine. We chatted for a few minutes and went our own ways. I ended up talking with a few people that day.

I had thought that you had to have some witty line or you had to have an elevator speech so that you could look really cool. Nah. Even now, I just go up to people and ask them what they do. They start talking for a minute or two and then they ask me the same. Pretty simple.

It is the unknown that keeps you scared. When you have never networked with a room full of strangers it seems really intimidating. When you think about it you just want to meet some people and they want to get to know you. Pretty simple and nothing to be scared of.

As I write this, Thanksgiving 2018 has just passed. We tried something new. My wife bought a cooker of sorts and wanted to cook our turkey in there. She had heard that they come out great and said that we should try it.

I have never had any issues with my turkey cooking in the past 25 years or so. I thought for a second, WHY change? Then I thought, SURE, lets do it.  She said that she just wanted to try it. She said it would be fun to try something new and different. Because I am NOT scared and I am so easy going, I said, “Sure, why not?”

The turkey was great. It was a 18lb turkey and took about 3 hours to cook. The turkey was beautiful, moist, everything that you could want. We had a great thanksgiving.

Everytime that I try something new, I think what is the worst that could happen. In this case the ultimate would be that we have no turkey for thanksgiving. Now, that sounds like it would be pretty bad to have no turkey, but its not really that bad.

There is a restaurant thats called Luby’s that we could have gone to if things really went wrong. If it took too long to cook, if the bird burned, if it was dried out like leather, if we ran out of gas to cook it, or if something went wrong we had a back up plan. The plan was that we would go out to eat our thanksgiving dinner.

The backup plan was that we would have a restaurant cook us a great holiday meal. After we have a backup plan we try to eliminate having to use the backup plan. So what I did was get an extra tank of propane just in case this one was almost out of gas.

We also read up on cooking a turkey this way. We went on the internet finding out that it works great. The timing, how many minutes per pound, and the temperature was checked a number of times just to make sure.

By the way, the turkey was great. They call it oil less frying. Breast was moist, crispy skin(I even ate some skin because I am a fatty) and it was overall a great hassle free experience. Cooking the Thanksgiving turkey turned out great.

Trying new things involves mitigating risks or minimizing that chance that we have to go to plan B. If we do go to plan B, it should be an easy change of plans. For the turkey, I already knew that Luby’s was open and they even had some specials for the day. There was even a location not too far away.

No worries Mate, as the Australians say.

What are you looking at doing that scares you?? Be methodical. Ask yourself, “If this goes bad, what is the worst that could happen?” Also ask yourself, “Is the worst really that bad?” You also have to consider how likely is it that the worst outcome will happen?

When I get car insurance I never want the bare minimum. But how much do I need?

If you buy insurance to meet the state’s financial responsibility law, you must buy at least the minimum amount. The current minimum liability limits are $30,000 for each injured person, up to a total of $60,000 per accident, and $25,000 for property damage per accident. This basic coverage is called 30/60/25 coverage.

$25,000 for property damage. I know that if I hit a car and total it, that it may cost 40k or even 50k. What are the chances of hitting a 200k car? In everday driving I rarely see a 200k or even a 100k car. So chances are that I do not need 200k of coverage.

I used to have a whole bunch of insurance. When I started looking at what I had, I reduced significantly. Over the years I have also mitigated my risks. I rarely drive past midnight. My foot on the gas pedal (and brake pedal) has gotten significantly lighter these days (and I save on gas). I also try to stay very vigilant of my surroundings so that no one hits me. It is pretty rare when I drive in traffic before 9am or during the 4 to 6pm traffic.

All of these things will not guarantee an accident free life. I know that. What it will do is lessen the chance that I will be involved in an accident. And that is all that we can do, lessen the chance that the bad thing will happen. There are stupid drivers out there. They may still find me at 930 in the morning, but the chances are significantly lowered because there are not as many accidents at that time of the day.

So when you try something new in life, have a back up plan. Do all that you can so that there is a slim chance that you have to go to the back up plan. And even if you do go to the back up plan, make the back up plan something that is not too bad.

With that in mind, you should not worry about trying new things. What can go wrong? You have a back up plan that is pretty good, you have mitigated your risks so that you will probably not even have to go to the back up plan in the first place. And so much more importantly is you might even have some fun trying something new.

The new year is coming up and people will be making resolutions that will be broken in a few days or weeks. Dont make resolutions that will fail. Just start trying some new things in your life. You will find that your life will change dramatically for the better. Try some new restaurants, take an unusual vacation, get involved in a group, volunteer your time, get out there and start living life.

Happy Thanksgiving