Billy Keels  0:01  How to Overcome evaluating too many options. Today's episode is sponsored by Billy Keels advisory services. If you want to learn more about how to make your 99 optional, just go to makeitoptional.com. Once again, that's makeitoptional.com. How to Overcome evaluating too many options is a little bit of a trip down memory lane for me, and more importantly for you, it's to help you get unstuck. If you have ever felt like you have so many different options out there that you don't know what to do, overwhelmed and you just want to be able to move forward. Well, it's going to be a really brief episode, but I'm sure it's going to be helpful, because I remember, like when I was in probably the early days of looking at building something outside of corporate while continuing to perform well in my corporate role. I got to this point where I started investing. I wanted to look at investing. I just gone beyond paper assets, right? So if you were already investing in paper assets, but you're looking to do something else that requires you to invest a bit more time, effort, energy, financial, resources. You can relate, and I could relate to you. But I got to this point where I had been studying so many different things, and I if you've listened to any point in time, I started in the real estate game. And real estate is such a broad topic, topic in terms of real assets, specifically residential type of assets, and then you've got residential, you've got commercial. But I was looking at everything from single family residences to small multi family, multi family, looking at industrial parks, looking at different RV or mobile home parks, and everything from value add, which means that you take it as it is, and you make it look nicer or feel nicer, or even development, so many different things that I was looking at. By the way, I had a full time job, and I was making what I thought was a really lot of money at the time and highly visible in the type of role. And so all of these different aspects were going on. But I just got to this point, I was like, Oh my gosh, there's so many things. Like, once my eyes were open to being able to have more control over the outcomes of my life. I realized, wow, there is so much out here and everything that was at the top of my mind. You know, I just wanted to you probably are there at the same point or not. Probably you are there because you're thinking to yourself, well, I want to be able to make more money, right? I wanted to make more money because I knew that if I could make more money, then I was going to have the freedom to control my own destiny, meaning that I wouldn't have to ask the boss for days off all the time. I wouldn't have to ask and see if my colleague was already off that same week or gotten in advance of me and and then there was going to be this like, who gets the days off? But the thing that happened is, although it, you know, it all looked really, really good, or it all looked bad, because I wasn't really understanding so much. I got to a point where I felt overwhelmed with all the options, like there were just so many options that I froze. That's one of the paralysis analysis issues that I ended up having because I ended up go it took me from 2008 until 2013 when I actually purchased my first property. So almost five years. So four and a half, if you look at the timeline, more or less, more or less. And so the thing that I that I struggled with, was I was I was overwhelmed, because I had this high, massive energy, because I wanted to take more control and have control over the outcomes of my life and get to that freedom. And at the same time, it was like, Oh my gosh, where do I start? So what did I do? Well, I just kind of kept becoming more and more of a theoretical ninja. And then that, by the way, that means that I wasn't taking any action. But it felt real good until it didn't feel good anymore. Because then when I looked up, I started realizing, like, hang on a second, I have colleagues that are working with me. At the same time, they're building this nice little real estate portfolio. And some of them were here in Europe. Some of them were in in the US. I've met a couple people also, too, that were doing the same thing in Latin America. And it was kind of like, wow, but they only were doing one thing. So they were either doing real estate and only real estate, or in a particular type of real estate, like I had a couple people that only did single family residences, other people that just did small multifamily. I mean, I got a friend of mine in the east coast of the US like, that's all he did. That's all he focused on, and that's all he continues to focus on. Because he built up expertise, got to a certain point where other people were had their like, non competing consultancies, that they were enjoying the day job, and they were also had a passion project, and they were providing consulting services, but not in the enterprise software space. Obviously, you know, it was the doing other different things, whether it was instruments or sport, these types of things. But I started realizing that there was a pattern, like the people that were actually moving forward, they weren't evaluating a whole bunch of options. They were doing something very different. What were they doing different? And what did I start realizing that I had to do differently? It was stop looking at all the different options and actually just pick a lane. Let me say that again. Stop looking at all the different options and just pick a lane. That's what I ended up doing. And so once I picked. One of them. Guess what happened? I made a decision to just go all in for one thing, and when I made that decision, I started to build up my expertise. I started figuring out and finding out the people that I wanted to get closer to so that I can understand, like being very intentional about, how do I begin to build this expertise and also be building a path to be able to grow even more into the future. So once I realized that it was about picking, picking one thing, that's what helped me to slice the overwhelm and get it out of my mind, and that's the thing that I continue to help today and that I'm sharing with you, because if you are feeling overwhelmed, you can resolve it really, really easily, because overcoming overwhelm is doing exactly like I did. It's making a decision, and you have to realize that when you make the decision, it may not be the right long term decision, but at least you're going to get feedback. You're going to understand what is it that you like about this decision that you made? What is it that still makes you a little bit concerned? What is it that you want to repeat and do more of? What is it is it that you want to do less of? You get the answers once you make a decision and you take action, that is the thing, and that's what you understand. And once you make that decision, you can overcome overwhelm, and you start to realize, because I started realizing, that it's not really about doing more, because that's everybody wants to do more, more, more, more. How can you do more? The real key in order to move forward and to get closer to the freedom that you're looking for is to be able to actually do less. It's to focus not do more of what's there, but do the right things, because the right things give you meaning taking the right actions, because you will only know if it's the right action or the not best action once you take it, and so that's what you have to do, because you're going to get constant feedback so that you understand how you need to adjust, whether you go left, you go right, you go up, you go down, because as you're moving, just the thing that's not going to happen is you're not going to be overwhelmed by evaluating too many options, because You will have chosen one, and you will begin down that path, and you will adjust along the way. So if this is not you, if this is you, pick a path. That's it. If you need help, you know where to find me. If this is not you, but you know somebody who is struggling today because they feel overwhelmed. They are not doing anything. They're in this state of constant analysis paralysis, share this episode with them. You're going to be the person that really helps them to get unstuck. That's what this is about. This isn't about just listening to a podcast, not doing anything. It's about taking it and if it's not you, it's sharing it with somebody else. And guess what? The idea is for it to be extremely actionable. Today, if you're feeling overwhelmed because you're looking at too many options, pick a path. Start down the path, take action. Your future self is going to thank you for it. Okay, if it's not, you share it, and if you've just shared it, make sure you go from theory to action and get on the phone, talk to the person who's your family member, the person that you cared enough about to share today's episode. And while you're doing that, guess where I'll be? I'll be right here preparing for the next episode. So until then you want to make it a great day. Thank you very, very much.Billy Keels  8:08  Today's episode is sponsored by Billy Keels advisory services. If you want to learn more about how to make your 99 optional, just go to make it optional.com. Once again, that's make it optional.com.