Get Unstuck Using The Corridor Principle

Q: Gerald, I’ve been trying and trying to get my real estate business going for a while, but things never seem to line up the way I need them to. What am I doing wrong? Scott, Poughkeepsie, NY

A: That is a great question, Scott and it’s one that I get asked all the time from people like you who are frustrated trying to get started investing in real estate.   The first thing you always want to avoid when you’re trying to accomplish anything is self-sabotage, because you can be your own worst enemy.  To help you, let’s talk about the corridor principle and how it’s key to you finding opportunities and conquering your fears.

In the 1980s, Robert Ronstadt conducted a study that found that the most successful entrepreneurs leveraged what is known as the “Corridor Principle”.

The corridor principle can be described like this….imagine you’re looking down a long, dark corridor.   Without knowing what’s in front of you, you walk down the corridor and as you move along the corridor new doors open up on both sides of you–doors that you would not have been able to see had you not started walking down the corridor in the first place.

In a nutshell, the Corridor Principle affirms that the mere act of starting enables you to see and take advantage of opportunities that you wouldn’t be able to see or take advantage of if you stay put where you are now waiting for circumstances to be perfect.  In order to follow the Corridor Principle to success, you must be willing to launch yourself down the corridor of opportunity without any guarantee of what will happen–that’s when truly uncommon opportunities manifest themselves.  The truth is that circumstances will never be picture perfect, and let’s be honest, even if they were perfect, we could easily convince ourselves otherwise.  So the key to getting your real estate business going or getting anything that you really want started is to launch yourself from wherever you are right now, then look at your results and make adjustments as you go.   The Chinese philosopher Laozi, who was a contemporary of Confucius said that “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Good luck, Scott!  For more real estate tips and information visit my blog at geraldlucas.com.