Diary From a Classroom

December 8, 2010

If you happen to follow me on Twitter you might have noticed lately that, uhh, I haven’t really been tweeting much to follow. I’ve been in class!

Classroom Annie! Nate and I have recently made things official: our first, solo, real estate investment property. Eek! We’ve had plans for years to get into real estate, and number 15 on my Life List is “Get my real estate license” so why not jump into both at the same time, right?

For 40 hours last week and 16 this week I’ve been sitting in a classroom in the middle of Kansas City, taking notes (actual, handwritten ones), and listening to a Southern-drawl’d teacher lecture on real estate laws, agency, and licensure.

Off the subject, but you guys, this teacher is a riot. He’s twenty minutes deep into a talk about general warranty deeds and fee simple title and then all of a sudden starts preaching about the business structure of Chick-fil-A. Earlier that day? A comparison between real property and personal property brought about the wonderful portrayal of fatherhood Laura Ingalls Wilder depicts in her Little House in the Prairie series. Don’t ask. None of us had any idea either. All of this between his accent that, sometime after hour 37 had several dozen, antsy, grown adults snickering until they cried. Dollars became DAWluhs and buyer came BIAar. It was awesomeness.

As I was driving home at the end of the week, I realized how rare of an experience I had. We purchasd the property we did right on the edge of barely knowing what we were doing. I enrolled to get my real estate license because I knew it would give us a leg up, but didn’t have any specific idea how or when or by how much. I hadn’t thought twice about anyone I might get to know during class, and five days later walked away with a half-dozen self-motivated, goal-driven, risk-taking, entrepreneurial friends.

It was a brilliant example of Ready, Fire, Aim.

Last week I realized that I need to stop aiming more often. In fact, let’s stop aiming more often…together.

You up for it?

More classroom “notes” to come. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Diary From a Classroom, Part 2

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