I look back on it all. I see and consider the success, those important moments and the final decisions I made to put the trust of my future into my own hands. I look back on these and think of my father.

I think of how it started and what ignited the right mentality to not only be a homeowner but to be a thriving entrepreneur.

I think in many ways of my father. …

But I’m not suggesting that parenting is the key to success.

Neither mother or father can take steps for you in the life you live. What I consider about my past just happens to be saturated with memories of wanting success and memories of an important person helping me to understand what those dreams I had meant.

I admit, I was an ambitious young lady and often had ideas suitable to the blooming business types.

Without my father’s help, I was lost and abandoned. What may surprise you is that it was through my father’s failures that my greatest lessons in life were learned. Being an entrepreneur today is no different.

I learned from that man that failure is a part of it all. It is the way. If I took his failures as who he was, I would miss out on seeing what the pursuit was and is. It’s constant movement, constant attempts and constant readjustments. But failure is not what I want to discuss today.

When I tumbled the little but thrilling thoughts in my mind as a child, I would, as many youths do, present them to my parent. My father in this case.

Thomas R. Bell, Jr. was not the epitome of success that we know of. Because of this, I knew that he couldn’t, within himself, allow me to spoil my own successes. They became the achievements he could never live.

He taught me how to fail.

He taught me how to pursue anyway.

He knew that I had time. So he began to encourage me differently. …knowing that I was receiving from life a baton I would pass on to my own.

For every time I saw something I wanted ,  he would interrupt, “Compare it to at least three other options!” The habit I picked up allows me to prospect homes with accuracy today and in a way I couldn’t have learned in my entire lifetime.

For every one prospect, I now know there are two to three others as comparable. And this is what I want YOU to do. I want you to avoid putting all those eggs in a basket. Trust. …is something built over time, and too many bad decisions destroys it.

This is when I look for other options, and I want you to do the same. You’ll never be able to trust yourself without the comfort of knowing what’s available and buying real estate is about knowing what’s out there.

It’s about knowing the options.

So next time a great opportunity comes to you, do one simple thing to empower yourself. Consider at least three other options. I already know they exist.