Narrow Minded "Experts"

I'm not sure how many of you have come across this type of thing before but I cant for the life of me understand people sometimes.

A couple weeks back I had the opportunity to have an afternoon with who could easily be argued as one of South Africa's biggest residential property investors, someone I have been following for many years and to my absolute surprise I couldn't believe how narrow minded he was.

We got talking about various ideas one of which was the investment opportunity in the JHB CBD and he was absolutely shocked, "never really thought about it" were his comments. We then went through our actual figures, not research figures, real hard numbers from properties we own in the CBD and again, complete amazement.

The conversation continued and we eventually got back into talking CBD when he proposed a partnership where by he would invest cash as an injection and we would leverage this into bigger properties. We eventually agreed on a proposal and structure for the investment and over a few meetings agreed to get going.

We are now entering into a period were the first project is in sight and the investment is required and he is not sure if he wants to risk investing in this frightening territory of JHB CBD.

Now this is a man with many many millions of rands, many hundreds of properties and about a dozen businesses. How has he done it?

My point is this, as an entrepreneur you need to move quickly and be ready to investigate new ideas and take new opportunities, particularly when they are right in your "circle of competence" as Buffet puts it. You need to be honest with the people you deal with and above all have integrity when making commitments.

However there is a phrase for those who deliberate to long, its called "analysis paralysis" and its a killer of dreams and ideas. Do the research, make a decission to go for it and then put your head down and GO.