When you think of investing as a team sport, you will have access to people who have all kinds of resources you don't have. They will bring insight, knowledge, and relationships to your team. If you want to make more money, do what the most successful investors do. Become part of a team.

The advantage of playing on a team is that the whole team wins when one player makes a goal. Compare real estate investing to a team sport, such as soccer. In soccer, teamwork means that you pass off the ball if you are not in position to score the goal. When your teammate scores, you also win.

One of the enduring models of success is the model of the self-made man. (It's a model that is not usually applied to women.) In this model, success means that you did it on your own. The language of success for the self-made man is "the top dog wins." The image is that the self-made man climbs up to the top of the mountain, and proclaims: "I am the king of the world." This is the competitive model which is the opposite of a teamwork mentality.

Napoleon Hill's MasterMind concept claims that success is not a matter of doing it alone, but of surrounding yourself with like-minded people. Following the principle that the "whole is greater than the sum of its parts," teamwork will lead to greater success than trying to do it alone.

What difference does teamwork make in real estate investing? Consider the situation when you find a property you would like to buy, but you don't have enough money or credit to buy it. If you are limited to your own money and credit, you can't do the deal.

With an investor teamwork mindset, you say: "I can't afford to buy this property, but I know people who do have the money to buy it."

You can be a "bird dog." A bird dog is somebody who finds a property and passes the information to someone who can buy it. The bird dog makes money by finding properties, not by buying them.

Another role is to be the person in the middle, the deal maker, who puts together the seller and the person with the money. You can be the deal maker who arranges the deal.

What if you do have money and credit to be able to buy property? In this case, you can benefit from bird dogs and deal makers who bring deals to you. You become the investor who buys the property.

So what's the point? The point is that a team sport, such as soccer, needs different players playing different positions. You can play different positions at different times. You can play offense or defense. You can score or you can pass the ball to someone who can score.

If you understand that you're part of a network of investors, and that somebody has the money and can make it work, then it's not all up to you. You're not clawing your way up to the top of the mountain.

The real estate investor world is filled with people who have money, credit, and specialized knowledge. The more you treat real estate investing as a team sport, the more successful you will become.

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