Why Property Investors Repeat the Same Mistakes: The Psychology Behind Your Patterns | Bahdar Shokar

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If you're tempted to skip this one because it sounds like it's not for you — that instinct is probably worth examining. It's exactly what  Bhadar Shokar would say.

Bahdar is a psychotherapist who has spent over 20 years working with vulnerable children who've experienced trauma. 

In that work, he watched early experiences create deep patterns — ways of coping with the world — that shape a person's capacity to trust, regulate emotions, handle stress, and build relationships. 

He then noticed those same patterns showing up, almost unchanged, in the adults those children became. In business. In property.

He joined us first on Episode 269, where he talked through how he bought a block of flats with a 10% deposit. Today, he's back to talk about the part of the property story that nobody posts about on LinkedIn.

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We discuss:

The Gap Between Financial Success and Fulfillment

Bahdar's starting question isn't what's your goal. It's: if I gave you £1 million tomorrow, how would you actually choose to live your day?

Most property investors have a number — £10,000 a month, financial freedom, a certain portfolio size. Very few have thought carefully about what sits behind the number. And when they reach it, or get close to it, they discover the number wasn't really the point. The restlessness doesn't stop. The drive doesn't stop. The relationships that suffered along the way don't automatically repair.

Success and fulfilment, Bahdar argues, are not the same thing. And the patterns that got you to one may actively prevent you from experiencing the other.

Entrepreneurship as a Trauma Response

Where does the drive really come from?

Bahdar traces it back to early experience. A mentor he worked with had been told by his uncle he'd never amount to anything. That became the engine. The property portfolio, the deal count, the financial freedom — all of it, at root, a response to one sentence from one person decades earlier.

The need to be in control. The inability to delegate. The feeling that you're not employable. The sense that feedback is criticism, that criticism is shameful, that shame must be avoided at all costs. These aren't personality quirks. They're patterns. And they formed long before you found property.

Bahdar asks: is entrepreneurship, at least partly, a trauma response? The wish to control your future because at some point you couldn't? The conversation is uncomfortable. It's also useful.

The Negative Chatterbox — And Why You Can't Switch It Off

Imposter syndrome when calling an estate agent. Paralysis when asking an investor for money. Paying for a mentoring programme and then doing nothing with it. Bahdar hears this constantly, and his view is direct: that's not a mentoring problem. That's an internal dialogue problem.

The internal chatterbox — the voice that says you're not good enough, you don't belong here, who do you think you are — cannot be silenced. Bahdar is clear on this. Trying to stop the self-talk doesn't work.

What does work is awareness. Catching the thought as it arrives. Watching it pass. Not letting it run your decisions without your knowledge.

The patterns are in the unconscious. Most of us can't name, at the end of a day, what we've been saying to ourselves. But those conversations are happening regardless, and they're shaping every decision we make.

Property Disaster: Scarborough, Distance, and Emotional Regulation

Bahdar's own most recent property challenge involves the Scarborough block from Episode 269 — the refurbishment took longer and cost more than planned after the person managing it on the ground experienced a significant bereavement and disappeared from the project for six weeks.

No schedule of works. No communication with the contractors. Bahdar, managing from a distance, had to take the reins while doing his day job.

He could have lost his composure with the builders. He didn't. He held firm, stayed calm, laid out clear timelines, and asked whether they were reasonable. The contractor who had been getting heated on the phone rang him the next day to apologise.

Bahdar's reflection: the cost was higher. The profit was lower. But neither is life-ending. Staying emotionally regulated under pressure is a learnable skill — and in property, it's one that pays returns in almost every direction.

Property Is a People Business

Tenants want to be heard. Builders want to be treated as professionals. Letting agents want clear instructions. Investors want to trust who they're backing.

Every one of those relationships runs on the same thing: the patterns you've developed around trust, communication, and control. And if those patterns were formed in an environment where trust was scarce or control felt like survival, they will show up in your property business — often without you realising it.

Bahdar's approach with his own tenants: he tells them to call him directly. He'd rather know about a problem than have it fester. He models his properties on places he'd be willing to live himself. He doesn't maximise rent just because the market would bear it. A measured increase, he argues, is not softness — it's relationship management.

Three Things to Take Away

These are John's three points to ponder from the conversation:

1. We are all probably susceptible to repeating unconscious patterns formed in childhood — patterns that shape how we deal with money, risk, relationships, and stress in our property business, often without realising it.

2. The negative internal dialogue cannot be stopped — but it can be noticed. The goal is awareness, not silence: catching the voice as it comes through, rather than letting it run your decisions from the background.

3. Property is a people business. Your patterns around trust, control, and communication will directly affect your results — with builders, agents, tenants, and investors alike.

Guest

Bahdar Shokar — Psychotherapist and Property Investor Bahdar works with property investors and business owners on the personal side of their property journey. Links to Bahdar in the episode description.

First appeared on Episode 269.

Key Takeaways

• Financial success and personal fulfilment are not the same destination — reaching one doesn't automatically deliver the other
• The drive behind many property investors traces back to early experiences: a parent's expectation, a teacher's dismissal, a need to prove something to someone
• Imposter syndrome and inaction after mentoring are internal dialogue problems, not knowledge problems
• You cannot silence the negative chatterbox — but you can build awareness of it
• Emotional regulation under pressure is a learnable skill, and in property it pays off in almost every interaction
• Treating a property as someone's home, not just an asset, changes the landlord-tenant relationship in practical and measurable ways

Expat Property Story is the twice-weekly UK property podcast for expats and remote investors. Not financial or therapeutic advice — always consult qualified professionals.

Keywords: property investor mindset, property psychology UK, imposter syndrome property investing, property investor mental health, entrepreneurship trauma response, internal dialogue property, UK property mindset podcast, emotional regulation property, property investing fulfillment, self-sabotage property investor, expat property podcast