These 8 things can hold you back from being the REALTOR you thought you would be when you first got your license. Consider giving up:
1- An unhealthy lifestyle. I am as guilty of this as most of you but, as you grind and grind away, there are four things you NEED to have the energy to produce at a superstar level:
a- 7-8 hours of sleep each night
b- a healthy diet
c- daily exercise (even if it's walking for an hour)
d- play. (build a sandcastle on the beach sometime)
2- a Short-Term Mindset. Successful people set long-term goals, and they know that these aims are merely the result of short-term habits that they need to do every day. Break down what you want into daily disciplines and make those daily disciplines non-negotiables. I started speaking with a minimum of five past clients/day in 2017 and it made a huge difference in my production numbers. I got to that number by reverse engineering my income goal into something a I could control each day. I can control how many people I speak with each and every day.
3- Playing Small. I am as guilty of this as anyone but I decided a year ago that I was going to learn commercial mortgage brokerage and fund $10 million in commercial loans in 2019. I didn't come anywhere close to that number (I funded $2.5 million in commercial loans) but I learned exactly what it takes to fund $10 million in 2020. Watch me do it this year. That's an extra $80K to the income we earn from residential mortgage brokerage. With a daughter at the University of San Diego, that extra income will come in handy (ASK ME WHAT MY NEXT "BIG IDEA" will be to add for 2020)
4- Excuses. Successful people know they play the hand their dealt. When I read Jocko Willink's "Extreme Ownership" in 2017, the light bulb went off. I started listening to the Jocko Podcast three years ago and I learned that I was responsible for EVERYTHING in my life: my business, my marriage, my family, my happiness, and my health. I stopped making excuses for why I wasn't making $500,000/year and started focusing on doing that.
5- Fixed Mindset. This goes hand-in-hand with #3. Can you learn something new? Maybe you can get your Military Relocation Professional designation and help a whole new market. Or get your Senior Real Estate Specialist designation and learn how to help San Diego's fastest growing market of existing homeowners.
6- Believing in the magic bullet. Overnight success is a myth.
Successful people know that making small continual improvement every day will be compounded over time, and give them desired results. If I can speak to 6 past clients each day, in 2020, I'll increase my input by 20%- I hope that increases my output by 50%
7- Perfectionism. Gosh this is hard for me, especially when working with real estate agents. I always wanted everything to be absolutely perfect for every single loan transaction. I would get mad at underwriters, appraisers, borrowers, and even the Realtors who referred me business because they weren't helping me to meet the closing goal. In reality, perfectionism is all about my ego rather than about doing the job right. I read Dan Kennedy's book about Time Management and I learned that "good enough is good enough". I also learned that by delegating more things to my wife Debra, I found out that she knows how to a LOT of things better than I did them.
8-Multi-tasking. Shut off the cell phone. Close your email. Don't go on Facebook. Do "that one thing" well and quickly and move on. The human brain is not wired for multi-tasking and its hurting your work quality.