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A couple of weeks ago I told you to throw your good ideas away.
Here's another take on it: you can't be great by doing something new every week.
Note I didn't say don't learn something new. I didn't say don't read something new. I didn't say don't listen or watch something new. Learning and growing are essential.
But don't mistake learning and growing from doing hard, boring stuff (the same stuff) over and over again.
Let's say my goal was to increase my physical fitness and specifically increase my flexibility (not the best-articulated goal). If this week I did yoga, and next week I did cycling, and the following week I did rowing, and the following week I did a leg strengthening workout - where would I be? I would not have achieved my goal. Sure, all that movement would have been better than doing nothing. However, how much flexibility (my goal) did I add by doing yoga for one week?
We simply can't have mastery over anything we do from time to time - or every now and then.
If you want to be good at developing and nurturing relationships, can you only do it every now and then? If you are going to work on developing relationships every week, how are you going to do that? Hint: it can't be today I will stand in front of the market and hand out cards, and tomorrow I will do cold calls, and next week I will try joining my kid's PTA, and ...
"What should I do today" is code for: I am lost in my business. Any time you wake up and ask yourself some version of that question, I invite you to use that as an alarm that you are off course. The moment you think, "what should I do", you are about to be distracted with something new (and/or shiny). That's why good ideas are a secret dream killer - they rob you of what you already know you need to do but don't want to.
There will always be some new idea or another good idea you can try. The only thing that matters is your execution. The power of action. "The power of did," as my friend Jerrod says.
Why can't we simply commit to one thing? I don't know for sure, but from my experience: success is boring. Mastery is boring. Everyone wants the medal for finishing the race but no one wants to put in the training.
Every day is training for a commission check. We never know when we will be paid. Today, as I write this, my wife got paid. Every two weeks she wakes up looks in her bank account, and bam: there's new money in there!
That's not us. Sometimes we can go months without getting paid, or we can have ten commission checks in a month! Some of us have had one month which was enough income for a year. But those months, while seemingly random and unpredictable, only come about because we were doing things that led to those results.
If you went back over the last 36 months, I suspect that if you totaled your income, it would average out to a pretty decent, somewhat familiar annual and monthly amount. The problem is that it didn't come to you in a smooth and predictable way. It came in seemingly random waves of business. But it *did* come, likely *if* you were working!
Working on what? Working on developing and nurturing relationships! Not social media. Not mailers. Not CE classes. Actually calling and meeting with people who you developed and nurtured relationships with.
You probably get it by now: you don't need more good ideas, you simply know that you need to do the things you don't feel like doing. Hang in there - now I am going to take a slightly different turn here...
True fulfillment in life does not come from achieving. It isn't found in accomplishing or arriving. It is found in living; exploring, discovering, and playing. With what? With what life is about. What makes a difference. What is fun and enjoyable. It sometimes is found in being with other people. And almost always comes when you do something that forwards the life of someone else.
That is a totally different perspective from most of the real estate industry. The industry is a profit-seeking mechanism, mostly with goals of profit. As that trickles down to agents, often there becomes a (sole) focus on achieving some financial goal (BTW: nothing wrong with financial goals, and a few people believe that if they acquire a lot of wealth they can help more people. Not what I am talking about here).
Instead of worrying about how to "make it" in life, what if your focus was to help others? It doesn't have to be anything incredibly noble or world-changing. Let me give you an example.
Over the last two years. I have received a handful of calls from people I developed relationships with at the doors. Trish, Mary, Tanya, Sarah - yes I know they happen to be women - but they all called to tell me something significant in their life and they wanted me to know. They all shared that me coming around to their door over the years added to their days - not subtracted. They were compelled to call and tell me. In most cases, they first left me a voicemail and then I called them back. The messages were so heartfelt that I saved them all. The conversations I then had with them - even more so - but I had no way to "save" them other than in my memory.
All four of these people - I never did a transaction with them. At least two of them I never will. And that leaves some people reading this with confusion. What's the point of going to develop relationships with people if they aren't going to use you for real estate? "How will I make any money?" you might say.
While that worry is valid, let's look at the other side of the coin: when you have a concern for other people, regardless of some outcome, the universe/spirit/higher power/life has a way of taking care of those who take care of others.
I look back at the many transactions I have done over the years with people I am no longer in relationship with. Not bad or wrong, simply what's so about the situation. And then I look at the people who I have had a meaningful impact with - even without a real estate transaction - and I simply get more joy and satisfaction from those relationships. I look back and say: yes, all that effort (knocking on 125,000 doors) was worth it.
It would have been a "good idea" to stop knocking on doors many years ago. It might have been a good idea to do more marketing. Get a website. Build an email list. Volunteer at the schools. Be on YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram. Be a Zillow Premier agent. And on and on.
Knocking on doors never felt like a good idea. It was never shiny and new. Frankly, it was pretty boring day in and day out. But what made the difference was keeping my word. I used to tell people at the doors that I would knock on doors for as long as I sold real estate (another way to be accountable). Knocking on doors every day kept me grounded and in touch. Now I have broken that promise. On the other hand, selling real estate is no longer my full-time profession. I spend the majority of my time helping agents - maybe like you.
One of the reasons I like traveling across the country and doing workshops in person - it is my new door knocking. It is not easy, it isn't cheap, it wears on my body. But like door knocking, I am "in the streets" with people like yourself. What is it really like in this city, in this town, in this suburb, in this office, in this market? While the principles of real estate are the same, there are so many nuances, different rules and practices, in what agents (you) have to deal with.
It would be easier to simply sell real estate. I get lots of good ideas from marketing and business experts about how to do things faster, easier, simpler, more scalable. It would be easier to do everything on Zoom, or pre-recorded, they say. But I have a concern for helping agents live in their Sweet Spot. I am committed that realtors set their own standards, and not be at the effect of the industry and other social pressures that take them off course or leave them not quite fulfilled. I am committed that agents create a life and business of boundless opportunity and freedom.
"If you do what is easy your life will be hard, and if you do what is hard your life will become easy." - Les Brown
It's hard to do the same thing over and over. It is hard when you don't immediately see the results you were hoping to see. It's hard to have faith. It is hard to have discipline. It is hard to have courage. It is hard to develop good habits that last a long time. It's hard not to be discouraged/distracted by what everyone else is doing.
But what happens when you can?
You don't need any more good ideas.
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