I was having a conversation with a colleague the other day and she was telling me about how her last year had gone down. In short, she followed all the advice and did all the things… and somehow she still lost all of money and was now working towards resetting her thinking, cause none of the brilliant advise led to her being any closer to wealthy or happy.
This ultimately got me thinking as well. Why do we all believe that we have to follow a system? We get into real estate, driven by a passion for homes and people… or because real estate school is a couple hundred dollars and college is super expensive. But after we take our tests, we’re told that we now have to spend 3 hours a day calling strangers who loathe our existence, knock on doors and try to convince people that we’re the best sales person out there to ‘help them’, or sit in empty houses like bait for either the worlds most loyal buyer, or a serial killer…. And so help me, if I go to one more seminar where I hear one more person tell me that their amazing life consists of getting up at 6am to do meditation, journaling and sun salutations, before they see their precious littles off to school and begin there regimented day of calling their ‘sphere’, showing 3 houses and going on 2 listing appointments, then coming home to make dinner and enjoy family time… I’m going to GAG! Stop it! Go to bed! No one’s life should start at 6am!
My question to you is, why do you believe that these are the best systems? Why do we believe that in order to be successful, we have to be so terribly uncomfortable? Why are we convinced that we have to make ourselves miserable every day in order to be successful? And if you do believe all of that, and you are living the dream, how did you continue reading to this point? Get back to work. For the rest of us, I challenge you to take a step back. Put down the koolaid, step out of the box, because you’re not a cat and boxes are hard and square and uncomfortable as hell… Go sit in a nice comfortable chair or even a couch and look at what you need to do to build your business. Look at who you want to work with. Look at the life balance you want to have. (and for those who have been doing real estate for a while, “balance” will include not jumping on your phone every time it rings.) Being challenged doesn’t have to be ‘uncomfortable’, it can simply be that you push yourself to be better, to do better, to feel better.
Make yourself comfortable and enjoy life…
I dare you to ignore the next unknown number that comes in, and go have coffee with a friend. I dare you to put your work out’s and your family time higher on the priority list, because respecting yourself will have a better rate of return over sacrificing yourself. I realized the other day that the studio that I used to go and work out at all the time is where a huge portion of my deals came from. Not because I’m in great shape and love working out, but rather because I kind of loathe strenuous things, and created bonds with others, as we suffered together. This is a relational business. Relationships are the key to your business. Also, knowing your shit, but that’s a given and we’ll discuss that later.
Now, I’m stepping off my soap box and going to lunch with a friend, before I get back to work… because this is the life I love living. And loving the life you live is the definition of being successful.