04 Oct The Right Coach Can Catapult Your Business
Episode 12:
Chris is the Amazon Bestselling author of Real Estate on your terms – Create continuous cash flow now, without using your cash or credit. He’s also founder of SmartRealEstateCoach.com and SmartRealEstatecoachPodcast.com.
Chris has been in real estate for 25+ years. His experience includes the construction of over 100+ single family and duplex homes (mostly 1990’s and selectively to date), has owned a Realty Executives Franchise (Massachusetts 1994-2000) as broker/owner which maintained high per agent standards and eventually sold to Coldwell Banker in 2000. The 2000’s included coaching ½ million and higher realtors in order to scale & automate their business throughout US and Canada. He also participated (and still selectively to date) in doing condo conversions (multi-family homes to condos) and “raise the roof” projects (converting single-family ranches to colonials in growth neighborhoods).
Chris has been a big advocate of constant education and participates regularly in high-end mastermind groups and consulting with private mentors. He runs his own buying and selling businesses with his family team which buys 2-5 properties monthly so they’re in the trenches every single week. They also help clients do the same thing around the Country.
Chris and his family/team have done over 80 million in real estate transactions. They mentor, coach, consult and actually partner with students around the Country (by application only) to do exactly what they do.
Good morning, and welcome Smart listeners. I'm Chris Prefontaine and my focus weekly is to bring you an expert that can help you make a quantum leap in your business, your finances, and/or your life. Buckle in while we bring you the next masters class. Class is in session now.
On occasion, I deliver to you what I call a solocast. It's just me. You gotta deal with just me, and it's usually when I have something that hits me that I want to talk about. It's usually about 30 minutes for me, talking to you about mentors in general, a little bit about success habits. I got some bullets points in front of me here that I want to hit, and quite frankly, wherever else it takes us. Remember that this is about real lessons in the field. We talk about that, it's our tagline on our Smart Real Estate Coach podcast and so I'll always weave in my personal stuff here as I cover some content and some of the bullet points that I literally have right in front of me.
Now, I called this originally, then I got off onto different tangents when I took some notes here, but I called it “Catapulting with the Right Coach.” Now, catapulting means what? It could be personal. It could be business, could be your goals with health. It doesn't matter what it is. You're going to see why I say that as I go through. As I was taking notes for this, I was actually reminded recently about one of my coaches that was incredibly effective for me. Tim was my coach from 1995 to 2000. I thought of him recently because he always pushed me hard in March. I mean when I say pushed hard, just prospecting and networking and generally hard work because it would literally, at the time, I was a real estate broker. At the time, it actually set up my entire summer season of earning if I did it properly.
I do the same thing with our partners. I really push hard with our joint venture partners January through May. Then I do it again June through October because if I do it June through October, it literally sets up the entire next year. Just now before recording this solocast, I got off the phone with a joint venture partner. I said, “Look, Mike, don't worry about your results this month. It's irrelevant to what you're doing this month. Do worry about sticking with the plan, the game plan that we put in place that said if you do ABC, you'll get the results you want. Just stick with that and over time the average, it will go up and down, but it will happen.”
Example, this past month, again as of the time of this recording, we took one property and sold one property. Now on the surface, you think, “That's dismal. You guys have been in business for a while.” It doesn't matter. This month here, we'll probably sell four and take five or six. Why? We just keep doing the same activities, guys. The end result will be the same, over time.
Now this whole thought process also sparked me to paraphrase for you a great article that Dennis Waitley wrote called “The Power of the Right Coach.” To share that with you, my thoughts were in the hopes that you'll also grab onto this idea of hiring your own coach or mentor and creating the lifestyle that you deserve.
You always hear me talk about designing your lifestyle. Well, this is what it's all about. I'm not sure out of all of you listening to this who has coaches and who doesn't, but it's really a very, very simple concept. You find someone who's where you want to be or has been there. You find someone who has traveled the path you want to travel. You then connect with them and mentor and coach with them. Bam. That's it.
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[bctt tweet=”“Find someone who is where you want to be (or has been there) and coach with them.” – @chrispre”]
Did you know that? I'll give you a good example. I wrote this down. I was taking notes last week. Bill Gates actually used to speak with Warren Buffett, has for years. I don't know if he still does it. I'm assuming they do, but he used to speak with Buffett every single day. Now I'm not sure again if he does now, but I'd be willing to bet that at some consistency, they're talking. A coach not only gives you the strength you need to succeed. We all need and want that, but being in your face in a positive way with feedback that you need to adjust your path as needed.
Let me give you another example of the coach, Tim, that I referred to earlier. I'm a big advocate of getting on a plane or getting in a car and going to see your mentor and that's why we allow our JV partners to come to our office. Interact with myself, my son-in-law, Zach, my daughter, Kayla, and my son, Nick, and my wife, Kim. It's super important. I was out at Tim's house once in Big Bear, California. I think I'm saying that right. He lived on a lake.
We were going for a jog. At the time, we both did a lot of running. Tim's probably a good 15-18 years older than me. I was talking to him about how I'm going to expand my brokerage and open other branches and he just stopped. He put his arm out, stopped me dead in my tracks running and said, “Why do you want to do that?” He went on to tell me and I'm standing in the middle road, stopped during a run why that's going to be a waste and energy drained and just creating more headaches. Wow. I mean that was so ridiculously positive as I look back now. I would have never sold several years later like I did. I would have still been in the trenches and probably creating a bunch of overhead with very little net return on investment proportionate to what we put in.
Let me give you a different example. Let me give me an example as far as of our clients. We always, and I won't go into great detail with this because you can go on to smartrealestatecoach.com website and get this, but you want to look for the video called ACAA, A-C-A-A. That's all capital letters: A-C-A-A. We do this with our partners. What does it mean? It means we get them into action. That's the first A. Then we critique their action. That's the C and then we adjust based on that critique. Then we take action so it's action, critique, adjust, action. Notice I didn't say action, critique, I quit. See, it's action, phone call. Critique the phone call live. If you're using a phone call as this example, adjust the script based on the critique and go take action again. This is a constant never-ending process and if you practice ACAA with us, you cannot over time get off track.
Now it's certainly no secret that most outstanding achievements and absolutely incredible comebacks if you read enough books, have been the result of an individual whose motivation to persist under any and all circumstances was influenced certainly at some level by a coach or mentor. These coaches and mentors provide a correctional device to keep you on task. I use ACAA as my acronym, but they do this. Whether they're doing it consciously or not. Picture yourself as this missile going along and needing some adjustments here and there in order to hit your bullseye. Sadly, enough, I got that idea to say that when I was watching the North Korea stuff this week on the news. Hopefully, by the time you hear this, it will be old news.
Since 1995, I've actually never been without a coach and sometimes two or three at a time. I'm talking, as I alluded to earlier, business, personal, physical, nutritional, marketing, etc. for the most part. Coaching fees ranging, if you think about it now, anywhere from the nineties till now from $200 to $2,000 a month for generic programs. Then there's The Mastermind Groups and the other higher-level things. It brings us to a whole other level.
Let me give you an example. I want to put real life into this as much as I can think of as I go here. In 2015, I was part of a Mastermind Group that cost 25,000 to be a member of. Do you think there's probably some really cool people in that group if they had to pay $25,000? Scratch that check before they can show up in the room. Yeah, so some people might call this crazy, but in reality is that we're going to learn, I'm talking about our team, directly, from that Mastermind and profit and already have multi-millions from this association, both from direct takeaways, indirect takeaways, from contacts made there, on and on. I could bullet point a list as long as my arm. Who are you associating with? Who are you mentoring with? And what are you willing to pay in order to achieve all your goals? I'm talking really nailing, guys.
Source: Pexels
[bctt tweet=”“What are you willing to pay in order to achieve all your goals?” – @chrispre”]
This year, next year actually so this year we're looking into next year's Mastermind Groups and education and things that I want to be involved in and I'm interviewing leaders of two different groups. One was called a Seven-figure Mastermind. You gotta be doing seven-figures to get in and then they have to interview and vice versa. I want to interview them to see if it's a fit. I'm also paying this very month to go jump on a plane spend two and a half days counting travel, but to spend an afternoon and a night with Joe Vitale. Everybody listening to this probably knows Joe Vitale. These are things we consciously do here as a group, as a team and I hope that you do after listening to this podcast.
Forget the costs for a second. What if the return on investment was absolutely literally infinite? I can attribute, literally, I gave you a generic number earlier. I can literally attribute a half a million bucks plus more to many of these different mentors individually that I've had. That begs the next question. How do you choose one? Well, make sure they have a history of success. Now, this sounds obvious, but let me say something that's probably going to not be as obvious and some people are going to have an issue with. I actually — it may be some coincidental and maybe subconscious, maybe not — have looked back at my coaches and many of them have had some failures that have significantly strengthened their ability to succeed and thus their ability to coach me to succeed.
In addition to picking a coach based on their ability to achieve goals similar to yours, definitely choose mentors who in the process have overcome some of the same obstacles that you're facing or that you think you may face. Denis Waitley, to go back to him, says, “Seeing your mentors today is like seeing what you intend to be.” Pretty cool. Let me say it again. “Seeing your mentors today is like seeing what you intend to be.” Make sure you're watching out for that and making sure that's in alignment.
My 2008 story is in my book. The challenges and the struggles I went through. Be sure to grab my book by the way if you haven't already. It's called Real Estate on Your Terms, but I'm open about it and I can tell you if you're listening to someone that says they've never failed. It's highly likely, you've heard me say this before, that they are absolutely 100% full of crap. Pardon my French. Now, why am I saying that? Because if you push hard and you got the ax against the grindstone, sparks are flying. Things happening, guys. You are going to have some failures. It's not if you're going to, it's how you react to them. Speaking of that actually, let me change gears here.
I made a big title here across my page as I got to this point in my thought process and I circled it. I just wrote. I'm going to tell you what I wrote. I wrote, “challenges turned into successes.” As you guys all know, if you listened to enough of my podcasts now and/or have been coaching with me, you know that I'm a big advocate of constant reading so we can expand our thoughts and new visions and knowledge and get our brain thinking outside of the box.
I remember reading one in particular piece in 2008, during my debacle, my crash. The markets crashing on a national level and don't take this as a political statement in any shape, form or fashion because this was 2008, but Donald Trump's book Never Give Up: How I turned my biggest challenges into successes is absolutely a cool book to read. As usual, I enjoyed it. Probably because again, he went through some lessons, many, over his years. Again, I'm not talking about anything back in 2008 remotely related to politics. It was especially timely for me back in '08 to read that during the real estate market that most people thought was dismal.
Then probably a topic for another article, but there are so many opportunities out there now, that it's absolutely ridiculous and during that, there were certainly opportunities. Now I didn't see them because I was knee deep in crap, but now I see them and now I'm poised to go ahead and be in an even better position for the next downturn. They'll be one. It's not if, it's when.
We simply need to challenge our focus and stop hanging on to what the media is touting when you start talking about how the markets doing if you're in real estate listening to this podcast. Yes, I got beat up for example during that 2008 debacle, but I can tell you now, my entire business, the way we run it, the financials, the refusal to sign personally and get bank loans, the complete engineering of the business — which I call the re-engineering because that's what we did back then, is totally different. Everything because of the 2008 debacle so that's why I circled challenges turned into success.
Now let me go a little bit further into that book. In the appendix of the book, it lists 10 success tips absolutely worth me sharing with you. I'm not going to share all of them with you, but in no particular order, let me give you a few of these. I'll just highlight. I think I got like three or four I jotted down here. One is never give up. I mean he talks about in here and I ad-lib some of my notes here, but don't settle for remaining in your comfort zone, always, always, always. Remaining complacent is a certain sure-fire way to get absolutely nowhere.
What is your comfort zone? Just give this some thought. Take some notes. Whatever zone that you've defined your mind with that question, it's going to be your ceiling. That's a scary thought, guys, so expand your thinking. Now how can you expand your thinking? Well, here are some of my thoughts. How about getting books that get you thinking outside your box. I look around my office here. I see Showboats Magazine; big, large, expensive multi-million dollar boats. Do I want to go out and buy a sailboat tomorrow? No. I have no interest in going for a boring, in my opinion, sailing. However, I do have an interest in knowing how and why these people do what they do and how they think.
Raw Report is another one. A book called The Magic of Thinking Big, which I read several times since. I'm going to date myself here at my honeymoon in 1986. You cannot read these things and a whole bunch of other things that I'm mentioning here without thinking bigger. You just can't so here's another one. How about joining us for one of our upcoming events? How about grabbing my book? Real Estate on Your Terms. Expand your mind, guys. It's critical. I'll give you one more then I'm going to move onto another point of his and then I'll bullet the last few.
I'm about 20 pages away from finishing McDonald's, Behind the Golden Arches. Now if you want to read a book that can and should expand your mind, that's a great one. I don't care if you’re selling popcorn. I don't care if you're out buying one home every quarter, this book will get you thinking because Ray Kroc, if you didn't see the movie The Founder, started with absolutely nothing, struggled through two, three, four, maybe more failures and then just built an empire. Read the book. You gotta read a book.
Another point he put in the appendix is be passionate. My thought is really simple on this. If you love what you're doing, it won't seem like work. I don't say I'm going to work. I say I'm going down to the office. I just love doing what we do. I recently refocused a lot of my energy, for example, to the coaching side of our business as my team, which is our kids, are running the buying and selling side, 100%. I would say except for the financial side. They're doing all the prospecting. They're going to appointments. They're handling the buyers. They're handling the paperwork, everything. That's something that I can do on the coaching side, absolutely do, anywhere in the world and I can do it in my sleep, meaning it comes easily to me. I get up pumped to do it. I'm good at it. I love helping JV's create deals. Of course, the profit sharing and that that we do with JV's doesn't hurt either so it's not work for me. It energizes me.
Now, are you doing what you want to do right now? If you want to latch onto our energy, I mean I'm going to give you a selfish plug here, apply for JV Program. Apply to be one of our joint venture partners and let's go crank some deals together and if your area is not taken and if your application is something that we'll accept, we'll be on the phone soon and we'll get after it. Let me just bullet a few other ones. I'm not going to dwell on these too much, guys.
In no particular order, be focused. Ask yourself this, what should I be thinking about right now? Shut out the interference and think about that. It could be because in this age of multitasking, my God, it's ridiculous. This is a valuable technique to get good at, just refocusing and being focused in general and time blocking. I don't take incoming calls if I'm sitting here doing outgoing. Why? I have no idea who's calling. I'm not in control. It messes up my time. For you to jump every time the phone rings or every time an email comes in is absolutely insane so make sure you do that.
Here's a thought for you. Put a sticky or an index card on your computer that says is what I am doing right now moving me closer to my goals? That'll get you thinking. That'll keep you focused. Keep your momentum. I just wrote down momentum and then I wrote keep it. Listen, you want to do this as far as momentum. Don't procrastinate. Did you ever notice a few good things happening in your life or your business and then all of a sudden, it kept snowballing? Now, scary. Did you ever happen to experience that going in the opposite direction? Let's build upon your successes. In other words, see yourself as victorious. I don't want to get into a whole energy, woo-woo mental thing here, but if you see yourself as victorious, it's going to focus you in the right direction.
Source: Pexels
[bctt tweet=”“If you see yourself as victorious, it's going to focus you in the right direction.” – @chrispre”]
Read every single book you can get your hands on about the law of attraction or I love the entire book and series of books and all the connections that are mentioned in the book, Zero Limits, by Joe Vitale. One of the reasons I'm getting on a plane to go see him this month because in it, you'll find your way and I want you to do yourself. You'll find your way to other authors and speakers that are within the same realm.
Here's a takeaway for you. Go subscribe to tut.com. I'm not going to tell you what it is. Just go subscribe for a daily message.
I wrote down be lucky. I know that sounds wacky, but this was in the back of his index in the book and the old saying, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” It's absolutely right. Ron LeGrand, one of my past mentors and friends to this day, says “The less I work, the more I make.” Well, similar saying.
Next I wrote down look at the solution, not the problem. Trump put a similar one in the back of his book is where I got it and then he wrote never give up. He keeps saying that. Again, I guess the guy's pretty much ingrained with that, but this thought deserves to be reviewed and remembered and applied over and over and over again. It's super important.
We've had plenty of our challenges as I said in real estate in 2008, and we learned as we move forward always, but gosh, if we sat and we whined and we listened to others and we listened to the media. I should get off the media thing because that's probably Trump, but if we listen to others, we'd be whining for years to come. Instead, we actually refocus on solutions and new ideas and moving forward.
Look, I gotta tell you, since starting the terms business in the real estate world even though we've been at it for 21 or 22 years prior to that, four years ago, that we have had mistakes. What do we do with them? Well, we said, “How much did that cost us? How did that happen? What can we do to fix it so it doesn't happen again? Do we have to change any of our forms internally, our checklists, our agreements with the attorneys? What is it that we have to do to only focus on solutions?” And as a result, our businesses become rock solid because of it. As a result, we're able to share that with our joint venture partners who don't have to go through the same mistakes. I'm not saying they're never going to have one, but if and when they hit it, they have the answer at their fingertips.
Now I want to transition off the book. You might as well just go read it. Go read Trump's book. Now another cool concept that I wrote about in the past and I don't know if it's in my book, Real Estate on Your Terms, but I wrote down at the top and I've written it to you if you'd watch my emails before and I wrote, be the first penguin. Not what the heck does that mean as I use this thought to wrap up this whole solocast there?
Well, I forget what book I read it in quite honestly, but I keep talking about it and referencing it. One of these days, I'll stumble upon it, but I do remember taking notes on it and I wanted to share it with you guys as part of this piece on coaching and mentors and success in general. So here's the call. Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. I'm a going to repeat it again. I hope you can write it down. Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. Isn't that cool.
I read that expression and it stuck with me so I've ended up repeating it over and over again. It's a phrase worth you guys considering. It's worth considering in particular when you hit a curveball, when you hit a brick wall and hit a challenge. Literally, with every disappointment and at every roadblock. This experience thing is what creates absolute, breakthrough industries, breakthrough ideas, breakthrough movements, in my case, breakthrough re-engineering of our business. Yeah. I'd even say some breakthrough professions. In the real estate world, because it's constantly changing, I think it's a super, super important to keep at your forefront. Maybe another index card or a sticky for your computer. It's also a reminder for us all that failure is not just acceptable, it's absolutely essential.
I mean look at mine. Because of mine, we're helping hundreds, hundreds of other investors have a blast, create a lifestyle for their families that they didn't even imagine before that. In the book, there was a professor because I just took notes in my journal and unfortunately, as usual, I mean unusually, I write down the name. I didn't. My apologies, but in the book this professor talked about how he gave his students a First Penguin Award and that award went to the student or the team that took the biggest gamble in trying new ideas or new technology while probably, likely failing to achieve their goals. Think about that. He gave an award out for those taking the chance, taking the gamble and failing.
It actually enabled them to celebrate that out of the box thinking that I refer to always and that I referred to earlier today. In using our, their, imagination in a daring, thought provocative way. Here's why he started the award. When penguins in real life, when penguins are about in penguin life, when they're about to jump into the water that likely contains predators, well somebody's gotta be the first penguin in, right?
The first person who failed in his class got that award. The person who failed often knows, I think you'd agree how to avoid those future failures. It's how we started this last section here so the person who knows only success can do what? They're more oblivious to all the pitfalls and I'd actually be as I've alluded to in other podcasts and have other interviewees agree with me, and confirm, who've also through challenges, it makes you oblivious to the pitfalls and such set you up for failure in my opinion so be careful when you pick your mentors.
Can I test this personally? Yeah. As I mention in almost every podcast, I can. After being in the business in some shape, form or fashion of real estate for the past 26 years, I was able to make oh, about 15 or 20 large mistakes in 2005 and six that made my 2007 and eight quite miserable and then I spent three and a half years trying to fix all that. As a result, my wife, Kim and I were in a position by 2013 and clearly for the foreseeable future, to not just experience our best years ever, but to also have the best experiences as we are simply amazed at the healthy, productive, profitable and fun culture that we're currently aligned with by choice with the family and with everything we do about our business.
I'm not bummed about the 2008 market. I'm actually static beyond belief that some of my partners and investors have stuck with us and those that have stuck with us are all reaping enormous benefits and those of you that didn't, well, too bad, your loss.
Now if you'd like to rub elbows with those that have overcome some amazing odds, they go on to great success, not just our team, I'll get off us for a minute, but join us for our upcoming event. Rub elbows with some of these other joint venture partners. I'm not going to give you names, but there's some really cool stories in there. You're going to learn about them. You're going to meet them. You're going to talk eye to eye. You're going to shake hands and you're going to get an awful lot out of it.
I'm going to say this before I wrap up. If you just came to the event for the private JV day and then you went home, I don't want you to, but if you did, you would get tens and tens and tens of thousands of dollars worth of lessons and experiences just from that. For the ones that don't recognize the penguin in this situation, well, you'll have to watch from the sidelines. I'm don't know how else to put it. I'm always blunt. I hope it's okay with you guys. Those that come to the event, you will experience breakthroughs. You will in your business, in many of you, in your income, in your direct related bank balances and then in your personal life.
I'd like to wrap up with a chat about discipline because I think it goes with everything. I love the topic. I always told our kids growing up that with the right discipline you can be outstanding at anything you want. Here's a question for you guys. What new disciplines could you start acting on tomorrow? I would even say today. That you know will improve your business or would improve your business, I should say and/or your life, but you just haven't done it yet.
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[bctt tweet=”“With the right discipline, you can be outstanding at anything.” – @chrispre”]
What new disciplines could you start acting on right now? Forget tomorrow, that you know can improve your business or your life, but you just haven't done it yet. In other words, you fill in the blank here. “I know if I just did blank, blank, and blank, I'd get blank.” I often combine my thoughts on this discipline topic with a simple concept of making today a better tomorrow. Meaning improve every day. Making today a better tomorrow because what we do today is a direct relationship with the results we get tomorrow. What we do today, every day is just what? Discipline. It's just disciplines that we practice.
What is discipline to you? Okay, I hope you have at least one or two words or definitions you have, but think about that for one quick second before I give you my thoughts. What is discipline to you? Now the dictionary says, “It's an activity, exercise, or regimen that develops or improves a skill, training.” That's what the dictionary has. Here's mine. Doing the things daily that you know you should even when you don't feel like it and even when you don't see immediate results. I'm going to add a third to that. And even when no one's watching. That's my definition.
It's super clear that the common denominator with all successful people that I've been talking about and eluding to and that you should rub elbows with, they form habits. They form disciplines that failures just don't like to do. For example, if you saw my work day, you might see a very pointed effort to meditate or yoga or workout on a given day. This morning happened to be yoga and meditate. Yesterday, happened to be working out at 4 a.m.
You might also see that we track numbers. We check everything and I don't care what position you're in and what you track, it will improve and grow. And three, you might see some quiet time to write and journal and think. Those are all pointed things, pointed disciplines that I've learned to do over the years. They didn't come easy at first. It takes, as you may have read other author's work, it might take you 21 days. It might take you 30, whatever it is for you to form that new discipline, but start somewhere because people say well, how do you get it all done? How do you do all this discipline? Sounds like a lot of work.
Well, let's all assume we're brand new today and instead of getting caught up in the minutiae that happen once we accumulate all this minutiae and baggage, here are some thoughts to consider adding to your day. On this discipline topic, I'm just going to throw a bunch of disciplines at you. Whether you're in real estate or not, I want to throw these at you. Then I keep saying I'm going to wrap up, but I will with these thoughts.
I'll just balloon. For us, it's three calls a day, guys. I don't care what business you're in, you can do three calls. You can call three new people, three new businesses, three new prospects, whatever it is that can add new potential business for you. Now, for us, that's 10 or 15 a week. That works perfectly. For you, you might want to just the numbers. In addition to that how about you add in your area of expertise, a few minutes of reading? How about if you add a daily or a weekly accountability product?
If you don't know what that is or that's another whole seminar, let's talk about that. Message me. Message me at chris@smartrealestatecoach.com. Let's talk about what that means. Work on your why every day. There's a discipline. How about substitution? What does that mean? Well, take a habit that you currently don't like or currently is not productive and substitute it with something else. Let me give you a real simple example watered down. If you currently get up and go to breakfast or grab coffee now, how about if you substitute a workout like I do and have alluded to and then have something healthy eat?
I love it. I told you I got to the gym at 4 a.m. I switched gyms because I found Anytime Fitness, which opens 24/7, which is a gold mine. Super, super cool. You go anytime you want. No pressure, but why don't you start that? Why don't you get up an hour earlier and go to Anytime Fitness? No plug for them. I don't know the owners, but it's the coolest concept.
How about if you started reading? I mentioned reading, but how about if you started reading and working on your mind? Forget your area of expertise and this shouldn't be I'm going to read more. I'm going to read 10 minutes every single night if you're not already there. If you're not already there and you haven't started that daily habit, don't say I'm going to read a book a month or something crazy. Just raise the bar a teeny bit.
I don't know, five minutes. Five minutes will do it. Start somewhere. By the way, here are some absolute musts for you that I can think of today in addition to what I just gave you, but there are thousands more. You can go crazy. You can write in your journal each night. You can answer these questions in your journal. If you don't have a journal by the way, just start one. You know the thing you could ask me when we chat live, but write down these three in your journal every night. You'll be so much further ahead than most people you're on track with.
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[bctt tweet=”“If you don’t have a journal, start one and write in it every day.” – @chrispre”]
Number one, what was the best thing that happened today? Number two, what was the most challenging thing that happened today? And number three, how can I improve tomorrow? Isn't that simple? I mean I use a gratitude journal and I write in that every single day and that's another cool habit, but all these things I'm bringing up are literally mini-seminars in and of themselves. Maybe I'll come back and visit them. Start with small steps, but start. What can you tackle today? Short-steps. If you've never done any of these things, don't kill yourself and beat yourself up and say, “I'm going to call 20 people starting today. I heard Chris’ thing and I'm going to up that bar.”
Well, that's too much. Even though you haven't called anyone or ever, you're not going to do 20. Perhaps one every third day and then one every day. Then two every day and constantly raise that bar. Not I'm going to read a book a week, starting right now. No, that's not going to happen, guys. Increase by small amounts, they'll become very, very easy, very, very rewarding.
This is no different than when I started writing my book in August of 2016. It could seem to many like a daunting task. It could seem overwhelming. We just took it one step at a time. I'll give you another personal example. My daughter, Kayla, started riding horses at age seven. I got her started on that. She went from having her horse walk, walk, step over fence posts laying flat horizontal on the ground to seven years later jumping five-foot feet in national competitions. That's small steps. Nick when he had his head injury and was in a coma in 2003, had a goal to run out of the hospital, but would that happen right then? He started what small steps; therapy, small movements, exercising, small steps. You get the point.
What else can you do starting today. Regardless of what position you're in, there's an activity. There's a person you can call. There's something that'll make a make a major impact on your business if you act on it today. What is it for you? Decide. Or who is that for you?
So finish this statement. Get a pen out right now and write this down and then finish it. Ready? Got your pen? Good. If only I could get so-and-so to do business with us, our business would totally change. Or if I could just get this prospect to join with me, it would catapult our business. If I could just get this type of deal, so you can fill in the blanks. You get the point here. I could go on and on. Those who are succeeding, excuse me, in any business and life, in general, have simply decided to do some things that others are not willing to do. Don't be left behind, guys. Very few people realize that success is within their reach. Your success.
And I'm going to walk this right back to the beginning. Is the term by your daily agenda. Now, why do I say that? Life goals, the big picture goals, they're reached by what? Annual goals, which are reached by what? Monthly goals. Now you see where I'm going, which are reached by what? Weekly and then daily, which I reached by what? Your daily disciplines. That's it.
I know people say, well, aw, man, all this sounds like a lot of work. Daily disciplines are actually going to take all this time and I don't know if I can do it. No, they're actually easy. What's hard is accumulating all kinds of this stuff that you don't do and then try to tackle it all once. That's hard work and you'll say after months and months of not putting in your disciplines and dealing with that high work in place, I wish I had. I wish I had. Don't get caught in that wish syndrome or I love what Tony Robbins says, “Don't get caught up in that shoulding all over yourself.” S-H-O-U-L-D-I-N-G. Don't should all over yourself. That's it, guys.
I want to wrap up with this thought. You'll never, never, never, never — strong statement — change your business or your life until you change something that you do today so what one thing will you start today? Write it down.
Okay, Smart Listeners, those are my closing thoughts. That was an awful lot I packed into, whatever that came to I think we're at about 30 minutes, which is something I do not want to go past. You can listen to this over and over again. This is probably the type that you actually will want to listen to over and over again, but in order to experience a quantum leap in your business and/or your finances or life, you've gotta take action.
Grab one, two or three of these action items that I tossed out. I did them quickly. You guys have been used to dealing with my fast-talking by now and I hope you get a lot out of that. I try to pack in as much as I can. It's with good intents not just to blow you away and talk too fast. I know we all have the same 168 hours weekly and those go by so incredibly fast. I appreciate you sharing one of those 168 hours with us today. Make it an outstanding week.
Ways to contact Chris:
- Website: www.smartrealestatecoach.com
- Twitter: @SmartRECoach
Resources: