Do you feel super busy, but at the same time, you don't feel like you're getting anywhere?
I've been there. I've felt that feeling - I'm working so hard, but am I getting any closer to meaningful goals in the areas of my life that matter most to me?
When I came up in the Real Estate industry, there were days where I worked every bit of 10-12 hours as a Real Estate agent. I wasn't feeling like I was making progress towards building a business - just progress towards doing the job of an agent.
I finally had this moment where I shifted my thinking. I began to realize that I had to spend time working ON the business rather than just working IN the business. This is something I picked up from the book E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. It shifted my mind around what's possible if you start spending time outside of the technical work of the business.
In real estate, the technical work is spending time with buyers and sellers. Generating leads, prospects, and working with people, closing, etc. It's a virtuous cycle that feeds itself indefinitely.
I had to shift to doing things in the business that don't feel like they're moving you forward once you're doing them - yet when you look back at the progress you're making that's providing a foundation for not having to do them in the future.
In November 2007, I became a new dad and chose to leave my cozy corporate job that had me traveling all over the world every week. It wasn't a life of freedom - but I say cozy because there was not a whole lot of pressure to perform. My boss was a super laid-back guy who allowed me to arrange my own travel and visit companies.
Unfortunately, it wasn't going to give me any of the freedoms I wanted around time and money or any of that. When I got into real estate, I was instantly a top producer. I was working 6 days a week, maybe even 7. A busy agent is working all the time - that's just how it is. My first full year in real estate, I sold 44 homes with an administrator.
Once I had that person in place that could give me leverage around the administrative tasks that are involved in being a real estate agent, things took off from there. The year I hired my first buyer agent, things switched in my mind. I was doing all the work - the IN the business stuff, AND the ON the business stuff.
When I realized there was more to life than being eaten alive by work, the focus for me shifted.
Systems allowed me to shift from "I do it" to "We do it" to, eventually, "They do it".
The shift only came about when I realized that I can't be a great dad AND be a top producing agent. I can't be the husband I wanted to be if I want to choose the life of a Real Estate Agent as well.
What is your motivation? What realizations have you had that make you want to shift from Agent to Owner like I did?
My mindset, and the dedication I had to my family and building a better life for them, FORCED me to implement systems and strategies in my business that allowed me to step out of it, and you can too.
