Mindset to Success #realestateagent

When I headed into business for myself I had no idea that I needed to adopt the right mindset. I didn’t even really realize what that was or why I should. I knew what I wanted to do, so I hit the ground running working on the technical aspect of my career. For me, this is real estate sales and investments. Following a fun and exciting career in economic development, in 2001 I went to real estate school every night and Saturdays for a month while working full time with a 3 year old son at home. It was grueling, but it had to be done if I wanted to become a real estate agent. Never in all of this did I stop for one moment to realize I needed a mindset to success. I was so entrenched in the trees that I could not see the forest and what it meant to have a lovely, thriving forest full of trees, a mixture of berries, and animals. Needless to say, I started my career with some small successes, but basically I was a failure. Somewhere along the lines I started to learn more and have some success. It wasn’t until I saw what a Mindset to Success looked like and that I could envision myself inside of this mindset to success that my career made the turn. 

Growth. Growth. Growth, and more Growth.

Step outside of the forest for a moment and look around. There are many areas for having a growth mindset. You could grow your professional development techniques and hone your skills and abilities. You can grow your personal development expertise, including health, wellness, and fitness. But further than all of that, you must have a plan for growth for your real estate career. Where do you plan to take your talents? Do you plan to sell houses, houses, and more houses, or do you plan to take on investments and re-investing in yourself and your career? What is your plan for growth? Are you only focused on selling a few homes in order to get your bills paid? This will only get you so far. Yes, that’s a good life, but wouldn’t you rather have a great life? A life that focuses on the many possibilities for growth? You must focus on where this growth will take you and what your growth plans are. My company currently has 22 different ways to make money, and several are set up for growth and passive income. It has turned my plan for growth into a reality.

Focus. Focus. Focus, and more Focus. 

When you meet any extremely successful entrepreneur they will tell you they had to fight hard for their own attention. Imagine that if you will! Fighting for your own attention. After all, in today’s world there are many many others fighting for your attention as well. Darren Hardy, in his truly amazing professional development course called Insane Productivity, talks about our three brains: the robot brain, the monkey brain, and the sage brain. I personally struggle hard with my monkey brain. I go down so many rabbit holes because I wonder where they lead. I’m an avid learner, so it’s hard for me to go past something without getting my curious monkey to go past it with me without stopping and checking it out. It is probably the number one thing that held me back in my career….more so than any other--lack of focus. 

This meme is seriously me -> 

Folks, if I could offer one piece of advice that will change your mindset it is this: Narrow your focus so much so that you shut out everything else. Say no first. You can always reassess later if it comes back around, but chances are it won’t. I try to block out a 90-minute jam session every day where I’m generating something towards my 3 main goals. In that time, my phone is shut off, my door is shut, and I am completely focused on the task at hand. I shut out the world that is vying for my attention in order to focus on the task that I must accomplish. I get more done in those 90 minutes than I will the whole rest of the day. I thrive on those 90 minutes. They are my favorite time of the day. They are the time when I feel the most accomplished and feel the most satisfied with myself. I imagine you will to. Try it yourself.

Failure is inevitable. Embrace it!

You cannot possibly know everything you need to know on day one. You can’t. Why do you think it takes 4 years to get a degree from a college or university? You accept that. Accept this, just because you have your real estate license does not mean that you know everything. As a matter of fact, I found that I knew less than I did before I obtained my license. Here’s the thing, we have all been there! Seriously. We all had to start somewhere. That favorite agent at your office that sold 50+ houses last year? Yeah, them too! Hard to imagine, but everyone starts somewhere and because of the lack of experience and knowledge, we fail. It’s that simple. Even the most experienced agents fail. Sometimes they lost their focus and were distracted, or sometimes they assessed the situation inaccurately. Whatever the reason, everybody fails. We learn from these failures. I even heard this quote though I can’t recall which guru said it, “the more you fail, the more successful you will become.” Wow! Then I should be over-the-top successful! Right?! It sure feels awful to fail, but when you do, Stop. Assess. Learn. Then, get back up and start again ever stronger, ever focused, and ever more determined than before.

Know Your Risk Threshold.

There is a certain amount of risk that comes from being a real estate agent. Sometimes you are at the mercy of a crazy housing market (like now), but usually that is not the case. If you don’t work, you don’t get paid except with my company in which you can work for your future through revenue share and becoming a shareholder, but I digress. The vast majority of real estate agents must list and sell homes in order to put food on the table. This is risky. Lately it’s been a seller’s market and houses to list are hard to find, but 10 years ago it was a buyer’s market and the price of homes tanked. It ebbs and flows with the economy, so you must be aware of this fact, and you must know how much you are willing to risk before you give it up and move on. I understand this philosophy. I did it. In the late 2000’s (about 2007-2008) before the housing bubble, I was selling residential development land. The market was soaring, and I had numerous acres under contract to close. One by one I lost every contract as the builders stopped building and took huge losses and lost their land to the bank. When the economy tanks, the first thing to go is land because people stop building. So, I got scared and left my real estate brokerage and took a paying job. I even had money in the bank. All I had to do was hold on for a year, and I’d have been making more than I ever did as these properties went back to the bank and land was being bought for 50 cents on the dollar but this was happening 2, 3, or 4 times as much as before. My broker told me that in that second year he had made more than he had ever made in his life. Whoops. I guess my adversity to risk cost me a lot of money. My mindset was wrong. I could only see the trees not the lovely, lush, green forest. Again, what is your risk threshold? Be. Very. Clear. On this! I literally lost thousands and thousands of dollars by being risk adverse. It is ok because that is who I was back then. I was a single mom with an 11 year old boy at home and his father was deceased. I had to take care of him. I knew where my priorities lay. Today I probably would not have jumped ship, but back then I really didn’t have a choice. But this is an important distinction because if you know your own mindset about risk aversion then you can plan accordingly.

3 Main Goals. Period!

No more. You are not allowed to have any more than 3 main goals. Any more than that, and you will divide your focus. Remember focus? We talked about it earlier. Inside of these three main goals, you will have smaller, goals that work within and inside of your 3 main goals. Start with a business model that encompasses these 3 main goals, then write your guiding principles and values. Then and only then can you get to your goals and objectives and implementation plan. This is simple, and if you want to learn more about goal setting, go find a great program on this. But for the purposes of Mindset to Success, it’s vital that you understand the mindset here that you can only handle 3 main goals. If you try to do any more than this, you will divide your focus. Also, when things pop up that do not fit within your 3 main goals it will become easier to say no. This will free up your time to focus. Freedom. Isn’t that the goal for us all? We want to be free to spend our lives the way we wish. If you value your freedom as I do, you will stick with only your 3 main goals. You will be surprised at how freeing this is.

Break the rules!

There are two types of rules. One are the rules that are in place that have become laws -- do not steal, do not deface public property. These rules carry a penalty of jail or a fine. I’m not talking about these rules of course. I’m talking about the second type of rules, the unwritten ones. These are the rules that are made to be broken by you the entrepreneur, the new real estate agent. Be a rebel. Step outside your comfort zone and the comfort zone of others to create a whole new business concept--a whole new way to get customers. Do the unexpected. Get creative. Have fun, and do the unimaginable. Do you think there would be an iPhone? A car to drive? Airplanes? If it weren’t for the person who imagined the unimaginable? Break the rules and forge your own path through your own vibrant forest. 

Create Urgency For Your Success.

You have to, or the days will blend into each other and you’ll find yourself without any paycheck at all. Set up a time frame for when certain milestones will happen, and stay with them. Never falter. It will move you ever closer to your monetary success. Be in a hurry to succeed. Hurry up! Get busy! Get going! Let’s do this! Watch an inspirational or motivational video every morning! Keep a journal you bookend your day with! Call your accountability partner at 5:00 p.m. and walk them through what you did! Whatever it is, keep your mojo and keep the urgency. You’ve got your life plan. You’ve got your 5-year plan, you’ve set your goals for the year. Whatever, now get moving! What milestone will happen first? And if it doesn’t? What are the consequences? And if it does, pat yourself on the back, go out for dinner and a play, then push ever forward to the next milestone. Don’t rest. If you do, you’ll get lax in that accomplishment…worse, you will get comfortable -- ick! Comfort is the enemy of the entrepreneur. Move. Move. Move. Move. Move. What have you accomplished today? What will you accomplish tomorrow? Why? Get fired up! Write to me and tell me your plan. I want to hear if you accomplished it? Tell everyone your goals to accomplish, then follow up with what you did. On what day and time do you plan to be a millionaire? Exactly what date and time. Tell me. If you are going to set a goal, make it a big one, and then do the steps one by one to accomplish that goal. Then, stop looking at your goals, and use each day as an urgent call to success and do the work. Work your plan. One day you will look at the calendar and see that you have arrived. Steve Jobs used to create unreasonable goals for his employees. Why? Because it created urgency, so get urgent now! The time to start is right now…this very minutes!

Take the time right now to write down your Mindset to Success. It doesn’t have to be as in-depth as this article as I’ve spent years perfecting my mindset to success. You may wish to add more thoughts, but taking the time to know who you are, your values and guiding principals will guide your Mindset to Success. Once you get to that point, the sky is the limit; your forest will grow grand, lush and beautiful as you forge your trails throughout this forest and create your own unique and vast vistas. Good luck and please respond now to this article with your thoughts. Let’s connect!

K. K. Rothermich is a 20-year real estate veteran with experience in listing and selling homes, farm, and commercial residential development land. She wants to talk with you about all your real estate questions, comments, and needs. You can reach her for a free consultation at [email protected]. Visit her website at karenrothermich.exprealty.com. karenrothermich.exprealty.careers