Why You Need to Raise Your Ambition NOW

The real question isn't, do you have ambition? It's whether you own your dream, which means, are you asserting yourself into this new world? And it's really important to go, okay, I know it's difficult, but am I still dreaming? When you go into your office, I want you to walk up to the board with all the goals on it, and I want you to look at this week, next month, the month after that, the quarter after that, the whole year. And I want you to stand in front of that board until you feel that edge. Come in, everyone. Say it with me. Let me show what. What I am made of through this time. If we're gonna change everything for you, we've got to raise your ambition. The number one hallmark of successful people, their ambition is higher. How many of you in this room have a little higher ambition than some members of your family or your neighbors? Look around. Keep it high. Keep it high. Look around the room. Look around the room. Most people who are attracted to an organization like this and to this type of work, you've got that autonomy and you've got that ambition, and they're trying to take it from you. Right about now, that world. Oh, you don't understand the market. Yeah, Brendan, all your hype. You don't understand interest rates. You don't understand this. I'm like, listen, I've got all my homes. I've got all my success in that area. I get to advise amazing agents from around the country. I get to work with a company called PLACE on that. I have the opportunity to spending years with you all. Here's what I know. Here's what I know. Too many people, their ambition right now is in the wrong time zone. You know what I mean? Past, present, and future. Most people's ambition is tied to their past. Raise your hand if you follow that. I just want to share this with you. You can never let your vision for you and your family be limited by your present circumstances or your past challenges. You cannot let your vision for the future be limited by the present marketplace, your present skill set, your present network, your future. You can build into that. You can become into that. And I know. I know that all of the joys that you saw in the video and all the things I've gotten to do, working with presidents, working with my mentors, having all this. I grew up in this house. That's not an easy house to sell, ladies and gentlemen. You think you have a hard house to sell? Let me tell you about my hometown, Butte, Montana. Anyone know. Anyone got any Montanans in A room like this, I know we got some Montanans. Yeah, baby. Don't get mad at me or beat me up in the hallway when I talk about Butte for a minute. Where I grew up, Butte, Montana, was. When I came up there, it had been an economically depressed Irish mining town for over a century. Just about three miles from this house, there's a large hill called the Berkeley Pit. Now, you might not know what that is, but you ever have something in the neighborhood you're trying to sell, and you're talking about the house, and you just don't want to talk about that thing that's also in the neighborhood. You know, the nuclear plants or that. That house there somebody got killed in, or there's something you're just like, don't talk about that. Well, where I grew up, we had that. It's called the Berkeley Pit. It's the world's number one Superfund site. When I grew up. What's a Superfund site? It means an environmental disaster that they cannot fix. Because I grew up in a town that was incredibly famous. You might not know. See, in Butte, Montana, they had discovered copper in them thar hills. And back in the day, check this out. The first cities around the world to have electricity. You're talking like London, you're talking Paris, you're talking like Philly, you're talking like Chicago, and you're talking Butte, Montana, baby. You might not know it, but a bunch of first millionaires in the entire world were minted there because of mining and copper. And so they dug deep and they extracted that copper and they changed the entire future, the world. Now the problem is, years later, they discover other materials and they discover copper elsewhere in the world. It was easier or cheaper to extract. And that economy went dead. Those people moved out. And as they left, they left a hole in the hill that's a mile deep and a mile wide of what's basically mining ore. It's like this smelt. It's like this liquid that does not decompose. It's nasty. Birds fly over this, they land on it and they die. Our hope where I grew up was, please don't let that get in the water table. Maybe it did. I don't know. I don't know. Could it happen? I don't know. But I grew up there. Why do I share that? Because if my ambition for my life was there, I wouldn't have the blessing of being here with you if. Thank you. You know, we grew up in those neighborhoods where there were empty lots all around. When we were young kids. We didn't know empty lots meant blight. We were just like, oh, an empty lot. We can play ball. We can, you know, play and experience. We. I didn't know I was poor until I went to college. I literally didn't know. Cause I grew up in towns in Montana where there wasn't two sides of the track. Our towns were so poor, there wasn't a track. So when I went to school, working three jobs, and found out that my roommate, who had never had a job, his parents bought him a new car to go to college. His reward to go to college, they gave him a new car. I had never met a person. I was 18 years old. I had never met a person with a new car. I didn't even know that world existed. The wealth that we all talk about in a room like this. I had no clue that world was even a thing. But see, so many of us, our ambitions are tied to how we grew up. Our ambition is, what did I see in my neighborhood? Your vision for your future is what happened to your parents. Or your vision for your future is what's happening to the person you're sitting next to your left. Well, I guess she only makes this much. He only makes that much. I guess this is only possible for me. And you might say, well, Brendan, that's not me. We're ambitious agents. You don't understand our market. I go, yeah, but see, ambition isn't about, do you have big dreams? The question is whether or not you own your dream. The question is whether or not there is appropriate levels of assertiveness today, building the ambitions you want. Let me give you an example. How much of the last two weeks did you get to spend on building the future you want or just managing admin? Just managing reality, Just surviving with the kids, just going through the motions. One reason people don't get high performance is they're always going through the motions. They're not leveling up in the moment to be present, to be engaged. They're not doing the stuff to fire themselves up. You know, I've been blessed to keynote all the arenas in North America. There's four of us in history who've done it. And I remember a long time ago when I said, I want to learn how to talk. I was a bad communicator. Some of you think I might still be, but I'm practicing. And I would lay in bed when I woke up, and I would see and dream and think about not talking to rooms this big. Just like a group of 20 people and I'd lay there and I'd be sweating with nerves just talking to 20. Anyone else? Like 20 people? You're like, oh, my God. I would just, like, lay in bed sweating even thinking about it. But I'm like, keep sweating through, man. Keep thinking it. Maybe one day. And so my aspirations had time. How much of your time are you spending thinking about your ambition and your dream versus just handling the day? See, I'm not one of those guys who talks like the secret was, you know, just have intention, have the law of attraction. I love the law of attraction. But that's only one side of the coin of success, right? On the other side of that coin is action. So let me tell you this. The real question isn't do you have ambitions? It's whether you own your dream. Which means here's the correlation, the research for the geeks out there, for the geeks, the correlation of research with ambition and high performance. Is this your level of assertiveness? Are you asserting yourself into this new world or waiting to see? Are you asserting yourself in the marketplace or waiting to find out? That question can tell you a lot about you and your team. I think you all should ask that, do we have an assertive team? Are people really being proactive, asserting themselves moving forward, pushing productivity, or are we just gonna maintain? Are we just gonna maintain? And by the way, maintaining is great, but, you know, a lot of people, their entire mentality is just to survive and not to decline. And do you know what? When your mentality is just to survive and not to decline, you become demotivated. Motivation begins with having an ambition, a motive, a reason for action that's out here. And it's really important to go, okay, I know it's difficult, but am I still dreaming? Am I still owning the dream? Am I giving time each day to the ambition? When you go into your office, I want you to walk up to the board with all the goals on it, and I want you to look at this week, next month, the month after that, the quarter after that, the whole year. And I want you to stand in front of that board until you feel that edge come in, where you get a little excited, where you're like, okay, all right, let's go. I gotta do these things. And not from obligation, but instead of like, let me show what I am made of through this time. Everyone say it with me. Let me show what I'm made of through this time. Because you own your dream, I say I own my dream. Not for me, for you. Put your hand up your right hand up and say, I own my dream. Say it with the fierceness you'd better have to succeed. Say, I own my dream. Turn the person left, right, shake them and say, you own your dream. Yeah. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. I know we got scared of touching and talking to people. Turn the person left, right, grab their shoulders, shake them and say, you own your dream. Go. You. I'm watching you. Yeah. Yeah. If you're pumped to be in Vegas, say, I'm here. Let's go. You either own it or somebody else does and you'll never get it. It's your day, it's your action. You're gonna assert yourself into this thing, not sit back and wait. Not now. Let everyone else wait. You. Yeah. You gotta forgive me. I'm an old school personal development guy. I believe in what you can do. I spent 17 years doing this. I've seen the most extraordinary life transformations. People who came out of the darkest, deepest pits imaginable, and they turned it around because they chose to. At some point, there was a shift to a decision to live an extraordinary quality of life, not just get by or survive.