8 Things YOU Need to Know in Order to Crush Your Goals - Part 2

Welcome back to the Business Freedom Podcast. Lars Hedinborg here, founder, Real Estate B School and this is part two of a conversation we started on the last podcast episode and we're digging into a bigger conversation about, you know, how do you make things turn out the way you see in your head? You know, we Talked about a three year picture, one year playing 90 Day World, 13 weeks and a quarter. That is the pinnacle of this sort of little podcast series. Right now we're talking about the eight things you must know about crushing your goals. And I did a part one. I didn't expect to do two parts and it really got pretty deep on the last podcast episode. So if this is your first episode of the Business Freedom podcast or you're coming in at some point just randomly to this episode, make sure you go back a couple episodes before this. This series started with the titled podcast titled will you have regrets if you stick with your current plan? Make sure you go and start on that one and then catch up with part one of eight things. And this is part two of the eight things you must know about crushing your goals. And the reason we're talking about this, this before all the good stuff. And so I'm teasing the heck out of you here in terms of, you know, what, what, what's the real stuff? Like, show me the process. I want to build the plan, I want to get after it. All of this stuff is a, it's a must have discussion so that you've got the best chance of following through on the plans that you put in place. And it's, there's some crazy statistic. It's not the, I'm gonna make up a lot of numbers here in the next second. So this is like an alert. It's not the Harvard study. There was a, there was a study of MBAs, business degree holders from Harvard and this was like in the, I don't Even know, the 50s or something where they measured like goal achievement around, like having clear plans. Yeah, maybe it was the Harvard study where it was like 90, the 3% that had written goals out earned, the 97% that didn't have written goals 10 times over. So let's say there's 100 people in the study, three people, the total earnings of those three people. And sometime in the future, this study, they made 10 times the 97 people total. So being clear about where you want to end up, and money is definitely not the end all, be all. It's not what we teach or preach or anything in real estate B school, like there's six areas of your life that really matter and more depending on how you slice it up. The different roles, the different ways you want to show up in the world and what's important to you. It's just interesting that you know, being clear. And there's one differentiator in this study too is writing it down. So we're going to go through a process where you are going to write it down and we'll give you tips and tricks and all that good stuff to be able to achieve it. So the part two here is, you know, when we think about achieving something and I like to challenge folks to think about three years ago, what was your three year plan? So three years ago, you are listening to this now. Three years ago, what was your three year plan and did you achieve it? And usually it's like, I didn't have a three year plan. I don't do any planning whatsoever. And if you did a did put a plan together, what did it look like and did you actually achieve it? Do you have a process to break down a three or a five year to a one year to a quarter to like all that good stuff? That's why we're doing this series is I really want to impact you here. So let's pick up if you missed the first podcast, I'll just kind of catch you up mentally and maybe, maybe you heard the first part of this eight things. And it was a week ago. And so the first one was putting your life first, orienting your business to serve your life. The second thing I wanted you to know is that growth is hard. This is going to be hard. Having achieving anything that's worth having is hard. The third thing was the franchise mindset, right? Basic Michael Gerber E myth. How would I think about my business if I had to replicate it 10,000 times? And then the fourth one was becoming a productivity warrior. And so that brings us to number five and this one, oh man, I could, I could spend a whole episode on this one. And I see it even in members in real estate view school that there are no shortcuts. And so to build a, like a real business that has staying power, that's established, that's built on like sound business principles, sustainable systems and tools and processes. And your people are empowered to carry out the business of helping buyers and sellers like a true real business that's going to be around doing that is we've already covered that, it's hard and all that stuff. There's no shortcuts. And I see a lot of times Even, you know, real estate B school is a squirrel free zone. You know, we are super, you know, intentional in how we explain the journey in terms of. It's really a three year journey with a one year commitment. Once you go through the pilot program and that's like a standard script. And when we enroll people in the pilot program and people still want to believe that there's a shortcut. You know, I think of an example, you know, of a guy in our group. Just the level of impatience that he has toward his business. You know, he's just not where he needs to be like all the time. And he wants to grow, you know, by 150 transactions next year. Yet there's not a strong administrative team, there's not a great agent onboarding process. He hasn't figured out how to get one agent to be really productive. And at one point he had over 10 agents on his team. This one example I'm thinking of, this guy is like top producer. He can outproduce anyone around him and he wants there to be a shortcut, to be able to put systems and processes in place to replicate what he can do as one person. All he needs to do is just slow the thing down, look at the drivers and the accelerators, and pick and choose which things he wants to build first. And building those things are going to be the foundation of him having an amazing business. But there's this frantic sort of feeling that he's missing out on something. And you know, I always talk about the tortoise and the hare. You know, when I look at someone who's taking their time, taking 90 days to install one simple system or taking six months to build out an agent onboarding. Yeah, six months. A quarter. And a quarter. Let's build the recruiting system. Actually, let's do this. Let's build the agent onboarding system and then build the recruiting system and then run it for two quarters. So in the next year, all we're going to do is build a recruiting system and an agent onboarding system and then test it for two quarters. Normally guys will have like five projects going on in a quarter and those two are happening in the same quarter. So there are no shortcuts. So I don't know if that was a good example. I just see a level of impatience and I'm missing out. And this has to be this way or else. Or like it's come so far and if it doesn't, like just, just realize that there aren't any shortcuts and the systems are, they're Basic business systems we have to put in place and just slow the process down. And you're going to have an amazing business as a result of just doing the work, you know, just doing the work. It brings me to my next point, and this is funny too. So you've definitely heard of, you know, squirrel chasers, right? Generally team owners, real estate agents in general, that personality type, they love chasing squirrels. A squirrel is anything that distracts you from the thing you should be doing. And I think it comes from like a cartoon where you know, there's a cartoon character that's like talking to somebody, like squirrel and they squirrel and you see a squirrel and you're distracted by it. Like a dog. A dog sees a squirrel, they're going to go after the squirrel and then they see another squirrel, they're going to go after another squirrel. And what was the thing I was doing again? What am I focused on? When you chase squirrels And a squirrel can be something as little as a website? No, even better. Now I'm going to use the website example. So I've been with Boomtown since 2008. I was their number nine platform. And so the question I ask, I asked, you know, members in real estate B school, I'm like, do you think there were a lot of opportunities to change websites and you know, especially now, like how many awesome websites are there now, you know, and it's not that Boomtown is good or bad or indifferent. You know, I think their model is interesting because it's that the platform fee is so expensive and you know, it's just, it's just an interesting, you know, it's an interesting business model. They're an amazing company. So that's not a dig on them. But do you think I could have changed, you know, a lot of times, right? Or run multiple platforms or, you know, all that stuff most often or often changing a website. If you've changed your website more than never in the last five years, you know, really, if you changed it, you know, and you're on a legit platform now and you like where you're at, then good for you and stay there. If you change your website a couple times in the last, you know, three, four years, you are a scroll chaser. If you find yourself, you know, demoing or getting on, you know, webinars, you know, webinar demos of different little bolt on technologies for websites or just different things, you're a squirrel chaser. And it's in our personality type. I have it in my personality type. I've learned to guard My business against my personality type. And so oftentimes team leaders think that their business is, they don't think this, they do it. That their business is their playground to do whatever crap they think in their head. I'm going to change the website, I'm going to do this little bolt on technology. I'm going to try billboards, I'm going to, you know, and you're not spending your time on the things that really actually move your business forward. And so that is what we call squirrel chasing. And in our Facebook community group in real estate B school we call that out like people just post a picture of a squirrel and it usually just kind of knocks the conversation down because most like most of the time the thing that the squirrel that somebody let into the group is not something that's going to move anyone's business forward in a meaningful way. And if it does, great, you know, we're all about it. If there's something that's better, that's going to move people's business forward. But generally it doesn't. Alright, so number seven is playing the long game. This one sucks too. You know, our personality type and a lot of this sounds like preaching. And I only come at it, you know, because I feel like I'm a recovering squirrel chaser. I'm a recovering not productive person. I'm a recovering short game person and this one is really, really powerful. And I want to spend a little bit of time on playing the long game and what I mean by that. I'm a believer, so I'm a Christ follower. For me, the game is a really long game. I'm here to have an impact that, you know, that lasts a long, long time. And I'll be judged in it very in terms of my beliefs. You know, there will be a judgment day and I need to make my time here count. That aside, I want you to think about your business in that same sort of eternal perspective. And that's not a faith statement as much as it is like if I had to build this business to be around 50 years from now, how would I think about it differently? So a little bit different than the E Myth question. The E Myth question is like if I had to replicate my business 10,000 times, how would I think about it differently? This is saying like, hey, if, let's say I'm going to have a $5 million real estate team 20 years from now and I'm at 500,000 now, so I want to 10x my business in 20 years, how would I think about it differently? Like really, if I was building a database marketing program, it's the first thing we focus on in the first driver, the first accelerator, the first driver is database marketing. If I think about my database as something that's going to be a core part of my business 20 years from now, how would I think about it differently? What processes would I put in place, what systems would I put in place to make sure that I'm adding a minimum of 10 a week to the database, 500 per year, minimum. So that 20 years from now I've got 10,000 people that know like and trust me in the database because I've faithfully added 10 a week, 50 weeks a year for 20 years. Right? So it's that long game mentality that escapes 99.75. Who the heck knows what the number is? I don't think there's one out of 100 team leaders that really are playing a long game in their business. And another example of not playing the long game is, you know, not slowing down to think about your business. This process I'm taking you through on the podcast, that's going to end with this 3190-13. You know, that is slowing down to play the long game. And we're only going to talk about it through your picture. The impact you can have in your business is so much greater than you actually know. If you just knew what you could build if you stopped thinking about this thing in such a short term manner, I think it would really change things for you. There's a piece of scripture that I love to talk about it when it comes to playing this long game. And it's in line with everything we're talking about. It's in Proverbs 29:18, where there is no vision that people perish. Where there is no vision that people perish. And that goes for you as the team owner, as the business owner, and it goes for the people that you're enlisting to help you fulfill this dream, this vision, the mission you're wanting to set out on. If you don't have a vision for them, the people will lose interest, they will perish. Your business will not be what it's intended to be or what it could be. And so, you know, that's, that's something that I was really clear on. You know, when I put together the plan I think about was that late 2009 plan that I put together that I didn't follow. It was a blank piece of paper that I geeked out on. And man, I had like different growth areas that I had to focus on. I had the areas of the business, six areas of business that I had to focus on. Similar, you know, just the structure of it was like I really drilled down the business. I broke down that year in terms of my production by quarter, you know, listing set my son buyer set my son GCI net income. My guiding quote in that year in this time period was what the mind of man can conceive and believe it can achieve by Napoleon Hill. On the back I had a wake up thought, a reminder of why I am doing this. The areas of balance in the six areas of life that I want to focus on. I had a daily mental workout with daily affirmations and key actions in those areas. And then I had my long term goals. And my long term goals was a three year, which was 2012, a five year 2014 and this 10 year which was, which was 2020, which is going to be next year. For 2020, the goal was 3.6. And this is back in 2009. So this is now. It's literally exactly 10 years. As I'm reading this. Not exactly. I think I put this together in like September. Yeah, September. October. Probably finalized it in October. Ten years ago it was 3.6 million GCI. It was 100% on the business, less than 20 hours a week. It was, I'm not reading all of it. It was 40 hours a month. Charitable work. That's the one thing I completely dropped the ball on my financial giving. And this is how I rationalize it. And I know God at some point is going to call me to give time. I've given financially. I've really pushed the comfort zone on giving. 12 full weeks of vacation and then $1.5 million in liquid assets, $4 million of net worth. I say assets like I can write a check for that amount in less than, I think less than seven days and enough money to retire. And then Julie, my wife, out of work. And I've achieved all of those probably as of a couple years ago, haven't gotten to the 3.6 million GCI. Although the profitability of the team is better than it's ever been fully leveraged. I'm working one day a week in that business. We give multiple six figures to charity in a single year. 12. I'd say I'm probably at about 10 to 12 full weeks of vacation. Liquid assets are well in excess of that number and none of that. And I probably, although I think I'm probably another million or two away of liquid assets away from really unplugging that's not the drive by any means. I love what I do. I probably do have enough money to retire at this point. So why am I telling you that? Is that an ego thing I'm pulling here or. And I'm actually asking that question as I'm recording this. I don't think it is. I think it's inspiration for you to do the same. That was 10 years ago, as of this month. I didn't have any of that 10 years ago. I didn't have any of that 10 years ago. You know, my three year, 10 years ago. So 2012, you know, was. I was still very active in the business. I was 45 hours a week, listings only that year, 2012, I closed one home in January 2012. So three short years, I crushed that goal. I was completely out of production. Four full weeks of vacation. I don't. I think I probably pulled that off that year. I can't actually remember. And 500,000 of liquid assets of a million dollar net worth. So three. I don't know what my net worth, my liquid and my net worth was, but in 2012 I wanted it to be a million dollars of net worth. So it probably wasn't anywhere close to that in 2009. And at that time I wanted to get Julie from working. I think she was working four to five days a week in an intense environment in the hospital. I wanted to get her down to two days per week. And so, yeah, so, you know, I've got. So to me, I just, I sort of stutter at this point because I didn't have any of it. I didn't know how I was going to get it. And I just went through a process of putting one foot in front of the other and being really honest with myself. What activities do I need to do at different seasons for me to achieve the thing that I put on paper? So anyway, the encouragement for you in that is that it is the same thing for you. It is literally. It doesn't matter where you are right now. It doesn't matter if you have negative net worth and you have shame around that area of your life. If you are working 70 hours a week, if you suck as a dad and you have been the worst husband ever and you kick your dog and you are abusing your body physically and have you fallen away from your walk with God, it doesn't matter where you are. When you start three, five, ten years from now, you can achieve everything you want to achieve. With all of the work we are going to do together. So just hold on to that fact. All right? Number eight is enjoy the ride. Enjoy the ride. This was something that was not easy for me in 2010. Yeah, 2011 and 2012. Those two years I had a planning process around. I was real clear. Six areas of my business and six areas of my life. I call them categories of improvement. And one of the categories of improvement was to enjoy the ride and really to slow down and appreciate all that's good, even in the struggles. You know, there is so much we have to be grateful for. And at the same time, it's. It's easy for us to forget what's awesome about what we've done. And so enjoy the ride. Just enjoy the ride. Enjoy the good parts of it. Enjoy the bad parts of it. Enjoy the struggles, enjoy the wins. Enjoy the moments you get with your kids, if you have them. Enjoy those moments with your spouse. You know, give others a lot of grace. Love your team members, lean on people, be vulnerable. You know what I mean? Like, there's all of. That kind of wraps into this for me as I kind of reflect on where I've come from and where I still. I still want to go. I'm just enjoying everything. It doesn't mean that there are less problems. So I want you to understand that it's not that there are less problems because there are like, you get. You know, at this point, I'm involved in two businesses that are multiple seven figures each of them, and there's what, like 30 or so people, you know, that are directly on the teams. There are contractors, bas that we work with, clients, you know, families of all those people and all that. And so just enjoy the ride and just know that you're exactly where you're supposed to be. I belong to a group called C12. It's a Christian business owners group. And once a year we get to present our business to the group. And it's an interesting process. These guys go into my business ahead of time. They talk to my wife Julie and one of the guys. So I presented my business, I heard some challenging feedback, and I just soaked it in and looked at it all as an opportunity to learn. And one of the guys said to me, he says, you know, you're not where you want to be, but you're not where you used to be. And I don't know, that's kind of a good way to end this episode is just enjoy the ride, play the long game, freaking chase squirrels. There's no shortcuts here. And you know, maybe you're not where you want to be. And I know you're certainly not where you used to be. So take that as a word of encouragement. And so we still have a few episodes of this sort of mini series here in terms of building this 3, 190 and this goal achievement process. So please tune in next time to the Business Freedom Podcast. And like I say in every episode, if you're at the point in your journey where you've got to have a conversation with somebody that's been there, that knows what this process looks like and you know you want to build something more meaningful, something that doesn't revolve around you and big and here you've already achieved traditional success in the industry, meaning you're already at that minimum three, really, ideally 500,000 GCI. You've got an administrative person on your side, maybe you've got some leverage on the buy side. You know, that small team all the way up to, you know, two, three, four million dollars businesses and everything in between. If you know you're struggling and you just don't have that outlet and you know you need help, all I can offer you is a conversation. And it's about our pilot program. It's a 30 day program where you just get to experience, you know, an unpacking of all of this stuff in a way that will really serve you. And if a relationship with real estate B school makes sense, after that, we'll definitely talk about it. Just go to realestatebschool.com the action item is clear because it is this bright orange banner on the top of the website and it's all throughout the website. So go to realestatebschool.com and we'll see you on the next.