Forget About 'The Grind': True Success Means Fulfilment In Every Area Of Your Life

Welcome back to Real Estate Team Builders podcast. This is Lars Hedinborg, the founder of Real Estate B School. Today we're going to do a follow up episode. I had an awesome conversation with the guys at Real Estate Uncensored, my friends Matt Johnson and Greg McDaniel, and it really was awesome conversation. You know, these guys have been in and around the industry for a long, long time. And we got into the conversation around, I think the title was like, double your production while cutting your hours in half. Like some dramatic title to get everyone hyped up about tuning in and watching and all of that. But the backdrop of the conversation was really more a conversation of the collateral damage and regrets that we have from the industry that really forces most agents to have to double their hours to double their production, right? So the concepts of leverage and systems and tools and mindsets to do more and less time aren't taught very often in our industry. And in my opinion, my humble, humble opinion, traditional success in our industry is not worth having. When I first got into the industry, I figured out my first 10 months, had to sell 27 homes. I was instantly the top producer in my small little office, right? These agents. Three, five, seven years in the business and I sell 27 homes. And I was like the number one agent. I learned how to do Legion and I learned a simple script, but it was no freedom whatsoever, instantly, seven days a week. And I was like, this is for the birds. And what I was paying my broker was completely out of line relative to the value that I was providing to his company versus, he didn't teach me how to do any of this, although I do credit him for getting me into real estate. He was my agent when I was investing in real estate here in my market. And so how do I go from 27 transactions, you know, to 44 to 58 to 118 to 178, 2012. I did 248 transactions, but I committed to not actually working with buyers and sellers anymore and getting down to just one single transaction. In January 2012, this guy was my last client that I was the agent on. Actually had his home listed for seven years with seven other agents and I was the agent to get his home sold. And so that is really what I want to focus a little bit of time on. And I want to break it down, you know, what are the key ingredients if you want to, you know, maybe your income isn't where you want it to be and maybe you're working too many hours and you're probably super stressed because either you're not making enough money and that's stressing out you out, or you're working too many hours and that's leaving you out of bounds and stressing you out in the areas of life that matter. So what are some things that you can do, some awarenesses that you can have so you don't have regrets in the areas of life that truly matter? And when I say areas of life that truly matter, I mean like, yeah, it's great to accumulate net worth and build residual income and, you know, have time off and, you know, all of that. But I'm talking like having time to take care of my physical body, having time to read the Bible, having time to be present with my wife and to be able to, to really be with my children and help them grow up and have fun and, you know, not have to work all the time and detach myself from the grind. You know, this culture and generation of thinking that the grind is the way to get there. Yeah, maybe for a season, but not forever, right? In real estate B school we, we teach six stages of growth. And so the first stage is where the whole industry lives. It's zero to 100. It's called start. There's grind there, right? You've got to get out of, you know, where everyone is living, right? Everyone's living in six to eight transactions. Probably the average agent, I think, takes home 42,000 top line GCI. Sixteen year veterans in our industry take home 79,000 or something crazy. So this is the whole industry lives in what we call the start stage. How do you go from start to grow, to build, to, to lead, to exit, to own? Those are the six stages of growth going all the way up to 3 million plus GCI. Most folks are like, I could never ever do that. Right. It's because your mindset first and foremost is focused on E myth. It's straight up. Michael Gerber, E myth. You're the technician in your business and you're not spending any time as the manager. The manager designs the systems and has technology or assistance run the systems and you're not spending any time as the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur is thinking about the future of the business and how could it look, right? So I just did something different in the beginning where I spent a little bit of time as the entrepreneur envisioning a different real estate business, a different future where I didn't have to be the one working in it all the time. I spent probably about 30, 40% of my time as the manager building the systems and, and then Even when I was busy super heavy lifting. Like the year we did 118 and 178 transactions, that was 2010 and 2011. I did about 60 transactions each of those years. So I was like selling a ton of homes. I was building systems. I never had led anybody or built a business or designed marketing systems or any of that. So I was doing like triple duty. I was leading and managing people, I was building systems and I was doing production and more production than anyone on my team at that time. So I was super. I was, I was at capacity during those heavy building years. But I was very specifically focusing my efforts around how can I make the vision of what's in my mind match, you know, in the future, how can I make that, that actually come to fruition? So that was my mindset around. That was number one. And then number two was actually being willing to be honest with myself about where I spend my time. I think if we're just honest with ourselves that like we all have the same number of hours in a week. And how is it that, let's say Tony Robbins, you may not be a Tony fan or you may be. It doesn't really matter. The guy owns like over a hundred businesses. How does Tony. And he's 62 and just had a child. How is he. And he has grandchildren. So he's a grandparent. He's a new father again. He spends time with his wife, he vacations, he runs over a hundred businesses and he still travels. Now we're back to traveling. I saw him live twice this year. How does he do all that? Right. And so it's, he's just made some commitments that, you know, others haven't. You know, we just, we're not at that level, but we haven't made the commitment to be honest with ourselves about where we spend our time. And a lot of times, even if we get leverage, we delegate tasks and not outcomes. So I was willing to be really brutally honest with myself and I continue to do this today. And I struggle with it today. So I can have a two hour open time block on my calendar and, and waste it doing email and some lower level administrative work and not live into my true potential in terms of what I'm really worth per hour, really, if I double down and do deep work and I focus what I can produce, you know, consistently when I do that high dollar productive activity. And so being honest with yourself about where you're spending your time. We have an activity called a time study. I've offered it before. Email me at larsealestatebschool.com larsealestatebasinbusinessschool.com and I will send you no obligation, no tripwire, no registration. I just want you to get a copy of the time study. That is the first step for you to be honest with yourself about where you're spending your time. And so now that you have the mindset that's step one, now that you're honest with yourself about where you're spending your time, now it's just a process of delegating so that you can elevate. And that's the third step in the process. Every 90 days I take an inventory about where I spend my time and then I go through a process with my team where I get stuff off my plate that either I shouldn't be working on, the company shouldn't be working on, or somebody else should be working on. As it relates to my highest and best use. My highest and best use is and my highest pay and my highest passion is the podcast. It's one to many training. It's, you know, I still have conversations as I'm building exp. I still have conversations with people in my frontline, coaching them and pushing them and helping them build residual income. So I know there's like three or four things that I love to do that pay really, really well and that allows me to consolidate my week into like I'm really on focused on from 11 to 5 Tuesday through Thursday at this point, Monday's my content day and Friday is my flex day where I don't take appointments and generally I'm free. It's not bragging. I've had weeks where I've worked, you know, even like two or three years ago I pulled a few all nighters, you know, insane. Just thinking I needed to just push something to get done. So I struggle like all of you do. But the third part is delegating so that you can elevate. So you've got the vision, you're honest with yourself and you take an inventory about where you're spending your time and then you're actually going to go through a process of getting stuff off your plate that you shouldn't be focused on. And so if you want to make more money in less time, you have to spend more time on the activities that are dollar productive. And in real estate there's only four of them. And I'll end with this. It is new business development which is having conversations with would be buyers and sellers. It is lead follow up and all the surrounding systems Right. If they're not ready to transact today, what's the lead follow up system and then how do you reach out to them? Are the time blocks in your calendar for that different, different activity than new business development? Then there are consultations with buyers and sellers. That's where you sit down with the buyer and seller. And then there are negotiating contracts, getting a buyer and seller actually under contract. Then building systems, I would say is a fifth. And then six. If you have people in your world like coaching your team and holding team meetings and those kinds of activities might be a number six. But outside of those six things, there isn't anything else that matters. Everything else can go through a series of delegations so that you can elevate, delegate so that you can elevate delegate so that you can elevate. So that is the three step process. And there's one thing I want to make sure, and I've mentioned it before in this podcast, but I want to make sure I mentioned it again. It's the most valuable time block in your entire week. It's called your clarity break. And I got this from Gino Wickman's book called I think it Might have been out of Traction. He calls it a clarity break. It's 60 to 90 minutes where you're sitting down with just your journal, no technology, and you're looking, you're answering questions like what's working and what's not working in my, my business, what's working and what's not working in my marriage, what's working and not working with my kids, what's working and not working in my physical body, you know, with my diet or my finances. And you're just getting clear on what's working and what's not working. Right. We spend so much time in the activities that we rarely pick our head up and just take a deep breath and slow down. So that's my prayer, that's my wish for you, is just to take a breath this coming week and realize that you're not going to achieve your vision for your business and the areas of life that matter to you if you don't slow down and you don't do things differently going forward. So if you want to have a conversation about your business where you're struggling, what you've tried, maybe that hasn't worked, you know. And we would offer some advice on what you might want to try to double, triple, quadruple your business while bringing your hours down. Go, go to real Estate B school. And on our website, on the homepage you'll see orange button that says either apply for a call or book a call. It's a free coaching conversation where we'll just dig into where your business is today, where you want it to be in the future, and what is holding you back. What are some of the obstacles that you're seeing. And if a conversation about real estate B school makes sense, we'll have it. And if it doesn't, that is totally fine too. So go to realestatebschool.com request a business growth strategy session, and we'll see you over there. And I challenge you. I challenge you. I challenge you to email me at Lars@RealEstate B School for a copy of that time study and I'll get it right over to you. I think I even offered to a few of the folks that reached out that when they get it done to send it back over to me and I'll look at the. I'll look at the results and it's. I think it's the coolest thing when somebody's willing to be that real and vulnerable and transparent with you. Um, so maybe I'll do that again. If you email me. I may, I may actually look at the. If you're willing to be vulnerable to look at the results of your time study. So much love. Go to real estate bschool.com book in for a business growth strategy session and we'll see you over there. Be good.