My Good, Bad & Ugly of 2019!

What is up Business Freedom Podcast listeners? This episode is the Good, bad, ugly of 2019. And this is for me personally and professionally, just a rant and hopefully sharing some things that you can learn from that you maybe can avoid in your business or your personal life. And then maybe some things that I'm doing really well you can learn from and sort of apply in your business and life. So I want to kind of break this thing down into and this is how I view my success and how I take inventory. I do it in just the different areas of life and business that matter. And you'll notice that really there are eight areas that I'm going to go through and I'm going to kind of say things I've done good and things I've done not so good. And only two of them are related to business. One's business and one is finance. And then the rest of them are personal and honestly, the things in life that matter more than you know what. We get so caught up around our money and business. And at the same time I've learned a lot in those two areas as well. So let's start with. Yeah, let's start with business. So I'm involved in two businesses. Real Estate B School launched that in early 2013 and I've been a real estate team leader since technically I had my first hire in 2008, early 2008, although I got into real estate in 2007, hired my first buyer agent in late 2009. So depending on when you want to say I started my team, I'm 10 years, a good 10 years into being a true business owner where I had more than just me and an assistant. So me, an assistant and a buyer agent is 10 years old now. So what went well in 2019 is I continue to have leverage in leverage in the real estate team. So I'm pretty far removed from that business. It was a good year in terms of just going deeper on some foundational systems in that business, simplifying even more to be able to multiply in the future. And I'm really doing high level systems work, all 20,000 foot view kind of things. I get involved in some systems and projects around recruiting and those sorts of things. So that continues to go really well in Real Estate B School. What went well? This year I am out of sales again for the fourth time. So strategy sessions are essentially our opportunity to invite someone into Real Estate B School. We've shifted over to a pilot program which is a free look at Real Estate B School that's going really really well. We're at the highest membership we've ever had for real estate B school. We will crush every record in terms of sales and profitability for two quarters in a row, which is really great. We're having more impact in the businesses and in the personal lives of our members than ever before. So that's really awesome. Challenges in business. You know, business continues to occupy most of my waking thoughts and that is an affliction of a true entrepreneur. And I'm working on it, I'm meditating, I'm praying more. I'm even trying out EMDR therapy, which I haven't gotten too much into. So that's business finances again. Everything's going great in the finances. I've gotten to the point we were actually 100% debt free, including our home. And then two years ago we moved into a really nice home, super blessed. And I did take on a mortgage to acquire this home. Not because I had to really, because rates were favorable. The goal still is to get rid of the mortgage and that's probably a two year process. So I recommitted to tracking my net worth. I got away from it a little while for a couple years. And so on the 10th of every month I track my net worth that's in our profit first cycle. And I track my liquid net worth and my overall net worth and I'm seeing that go up pretty well. So that's great. Nothing negative in the area of finances. Let's get into husband and father. I like to consider these separately. As a husband, what went really well is that I'm super intentional around time with my wife Julie. We got away probably for four or five, just vacations, just her and I. We've done, I think sixth or seventh annual honeymoon. So once a year I surprise her for a seven day getaway with no kids. And I call it our honeymoon. Which is an excuse to spend a good chunk of change on a trip that makes us just reconnect and makes her feel special. So we continue that tradition. Date nights are consistent. We go every Saturday night we're in town, we do a date night, we go through a series of questions, our date night questions to connect and make sure we're on the same page. I feel like I'm really leaning in there. What didn't go well. I think I tend to still be a little bit critical of her at times where I forget sometimes that she's not necessarily created the exact same way as me, which is a good thing because I wouldn't be able to stand being Married to a female version of myself. As a father, what went really well is I've managed to take here recently, take more Fridays off and really disconnect from the business. I've gotten out of email, substantially out of email. I've removed Facebook from my phone. And so I'm more present in the times that I'm not working, even though I'm afflicted with the thinking about business all the time. I would say I'm showing up in those times where I need to be a good dad and support Julie in that role. I'm doing really probably the best that I've ever done. What didn't go well in 2019 as a dad? I've had moments where usually when I'm stressed out about something else where I'm sort of at the tipping point with my stress, I'll carry that over into a conversation with the kids. They're 9 and 12 now, Kendall and Anderson, and more yelling at times than I would have liked. And that, that makes me really feel bad. Like I just don't want them to see that side of me and it's inappropriate. Oh, Julie and I have also done a really good job getting on the same page with our kids in terms of how we're going to work through challenges with them. And we're doing really well there. So that wasn't great as a dad. Probably a dozen times, you know, probably more than once a month, maybe, maybe twice a month, I have a blow up where I just, I let my stress get the best of me and it comes, comes out on either Julie or the kids. And it's really not great. And I'm really shameful. I don't know if I'm really ashamed of it when it happens. And so just really, I come back to them when it happens quicker than I used to and I ask for forgiveness and we work through it and I say it wasn't, you know, sometimes it was them. So straight up, you just, you really drove me crazy. And I had nowhere else but to go than to be angry. And usually it's more than that. So that wasn't great. In my faith, what went really well is that I've really committed to being intentional with my study of the Bible. And so and just having. It's not every day by any means. My goal is to have 45 minutes every day where I'm reading and studying and meditating on the word of God. And it's not that great. I'm probably averaging three to four times a week. And it's Way more intentional than it used to be. I used to do it as a checking the box exercise and I did Bible in a year which was just boom, boom, boom, check the box, done with it for today. And it would make me feel like I accomplished something. This is more intentional in studying and asking my self questions about how can I apply this, what was the context of this reading and that and just having more conversations with God. I think, you know, depending on where you are in your faith journey, it's really been helpful for me to lean into that relationship knowing that the things I stress about aren't things that really even ultimately matter. Unless we are loving somebody or connecting with somebody or helping and serving somebody, attending team member, a client, someone in our community, a family member, a friend, that's all we're really called to do. And that's good because that works in business. If you do that in business, you're going to be super successful anyway. So I'm finding myself doing more of that. What didn't work is being distracted. During quiet time when I should be meditating or reading and studying, I get distracted, you know, if I use my Bible app to read, it's full of distractions. So that didn't work great. My pride is still probably the overarching sin that I have in terms of me thinking I can do everything on my own and all the things I've achieved are my doing and that's just not the case. My physical body. This is probably where I had the best results this year in my physical body. I came into 2019. I think I weighed like 224 to 226 somewhere in there. April 15 I committed to a 90 day push where I was just going to eat super clean. I didn't drink. I ended up not drinking any alcohol for six months. Not that I have a problem with alcohol. It was just one of those things that I had to get out of my life in order to get really clean to have the result I wanted in my physical body. I ultimately got down to 191 was my low. I'm hovering at about 194 currently. So I've prepped up a little bit. My goal for next year is to get down to 182, which is my high school weight. 192 was my wedding weight and that was my goal for this year. So that went really, really well. I've been consistently working out two cardio, two strength sessions. I've been consistently getting seven to seven and a half hours of Sleep per night. I think what didn't go well? I'm a little spotty on my water. That's super important. My physical body. Sometimes my diet isn't as on point as I know it needs to be. Like right now. Last three nights I've ate, we've had like date night. Julie went out on a girls night so I ate some snacks watching TV that were crappy. We had a date night where I had like popcorn and candy at the movie theater. And then last night we had a party. So three nights in a row where I was off plan. Totally. So that's not great around the holidays. The next area is fun or self care. What went well this year? This was an area of my life where I struggled in the past. I call it enjoying the ride. And I've been really great. About probably three times a month I do a two hour massage. Really hard for me to sit still for two hours. You think it would be easy? My mind spins, you know, to take care of myself and let somebody, you know, work on your physical body. And I get deep tissue massages. So it's part relaxing but part really painful. That's been really great. I've also been doing float tanks where you float in salts for an hour in complete darkness. It's like meditative and restorative and it's in salt water so it's supposed to like remove toxins from your body. That's been awesome. Been meditating in the mornings. I need to do what didn't work well. Oh and we've traveled quite a bit with the kids and done great trips and that's been awesome. What didn't go great this year in terms of fun and self care. Sometimes I'll get away from my sleep which is, you know, it's for the physical body but it really is self care. I tend to get overly serious about little problems in the business and they tend to affect my time away from the business. So I'm not really present. So that affects my ability to be sort of kid like joyful and happy like a kid. And then the last area of my life that I take inventory for 2019 is my emotional well being. What went really well is that I've really had a practice of gratitude. I use the app on my phone called 5 Minute Journal in the morning. Just what you're grateful for at the end of the day. What awesome things happen that day and that one practice will change. It did for me. It really helps me sort of stay positive and remember all the great that's happening in the world emotionally, what didn't go well, I still carry and I think it's like an affliction. I mentioned that earlier, I still carry like a low level anxiety and worry, like, what's going to go wrong? And it's funny, I read somewhere someone mentioned to me that children that had like, interesting quote unquote childhood. I was the child of an alcoholic and my dad, my parents got divorced when I was 4. My dad drank until I was 15 and we stayed with him when he was drinking. And probably a pretty chaotic. Not probably, definitely a chaotic, uncertain childhood. And a lot of times the reaction to that is that you want to control everything and you're waiting for something bad to happen because you were programmed early on in life. This is a real thing. And so I think I go through some of that. Even though my life has never been better in all areas that I focused on and I've gotten results, I still have like, what's gonna go wrong? You know, I'm anxious a lot of the times and there's no reason in my environment, in the businesses or in any of my relationships that I should be feeling that way. I mentioned, I don't know if it was on this podcast or the last one I did that I'm. I'm actually going to a therapist, EMDR therapist. It's like I. What is it? It's something. I heard it on another podcast. It stands for and I'll, I'll report back to you. It's eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy. So they try to attach current sort of states of feeling, you know, around situations in your present. They try to link it to something in the past. They don't have you talk through all the reasons why that could be having you show up jacked up today. But they link the two and then they have you do some crazy things with your eyes and it's supposed to desensitize and not have you feeling that way. And so who knows if it works or if it's just voodoo. It came highly recommended from multiple sources and people that I know. And so I'm starting that journey and I will let you know how it goes. And that, my friends, is it. So as you think of the areas of your life that matter, your business, your finances, your role as a spouse or a parent, your faith journey, your physical body, the fun that you're experiencing and your emotional well being, you know, go through and take an inventory as we close out this, this year. This episode is airing on New year's Eve of 2019, the last day of the decade, and, you know, take an inventory. Like what. What went well, what didn't go well in these areas, and how can you learn from that and kind of carry that momentum in to the future? So that is my 2019 debrief. Hopefully there's some value in there. There's some, you know, maybe some things that I'm doing well in there that, that you can learn from, and that's. I bring as much transparency as I can to this podcast so that it can help you. That's my whole premise about being in business for real estate B school, is that I want to make the journey easier for you. Even if we never formally do business, if you only consume the information on this podcast, I want to let you know that I mess up. I'm just as jacked up as anyone out there. And the difference maybe between me and other people is that and other business owners, that I'm willing to go into areas where I'm uncomfortable. I'm willing to shine a light on something that maybe is not. It doesn't make me so proud or brings me a little bit of shame to admit a certain thing. And I do that consistently because I want to keep showing up in all these areas of life that matter. So if you're at the point in your journey where you just need help and you've achieved what is already traditionally successful and it's not what you thought it was, you don't have the time you want, the money isn't what you thought it was, and you're super stressed all the time, you've already achieved traditional success. For us, that's a minimum of 3 to 500,000 GCI. You've got an administrative assistant. You probably have.