Switch Up Your Daily Habits And Get Ready to Achieve ANYTHING You Set Your Mind To

Welcome back to Real Estate Team Builders podcast. I'm Lars Hedenborg, the founder of Real Estate B School and I just actually interviewed Sean Kokoska and he told his story and we got into a conversation about habits that I want to go deeper into that conversation and kind of reflect a little bit upon my journey in business and my journey as a husband and my journey as a father and a guy that wants to take care of his physical body and succeed at a high level in multiple areas of my life. If you missed the conversation with Sean, make sure you go back one episode. It is a must listen episode. This guy coaches team builders in the thousands of transactions. Like he plays the game of coaching at the highest level. And this is coming from someone that coaches folks and he is my coach at EXP to help me with agent attraction. So just an awesome guy with a deep background in real estate was involved in writing the One Thing with Gary Keller and Jay Papazon and starting maps coaching. And just, just an awesome, awesome guy and super humble as well. So I want to break into this conversation about habits and the resource that I'm most familiar with that has impacted my sort of trajectory with really understanding habits is a book by James Clear called Atomic Habits. And the subtitle is an easy and proven way to build good habits and break Bad ones. And one of the bigger takeaways from the book is that in order to identify, let's just take the area of our physical bodies, like taking care of our fitness. The quote from the book that hit me the hardest is that, and this is true in Real Estate team builders, we want to have these grand gestures. And in the book they say success is the product of daily habits, not once in a lifetime transformation. So a good example of this is when I decided to run a marathon I had never run before. And I just decided that I was going to train for 90 days and I was going to run not any marathon, but the, the D.C. marine Corps Marathon. Like it's, it's one of probably the top 10 marathons that you're going to want to do as a marathon runner. And I wasn't going to just, you know, train a little bit for it. I was going to make sure I did it under four hours, which is not like legendary, but for me it was a lot because I hadn't run ever. And so in the book, the example James gives is the goal isn't to run a marathon, it's to become a runner. And so let's break that down a little bit. My goal was to run a marathon. So literally at the end of the marathon, I swore off running for almost two years. I didn't have a goal to become a runner and a lifelong athlete. I identified with a guy that just wants to achieve that sort of, that one thing. And so in the book they talk a lot about identity shift. And let's say you're struggling in an area of your life and so let's take it to real estate and you're struggling to string. Let's just take it as a solo real estate agent. So this applies to, you know, if you're a solo agent thinking about building a team, or if you're a team leader and you're coaching real estate agents, you're struggling to get consistently consistent sales, right? Let's say you're, you're not hitting the minimum standard of your team or you're not 2, 3, 4 sales a month if you're a solo agent. What, what, how can we break down to the most basic level? What's the one thing? Right. Sean mentioned the book the One Thing by Gary Keller, which is an awesome resource by the way, as a salesperson, what's the one thing that at the most basic level that we can master over time or pay attention to over time, build it into a habit over time that will change everything for us. And Sean in the podcast, he talks about just the habit of conversations, 10 meaningful conversations a day, or 15 or 20 every day with a decision making adult about real estate. Right. If we could, and the studies show that it's not 21 days, it's 66 days. So if we can lean into that one activity for 66 days, we will now identify with the fact that we are a salesperson, that it's non negotiable, that we're going to have our minimum standard of conversations, meaningful conversations every day, no matter what. And so that is just a little example. The big ideas from the book I want to go through and maybe chat a little bit about my experience with them. Number one is that habits are the compound interest of self improvement. So habits are the thing that is the only determinant of where we end up in an area of our life. Either that's a good place we end up or a not so good place. Right? We can have bad habits. We can have a habit of coming home after being a real estate team leader all day and dismissing our family and checking out, grabbing a beer and sitting in front of the tv. Right. It's a habit. It's not a great habit. It's not going to lead to a, you know, a super fulfilling marriage and relationship with your kids. It's a habit. Nonetheless, the second big idea from the book is if you want better results, then forget about setting goals, focus on your system instead. And there's a really good quote. Let me see if I can find it from the book. Yeah. The purpose of setting goals is to win the game, right? So I had a goal of running a marathon. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game. True long term thinking is, is goalless thinking. It's not about any single accomplishment. It's about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement. I just love that there is a really good video on YouTube. If you go to either, either Google or just straight to YouTube and you search James Clear 1% better every day. It is like a really good 25 minute talk that encompasses all of this. I highly recommend you consume it, but also bring bring that into a personal development session with your team. Really, really, really awesome. Next big idea. The most effective way to change your habits is to focus not on what you want to achieve, but on who you wish to become. So let me give you a good example of this in business, right? So business for me, I'm at the point in my journey where I'm focused on like legacy and impact. And so I'm identifying myself now with being a leader of leaders, which was different. It's been different at every point of my journey. But now I'm able to focus on things and dig back in and reignite my passion for business because I now want to become a leader of leaders. And in order for me to do that, I've got to up my game in different aspects of my business. And this podcast and the guests I bring on in my engagement, level with them and getting out of my comfort zone and connecting with more people and giving more of myself and being less selfish with my time. And so this identity shift for me is substantial. And the most basic one is with respect to that runner example. The most effective way to change my habits around my physical body is to identify as an athlete. I am an athlete, right? And as an athlete, I fuel my body a certain way and I, I do things that athletes do, which includes high intensity interval training workouts, it includes strength training, it includes cardio, it includes supplements, it includes intermittent fasting, it includes the list goes on and on, and then you break it down and you tackle the one habit that's going to get you the best result or move the needle the most in the next Couple months. All right, so the next big idea with the book and as it relates to maybe your journey in building a team or in real estate. The four laws of behavior change are a simple set of rules we can use to build better habits. They are one. Make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, and make it satisfying. So let's use the example of diet. Let's use the example of diet. So as we identify with an athlete with a physique, that would only be possible with paying attention to diet, right? Because you can't work out your way to a slim physique. The make it obvious is identifying with. Maybe for me, the downside of not taking care of myself make it attractive. You know, maybe it's identifying with, with the buff version of yourself. Make it easy. I time block. I follow my calendar. I have my workout gear ready to go. I don't take appointments before 11 o' clock any day, any week. So I have that time. And then make it satisfying. I have a great neighborhood that I run around in or I have a, have a peloton tread and I listen to music or I listen to a podcast or you know, I make the actual part, the actual activity super satisfying. So hopefully that's, that's helpful. And the fifth part here is environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior. So a good example again with. Let's go back to business. If the environment you're working in or the environment you surround yourself in, let's say you don't leave your home and you've got three kids under five and a spouse that needs help during the day. And there's nothing, no downside to that. Your environment, is it conducive for playing the game of business at a very high level from the hours of eight to six it is not. So you are setting yourself up for failure out of the gate. An example with diet taking care of our physical body is let's say you don't meal plan at all, right? Going into your week, you don't have any plan for what you're going to consume. The environment that you're putting yourself into come lunchtime on Monday when you just want to grab a burger is not conducive to taking care of your physical body, right? So environment is everything. So that is. I want to, I want to find one more quote for you. Processes. Yeah. So goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results. And so let's, let's talk a little bit about, about systems. So a Few questions to ask yourself, maybe. You know, I have done a lot of things wrong in business, in life, and I've done enough things right to achieve a level of success that's, that's a bit uncommon. And I don't say that from an ego statement. I just say it to hopefully lend some credibility to what I'm about to say. When I think of systems, I'm a systems guy. I realize that a business is a system of system. I even think that marriage is a system of systems. Right. If it's important to connect with your spouse on a regular basis, what's that time block in your calendar where you're just going to be eye to eye and listening to your spouse? What's. Do you have date nights in regularly? Are you taking vacations quarterly with your spouse? Is that stuff making it into your calendar? If you're taking appointments still as an agent or team leader, do have you engaged with your spouse? What's the system and the agreement and commitment to allow you to work certain evening nights? Right. For me, it was, I think it was Tuesday and Thursday I had negotiated with my bride Julie, as those were two nights where I could work until like 8, 8pm so I could take that one late appointment a couple times a week. And then I had Saturdays by appointment only, 9, 11 and 1. And it was listings only. And Sundays, Saturday afternoons and Sundays, Sundays off as well. And also Friday nights I was home for family night. And so that's a system that we agreed to that allowed us to not, you know, for Julie, not to resent, you know, the real estate business, which is typical of spouses. Right. We give more to our business than we do our families. Last quote. And then, then we'll be done. Here is if you want to predict where you'll end up in life, all you have to do is follow the curve of tiny gains or losses and see how your daily choices will compound and 10 or 20 years down the line. And so I'm 48 years old. I've made a commitment to take care of my physical body. And I'm hoping with me identifying as an athlete and having a clear picture of how an athlete would treat their bodies. Because I believe I'm a business athlete, right. If I don't ground myself in my physical body and also emotionally and spiritually, I'm a Jesus follower. And that's more important than most everything I've talked about here so far. And if, if I want to end up at a destination 20, 30 years from now, let's say 30 years from now, even more than that quote. So 48 and 78, I want to be playing with my kids. Kids, Right. So I want to be an active grandparent. I'm identifying with an athlete all these years leading up to that. I'm going to recalibrate and if you're watching the YouTube version of this, I'm actually using my hands. I'm going to, I'm going to recalibrate consistently because it's going to be easy for me to sense when I'm off of the straightest line to being a completely fit and healthy 78 year old that identifies still as an athlete. Right. And so in business, you know, are you doing the things consistently for where you are, what stage you are in your business that are going to lead you to pick up that next stage where you can hire an administrator, that next stage where you can bring on a showing agent or buyer agent, that next stage where you can exit buyer production, that next stage where you can exit listing production. Right. And bring on your second administrator. And so there's all these sort of choices that we make in our time that, that allow us to get to the next level in any area of life that matters most to us. My friends. That is all I have got for you today. Hopefully there is some value here. I have listened to the book Atomic Habits probably four times now. Really good read. If you are at the point in your journey where you want a little bit further of a deep dive into what it might look like to navigate these stages of growth and the questions you'll ask yourself and the team structure and the amount of hours you need to work and the systems you need to deploy in your business, go to realestate business growth.com I put together, I think it's a 15, 16 page report where I literally detail all of the stages of growth and how to navigate those stages. It's called our Real Estate Business Growth Navigator and it's free, no obligation whatsoever. So go check it out. Realestate business growth.com and we'll see you in the next episode. Be good.