The Gap & The Gain: Is There a More Self-Compassionate Way to Measure Our Progress?

Welcome back to Real Estate Team Builders. This is Lars Hedinborg, the founder of Real Estate B School. And this podcast exists just to simply tell the truth about what it's like to grow and scale a real estate team the right way so that it gives you more freedom ultimately as you build the business out. There are a bunch of teams out there, and I don't say this as much in a hey, look how great we are kind of way, but to point out that without accountability around expenses and without accountability around people, most teams are a loose collection of agents that are, you know, marginally profitable, if at all profitable, before you take out the production of the team leader. And so we exist just to tell the truth about what works, what doesn't work, what you need to pay attention to so that you could build a business worth owning and live a life worth living. And today I want to cover kind of a book review. I recently did a training a four part series on how to develop a millionaire mindset. And one of those trainings was talked about the power of gratitude and this concept of the gap in the game. And it's something I learned from Dan Sullivan, creator of Strategic Coach many years back, probably five years ago, I spent three or four years coaching under Dan directly. And it was a workshop setting. So it's not like he coached me one on one. One of the most valuable concepts that I learned was this gap and the gain. And there's a book that it just came out if you go to Gap and Gain Hardy, it's Benjamin. Dr. Benjamin Hardy is the guy that wrote Willpower Doesn't Work and so gap gain. I totally typed it in wrong, but it is, it is worth getting the book it lays out. The thing I love about it is that it lays out so this is the gap in the gain is the name of the book the High Achiever's Guide to Happiness, Confidence and Success. And it was published October 19, 2021. So years after I left Strategic Coach, I learned this in one session that Dan taught and Dan and Benjamin Hardy kind of came together on this book. The thing I love about the audio version of the book, highly recommend it and I will get into my learnings from it here in a second, is that Dan Ben Hardy interviews Dan in between each chapter and he just kind of riffs about his experience personally and 30 years of coaching entrepreneurs and how our minds are wired and it is just pure, absolute gold. So highly recommend the audible version of it. Really, really, really good. So here's simply what the gap in the gain Is, is that as a hard charging, sort of goal oriented, growth minded entrepreneur in the real estate space, I'm assuming if you're listening to the podcast that you are, you want to grow, you want to scale, you want to do it the right way, maybe you've done it the wrong way, you're struggling in some kind of way. That personality type struggles in that we live in the gap. The gap is. And the example that he gives is that if you drive a jet ski into the ocean and you aim for the horizon, you could, you know, let's say there was no land, but you're just, it's all water. You could go forever and never hit the horizon. You'd never get there, right? So if you measured your progress on this jet ski in the ocean by how close you were getting to the horizon, you'd never feel like you were making any progress. But if you turn back and you looked at the land you just left and you're like, oh man, the land's getting smaller. I'm really going a long distance here. You would feel like you're making massive progress. And when you measure your progress against where you want to be, this ideal, the horizon, we call it the ideal, you'll always fall short because that ideal outcome is a moving target. And so when you're in the gap and it could be in business, it could be in your marriage, it could be with your kids, you're feeling like you're a failure, you're feeling frustrated, disappointed, you don't feel great about yourself, low self esteem. Sometimes you can either, you can feel guilt, I've been there. Like I'm not with my family when I should be because I'm working, when I'm working, I want to be with my family. Like you kind of put yourself in this lose, lose situation and you could even feel depressed when you're in gap. So you're measuring yourself against this ideal and you're not giving yourself credit for how far you've come. I want to give some examples here in a minute. Me personally, in different areas of my life, the opposite of that is what they call the gain. And it's, you know, you could still, it's still helpful to realize, let me use an example, the four minute mile. So if that's the ideal, let's say I don't run at all, I've never run a mile and I'm 100 pounds overweight. And the ideal is like, OK man, this what his name, Roger Bannister was the first guy to break a four Minute mile. Now high school students do it. It's a useful marker. So it's not like it's not useful. So I'm sitting here on the couch, I'm not a runner and I know that high school students run a four minute mile. So I could use that information to say, ok, so let me go on Google and see what plans there might be to run a 12 minute mile. What would it take for me to go to couch potato 100 pounds overweight to run a 12 minute mile? What does that plan look like then? How do I get it down to 11 or 10 minutes so it is useful. But if I measure my 12 minute mile against the 4 minute mile, I will feel like a complete failure to the point where I may even give up and not keep working against it. But if I measure my progress against like, hey, 60 days ago I was on a couch, you know, completely immobilized and now I am walking three miles four times a week. Like my progress is massive. And working out and walking outside has kind of spurred a sense of wanting to take care of my diet. And all of a sudden I am eating a little better, right? So now I am really looking at the couch potato guy that ate potato chips and watched TV all day long. To someone that walks three miles four days a week and he is eating a bit healthier, massive progress, but still forever away from running a four minute mile. And this person probably will never run a four minute mile. So if that's their ideal and they're measuring themselves against that, they'll never feel any sense of contentment. So when you flip this over to the other side and you measure the gain, you can feel success, satisfaction, you can feel an increased sense of confidence, you feel better about yourself in terms of your self esteem, you can bring a joy and optimism and enthusiasm because now you're making progress. And so an example of this in, let's say in business. There's also a comparison issue that goes on where we look at we don't know anything about a real estate team leader, let's say they sell 1200 homes a year. We don't know anything about that business, we don't know anything about that person yet. We want to compare ourselves like, oh, I only sell 400 homes a year and that person sells 1200 homes a year. We don't know their profitability, we don't know how many hours they work, we don't know if their profitability is only their own production. We don't know if they're married or if they have a strong marriage. If they're taking care of their physical body, if they're spending any time with their creator, if their mindset is right, if they're. All of the things can stack up. You don't know anything about their situation, but you want to set that ideal as that mega 1200 unit team in your market versus, like, okay, so my business is 400 transactions. And this is like a real example for me. We had teams in our market that were selling twice as many homes as I was selling the year we did. 420 transactions. But that year was the best year for me personally because I launched a second business, real estate B school, and I only worked like 40 days that year in my real estate business. Had a super strong relationship with my wife, spent a bunch of time with my kids. We traveled. I think we took 12 weeks of vacation, you know, four alone with my wife and like, you know, four with the family. Just the family. And then four for sort of workshops and events like that. Right. So just like the most amazing year ever. But if I, if I looked at the 400 versus the competitor in my market that was two or three times my size and I would feel deflated and I wouldn't feel successful. And so that's kind of where this, where this thing comes together. When you're sitting in the gap, you'll never feel a sense of accomplishment or contentment, and it will literally eat you up alive to the point where you're just feeling unfulfilled and you're feeling like there's not really a point of even going on anymore. Here's the antidote, though. So this is the piece that's critically important. And I actually got away from it for a while and I've been doing it. Let me see here. I'm going to pull up my Five Minute Journal app. I've been doing it since, so 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. So about 17 days now I've been back to using the Five Minute Journal. And let me open up. I'm going to open up one here. So basically starts every day. This is the antidote to, to being in the gap. When you find yourself in the gap, you want to look for in that area that. And you could be in the gain in one area of your life and then in the gap in another area. So you can be in the gap in your marriage where you're looking at your spouse and you're constantly looking at their deficiencies versus, you know, the progress that they're making and get frustrated. I Do that quite a bit in my marriage. Not, not a proud thing for me to to admit. The antidote for that is to look for things that you're grateful for and progress that is being made. So in the five minute journal you start out every day. Three things I'm grateful for. You know, this was an entry I said the ability to go to Lebanon with. With open eyes. I just did a podcast episode on leadership lessons from Lebanon. It was amazing. And then my second thing from the other day that I was grateful for having leveraged and residual income streams. It is like amazing. It is awesome. And then number three was living a more congruent and authentic life. And then in the morning, so I do that in the morning. Those three things grateful for also your top three for the day. What will I do to make today great? And then a daily affirmation. And then in the nighttime you write the highlights for the day. And this was I was actually on a plane heading to Lebanon. So the highlights for the day was that I was on a plane heading to Lebanon, which is awesome. That day I got a massage, two hour massage before I left. That was awesome. We're launching a new website and building a bunch of new funnels out. I launched with that company, amazing VA company out of the Philippines that does funnel building. And then I signed on to work with Vyral marketing in their influencer program which is great. So that was awesome. And then also you look at how could I made today even better. And I said not be as rushed rushed to get to the airport. We just barely got to the airport and my wife likes to be there an hour early. And we were walking up to the gate as the plane was boarding, which is a no, no if you want to keep my wife Julie happy, you do not. You do not cut things that close. She definitely worries and gets super stressed with that. So that's the antidote. So think about it. So here's my challenge to you. Think about the areas of your life, the key areas of your life right now. Easy to do with kids too. Let me stop here. In the book, the Benjamin Hardy Dan Sullivan book, he brings up examples of how he's consistently in the gap with one of his kids. Meaning like I think he has an adopted kid and he gives an example of how he's constantly. He's developmentally behind because of his years pre there adopting him. And I've done this with my kids where you kind of pick on something like how come you're not doing this? Or why'd you get a 72 in this class. Meanwhile, you ignore the 94 and 96 and 99, they're getting the other class. So you kind of get into the gap with them where you're looking at, you know, something, a deficiency versus the things that are going well. So you're not looking at their progress, you're looking at this ideal that you set for them. You do it with your kids, you could do it with your spouse, you could do with people in the business. And so that's, that's, that's helpful. So my challenge for you is to go through the areas of life, maybe your children, your spouse, maybe you're in the gap in your spiritual walk where you're like, you are down on yourself because you think you should be reading the Bible every day and you are not, or you know, people that are and you are not. And the challenge is there. So your spiritual life, your kids, your spouse, in business, in your finances, with your physical body easy to get into the gap in your physical body easy. And this is where most people, they will not be in a good place, have extra pounds on, they are not working out the way they should. And you know, they start to work out and they see people in the gym that are super fit and buff and they go on Instagram and everyone's beautiful on Instagram and they feel fat and chubby and they're working out, you know, 30 days in, 60 days in, 90 days in, and they're still comparing themselves to like the super fittest person in the gym or this health program that they've signed up for and they're not giving themselves credit incrementally how their health is improving. Right. So go through the areas of your life. Getting a little off track here, but I'm super excited. Go through the areas of your life where you may, that are important to you. And there's only six, seven or eight, right? And are there areas, are there areas, are there parts of those areas where you're in the gap or is the complete area in the gap where you're constantly, you know, you're feeling frustrated, you're sort of feel like a failure in that area of your life and is it linked to you sort of this artificial comparing to an ideal or something, you know, some goal that it might be impossible to achieve? Are you in the gap or are you measuring yourself against the progress that you're making? And so go through and take an inventory of the areas where you're doing that and then start to get into a gratitude practice. Highly recommend 5 Minute Journal. I think it's a paid app, but it's totally worth it. So definitely do that. And then, yeah, this is going to change everything. If you agree to and commit to a 30 day, you know, even just doing five minute journal for 30 days and having an awareness, for sure. Read the book, but then have an awareness when you're getting into the gap and then instantly say, you know, maybe it's a conversation with somebody, a team member. We're like, man, you know, you're not getting your 20 meaningful conversations in a day. You know, but just 90 days earlier, they were hardly getting five in a day and now they're averaging 12. Right. So they're making massive progress, but they're not where you want them to be. And so it just has so many applications. So I hope there's good fruit for you in this exercise. For sure. Get the book. Definitely get the five Minute Journal. Highly recommended. It recommend it and I think I mentioned it on a previous podcast, so you may have ignored it then. And maybe this is sort of me reminding you that it does work. It'll change everything for you. I've gotten, I got away from it, I'm back at it. And my psychology now has completely shifted, you know, it's completely shifted. So much love, much respect. I will say this. If you're struggling in your real estate business, you know, you're a top agent or you're a team leader and you want to look into what it would look like to partner with me directly, partner with me in your business. Focus on your business first. Let's just have a conversation about it. Let's do a strategy session together. There's no obligation, there's no hard sell into either paid coaching or to partner with me at exp, But I want to have a conversation with you about your business. If, if you're struggling simply because you're struggling and I exist on this planet to help top agents and team leaders when they're struggling. If that's you, I would go to partnerwithrebs.com that's partnerwithrebs.com and just go to either learn the truth and kind of learn about what I'm building, or just book in a call. It's the top, most right hand button, book a call into my calendar and let's have a conversation about what's going on in your business, where you are now, where you want to go in the future, where, what you've been working on, what's working, what are the obstacles that you've seen along your journey and how we can once and for all grow and scale this business in a way where it fuels an amazing lifestyle so that you can have meaning, impact and be fully satisfied with your business and live an amazing life. So go to partnerwithrebs.com and we'll see you over there. Be good.