A real estate leader at 44 realized he was chasing short-term wins instead of building something that lasts. He compares sustainable business to marathon training, not sprinting, and argues for building premium, systems-driven teams that run without you so you can focus on what matters: time, money, and stress.
Getting a service that is over the top. Our team members are making more money than they could, experiencing a quality of life that's better than if they weren't on your team. And a level of profit for you as the person that puts all the different pieces together. And if you're not building that, then what are you doing? Right? Is your plan to stay on the path you're on now and sell 15, 20, 25 homes a year or 40 or. Turned 44. So I'm 45 now. 45 and a half. When I turned 44, I was literally in Hilton Head and I was running as I was listening to a book by Bob Buford called Halftime. And it was the focus of the book was, you know, making the shift from success to significance. And in men's lives, that shift usually comes in the fourth quarter of their life, you know, when it's sometimes too late to sort of have your life stand for something. And my big takeaway from that, you know, so the book talks about basically moving. You know, most men realize that, oh crap, in the fourth quarter of their life, you know, they've. They spent too much time the first three quarters focusing on things that didn't matter, accumulation their career and they sacrifice relationship with their spouse or their children or their physical health or their spiritual health and to shift that transition to the third quarter of their life. So I was 44 years old and I'm like, wow, this literally is halftime for me. It is 44 years in for Lars Hedinborg. And I just, I had this awakening almost that, you know, I have got. I'm going to have a good 88 years on this earth. You know, who knows what's going to happen? In my mind though, I'm like, 44 is halftime. And how can I make this third quarter count in a way where I'm building something that has this life, life beyond me. And it really forced me in a lot of ways to look at my business differently, to get my name off my real estate team, to look at my business coaching company differently, looking at the way I serve my family, my community. I now serve in two organizations here locally that are fighting child homelessness in my city, Charlotte, North Carolina. My giving has gone through the roof. I'm taking care of my body differently. I'm making better long term decisions for my health in terms of eating. So the point I want to make for you though is how are you looking at your business? I was reading a book recently and it was called, It's a book on habits and in the book it talked about, you know, the analogy was with a marathon. So are you training for a marathon or is your goal to run a marathon or to become a runner? And I'm like, huh, in 2015 I ran a marathon and ironically I had just started running again like a week into running again from 2015. So this is three over three years later. You know, I've not fallen completely out of shape. I am nowhere near marathon shape. And so I go out for my three mile run at the first week of this 12 week half marathon training and it nearly like my lungs were on fire to run three miles at a 10 minute pace. And I did the first 20 miles of this marathon at a nine minute pace. I didn't finish the last six miles. Great. I'll be honest with you, but it really struck me like in business, are you looking to crush this year short term goals and you put these crazy goals out there or are you looking to become a business person? Are you looking to get to 50 sides this year or you're looking to sell 5,000 homes in the next 10 years? You know, are you doing the work today to become a business owner? You know, where you have a business worth owning? It's a sustainable business, it's one that runs virtually without you. I mean there's, there are steps you can take to set your business up in the real estate industry where you are going to solidify your position in the market. And what I mean by that is that lots of stuff are changing in our market. And if you're not making the decision for my real estate team, we are making the decision that we're going to be a premium provider of buyer and seller real estate services, the Ritz Carlton of real estate services. So discounter model isn't going to affect us. You know, we're going to provide such an amazing service, a premium service that we will be referable at the highest level. And so that I think is one of the only ways to succeed at a high level in real estate in the future. And to do that it takes on this long term view of business, you know, where it may feel better to run one staff member less for the year because we can afford, you know, we can afford that, we can, we can get a better level of service if we have that person on. So just think about that in your real estate business or different areas of your life. Are you playing the long game? Are you really playing the long game of business? Are you making the decisions today to build a business worth owning? And if you look back 1, 2, 3 years. Are you any further along in terms of having whatever a leveraged business, a scaled business, a sustainable business, a systems driven business, you know, are you achieving what you want to achieve? If you stay in the same path that you're on now will you have regrets? If you stay in the same path that you're on now, will you have regrets? That's a question I ask myself a lot. And you know in real estate b school we are constantly wrestling with the time money stress equation. And here's a question worth asking yourself every week from now until eternity really any industry that you're in and it's the question, you know, is the amount of money I'm making for the time I'm investing with the level of stress I'm experiencing worth it? Time, money, stress, right? In real estate we have this opportunity to set it up in a way where buyers and sellers.
