The Toughest Part of Achieving Your Dream

Welcome back to Real Estate Team Builders. Lars Hedinborg here, the founder of Real Estate B School. And I want to have a conversation today around. I think the toughest part of achieving a dream is this conversation around your why and commitment and goals. And like, nothing new, we've all heard of it. But for those that actually execute on it, what does it look like actually? What does it look like when you, when you write some goals down and you make some commitments and you're clear on your why and you have a vision. And so I want to do this as a follow on to a really impactful conversation I had with Justin Ford on the last episode. Go back and check out that episode if you, if you missed it. And I'm going to share my screen and if you want to jump over to YouTube and do this plan, ultimately I had this plan laminated probably 20 different times in different sizes. I had like 11 by 17 versions of this. I had 8 and a half by 11, double sided and I even had these little mini versions, like they were like eight and a half by five, you know, so basically half the size of a normal eight and a half by 11 because I would have them everywhere, you know, once I committed, like this is what it's going to look like. I had these everywhere. And so the more important side of this, you know, the front part is the business side and I'll go through some of that. But keep in mind I'm coming off a year where I hadn't formally launched the team yet. I had an administrator, but I'm creating this plan in late 2009 and I hadn't really launched the business, the team yet. I was still, you know, sort of fumbling through some of this, but I was clear on the why and also what I wanted to tell myself every day, that the wake up thought was, God has given me another awesome day in which I will use to move toward achieving all my goals and really realizing all my dreams. I will positively impact lives of everyone I touched today. And then the why am I doing this? Which was the first thing and Justin went back to time and time again, people don't know their whys and as a result of not knowing your whys, you're not going to be able to make commitments and stick through, stick with those commitments when things get hard. Right? So the why that I had back then, and it's changed a little bit over the years, um, but it was this. God gave me the tools and presented me with the opportunity to make a huge difference in this world. I have the ability to be the best at what I do because I understand it. I have a major passion for it. I'm a student of it, and I have absolute and utter belief in myself and my team. I want to positively impact the lives of everyone I touch, especially those whom I love the most. I want my children, my wife, and all my family to have total freedom of choice to. To do what they want to do. I want to give back to those who love me, support me, and believe in me so that they may live a life they never thought was possible. My wife also didn't grow up in any kind of, you know, stable household and any kind of privilege or financial stability, very unstable childhood. I want to create positive change as much as I can and make the world a better place. I will always strive to be the very best I can be. I want my family to be proud of who I am. I want to set us financially free so that we may lead an incredible, fulfilled and happy life. And then it goes on to break down, you know, my personal life into more than just business, where I had daily affirmations and key actions, you know, in all the areas of life that mattered to me, that I was clear from an early timeframe. And Justin really went deep on this in his episode as well. But I didn't want to just succeed in business, right. And so I've broken down these. These different life areas in terms of our mind, which is emotions and learning and reading and focus and the body, right. You know, in terms of energy, health, vitality, exercise, fitness and wellness, my spirit, you know, my relationship with God, being present, you know, meditation and those sorts of things. And then family and fun. Family, friends, traveling, celebrating, enjoying the ride. Wealth is money, savings and physical possessions. And then profession was just one of the areas. So one of six areas was my profession, which was real estate, ultimately, then coaching, and now building a massive opportunity to partner at Exp Realty. But my profession was just one of six things. I now have 12 life areas and my mission, I call it now, instead of my profession, it's my mission. It's only one of the 12. And so a lot of times we get so hyper focused on the one thing. I'm going to read you one of these just so you get an idea of how I thought through. Let's pick wealth. No. Yeah, let's pick wealth. Just because it's kind of easy. I think everyone can relate to it. So this was my sort of the statement. And I would read these on a regular basis. And I wasn't financially independent. I wasn't debt free. But it went like this. I'm financially independent. I live debt free. I have all the resources I need to create a net worth of $20 million or more. I have absolute certainty and in my ability to generate any amount of income I desire, I use my wealth and prosperity wisely. And then the key actions and goals that I committed to the first one was I will earn over 400,000. That was take home for me. I will have over $300,000 in liquid assets and 700,000 in net worth by year end. And I did not have those numbers right. My business will generate 40,000 average monthly net income this year. Julie will. My wife was working five days, but Julie will only work three days per week. By year end I wanted her to get out of the rat race of being in the hospital. She had an awesome position as a certified registered cr, certified registered nurse anesthetist. So she was essentially, you know, an anesthesia person in a hospital. But it was a grind, it was really hard. We will invest 12,000 minimum annually in children's college funds. 24,000 into a SEP IRA. And I've changed some of these tactics as well. And 12,000 into Julie's 401k. Now we're saving like you know, systematically over $30,000 a month. And it's even more than that when I consider some of the other investments that we're making. So that's an example of like how I viewed wealth and what needed to happen to get there. I mentioned, you know, that my three year vision for the real estate business with 240 sides in 2012 I actually did 248. And this was saying that I was, I would do listings only, which you know, would imply I do over a hundred listings when I wrote this plan but I did one listing, you know, so I really made, took massive steps toward exiting the business in just a three year period. And then it goes on to have five year goals and ten year goals and, and on the front it has all the sort of focus areas of the business and even my guiding statement for the year. And this goes to the why and commitment and the power of words and vision and all of this. It was my 2010 business goal. Keep in mind I was coming off a year where I did 58 transactions. I hired a buyer agent late in that year but only did around four transactions. So how me and my team will nail 160 plus sales in 2010 for 960 of gross commission income. And 50% net margin. And I said first this is a done deal. That said this is going to take laser focus and pig headed discipline. This next year will be the most incredible stretching and growth year of my life. I will exceed my goals and expectations. I will close 100 sides personally and 160 plus sides total with average commission in excess of $6,000. I will accomplish this by focusing on key personal growth areas and business impact zones. And I was coaching with Kinder Reese at the time. And so that term business impact zones was something that they, they didn't prescribe the business impact zones but that was a term that I kind of swapped or swiped from them rather. And then you can kind of, you know, people preparation, plans, practice and potential. And I just detailed this thing out where there was no question about where I was going and how I was going to get there. And I feel like when I talk to people that have at least they're saying the words like I want to grow, I want to but they never actually take the time to write down what it's going to look like and what it will take to get there. You know, Justin said choose your hard and it's something that's easy to hear like who hasn't heard that expression before? But when you really think about it like is it hard to figure out a way to sell a lot of homes and build a leverage business? Is that hard or is it hard to be like a marginally successful real estate agent that has no exit strategy at all and is going to sell homes into their 60s and is stressed all the time. Working seven days a week doesn't take care of their physical body. And as a result their physical body breaks down. They're not spending time with their creator, they're not sort of emotionally, well, their marriage is strained. Right. What's hard? You know what's what's hard. The path I chose was really, really hard. And in, in all of those challenges I constantly had to level up and show up in a bigger and bolder way. And not just in the area of business where it was just totally one dimensional. And then I go on to break it down in terms of quarterly and annual numbers. And so this, I talk a lot about 3 190. It was born out of this thinking. At this time I was a three, five and ten year vision. We've kind of settled in on just a three year vision. With all the chaos and changing. I don't think a five and a ten year is really realistic at this point. I know some People still do it, but a three year vision, a one year plan, and they would break it down into quarterly focus areas or projects or rocks that we work on. And that's still the cadence we use to this day. So it started back in late 2009. Thirteen years later, we're still using the same cadence. And I'll end with this thought and it was a quote by Napoleon Hill. And looking back, it was a bit dramatic, you know, in terms of, you know, what the mind of man can conceive and believe it can achieve. And I remember constantly, every day reading that quote, like, hey, I've conceived this plan very clearly what my business and my personal life is going to look like. And I believe it. You know, so conceive, believe, achieve. The plan is on paper, it's scary, but it's doable. I totally believe it because I put enough thought and effort into it. And in that conceived believe, it's almost a done deal, right? Like I said in my annual sort of statement first, this is a done deal. You know, so it's that level of confidence and also the, the commitment, you know, it is a no plan B. I left a multiple six figure corporate job to get into real estate. There, there wasn't a plan B. This was the plan to provide a life for my family that didn't, that they never thought was possible by setting my business up in a way where it didn't, you know, enslave me. And it provided a level of freedom that is really, really uncommon in our industry. And so that is what I wanted to share about my journey. And if you want to look at this, there's some really personal information on that plan. But it has really helped a lot of people put their arms around a top producing agent making the commitment, knowing their why, and then putting on paper what it's going to look like in every quarter year, three, five and 10 years. It might be a valuable exercise for you to get a copy of it. So email me@larsealestate b school.com and I'll send it over. No obligation or anything like that. And I'll say this, and I'll end with this is y' all know that I've, I've made the pivot into exp and I had all the junk around it, all the misconceptions and a lot of the misinformation that was going around even in my own mind around EXP and the platform that it is. If you're still in that mode of thinking, like it's something that you really don't have firsthand knowledge of what it is. My only motivation really since 2013 in launching real Estate B school was to impact deeply, so deeply impact the lives of business minded, entrepreneurial, sort of spirited real estate agents, top agents and team builders. And that continues to be my obsession is now I just have a very elegant platform to allow you to get access to everything I've ever built and to partner with me personally for me to to take you through the process to grow a leveraged business that's super profitable and also to get all the access to the stuff at the eight other income pillars that exist at exp, which you just have to make sure you know what you're saying no to. So go to partnerwithrebs.com that's partnerwithrebs.com you can click on a button called Learn the truth and get my perspective on it. See a few videos that have been created. You can also see some of our case studies of folks that have been successful in Real Estate B school, the same systems that you'll be plugging into. And you can also book in a call with me. So go to partnerwithrebs.com and we'll see you over there. Be good.