What are YourSelf-Imposed Limitations?
5 Nov 2020 · 13 min
Lars Hedenborg shares limiting beliefs he overcame in building his real estate business, from avoiding marketing to refusing to hire. He uses Dan Sullivan's four C's framework—Commitment, Courage, Capabilities, Confidence—as a cycle to break through self-imposed blocks, with examples of doubling transactions and losing weight.
Questions this episode answers
November 5, 2020.
Previously weighed 228 pounds; goal was 176 pounds.
182 pounds.
realestatebusinessgrowth.com.
What are some of the limitations you might be placing on yourself when it comes to personal and business growth? And are those limitations self imposed? You know, building a business in our space is challenging, honestly. You know, there's no easy button, there's an easier path. And knocking down some of these self imposed limitations allows you to achieve more than you think you can achieve. If you're at the point in your journey where I wish there was a roadmap, a document, a blueprint that could take me step by step through this journey, stick around to the end of the video. I'm going to share with you my real estate Business Growth Navigator. It's a report I put together for you specifically, no matter where you are in your journey, if you like the video, give me the thumbs up. Also, subscribe to the channel and turn notifications on so you'll know about a new video when it hits. So let's dive into this conversation about self imposed limitations. You know, our industry thrives on the fact that, you know, more agents doing less transactions keeps the industry, all of our local boards, our local mls, everyone banks on the fact, and everyone, you know, selling into our industry banks on the fact that if I can, you know, sell a million, you know, to a million people rather than, you know, 100,000 people, all is going to be good in the world. And what I mean by that is that there's not enough transactions to go around for the number of agents that are out there. So it's easy to get in your head about, you know, what you can and cannot do in terms of your real estate business growth and how you can build a business that can fuel your personal life. You know, how do you show up as a better dad or a mom, or how do you show up as a better, you know, spouse, husband or wife? Right. How do you take care of your physical body, your emotional well being, your emotional well being. It all comes from the fact that we have to block out these self imposed limitations. I want to walk you through my journey and all of these limitations that at times, you know, I would get in my head about all of these and maybe you can identify with the journey. The first limitation, limiting belief. This self imposed limitation I put on myself was I had never built a business before. So, you know, I was in real estate, new to real estate, a busy agent, and I knew that that wasn't sustainable. I was working seven days a week, evenings, weekends, the whole deal. I wasn't present at home, newly married, we just had our first child and I was nowhere to be found in any of it. How do I build out leverage? I've never managed anybody before. You know, all of these sort of things were getting in my head and, and really discouraging me from laying out a vision to do more with my real estate business. And again, just because you haven't done these things before doesn't mean you can't learn how to do it. I think that's one thing, you know, leading and managing folks and building a business, those are things that, you know, you can learn. There is a process, there are tools, there are systems and things that you can implement in your business to make the journey from agent to owner and easier. So that was one limiting belief that I had to knock over and just break through. Another one was, you know, the fact that I had never been a marketer. Like I had never generated leads before. I'd never built systems to be able to generate high quality and buyer seller leads. I knew that I would starve and my new son would just be too skinny if I didn't figure out a way to be able to generate leads systematically. High quality buyer and seller leads. I became a student of direct response marketing early in my career in real estate. So I was studying any book around direct marketing and USP advertising, which is unique selling propositions. You know, how do I get someone to look at a thing, put the right copy or visual asset in place where they're compelled to take action? In our industry, it's all image and brand advertising. And so the self imposed limiting belief or limitation was that, hey, I've never generated leads before. I've never used landing pages. I've never, you know, figured out like what headline in an email will compel someone to respond to an email or to fill out a form or to request a special report. What should the special report look like in order for them to take the next step? Right. The process for me was pique their interest, you know, get them to ask for a top 10 things you must know before you hire an agent. You know, read that report and then have them be compelled to reach out for a free home evaluation. I'd never done any of that before. I was just willing to push through the discomfort, you know, make a commitment and push through the discomfort and develop a capability to be able to do that. So that was one that I had to, had to really push through a limiting belief, a limitation that was self imposed. Right? Others were figuring out how to do this. I just had to learn how to do it myself. The next self imposed limitation or limiting Belief was I'd never managed anyone before. And you know, bringing someone into your world is a big responsibility. You are telling this person like, hey, stop everything you're doing with your career and come help me build my business. I don't have any benefits to offer you. I may even be paying less than other companies out there. I'm in a big city where, you know, you can make six figures. Sitting in a big office building in uptown Charlotte. I didn't have that opportunity yet. I had this vision to build something special and I wanted people to come alongside me to help me build this vision. And so not managing people was a self imposed limitation that all I needed to figure out was like, what's the cadence that we need to have in terms of our meeting cadence? What's the structure of our week? Right. When are we going to time block to do new business development? You know, it wasn't all that complicated. If I psyched myself out just thinking that just because I hadn't managed people before and I hadn't built a business before, doesn't mean I can't do that. That was just a limiting belief, like, hey, just because I hadn't managed people before, I hadn't ever recruited before or, you know, interviewed people before or onboarded new people or, you know, put a cadence into place in the business that had, you know, retention and people were excited about coming to work. I never did it before. I was willing to push through the discomfort and learn how to do it. And so when you think about your business and where you are right now, maybe you have a self imposed limitation, maybe it's from your family of origin around just being successful and you know, what wealth and financial freedom means to you. There's a lot of fear behind success. You know, there's fear of failure, fear of success. It sounds crazy, but you may be in a point, you know, where you have a fear of success and there's a self imposed limitation, there's a thermostat on how successful you'll be based on some pattern or some experience you've had with your parents or how they thought about wealth and money and how you sort of learn by watching them. And so do you have any self imposed limitations or limiting beliefs around your financial life, your ability to generate wealth, your ability to deserve that level of wealth, to focus on the things in your business that make you the most amount of money? That's just another one that you have to break through. Money isn't bad in and of itself. Give a bad person money and they'll find something bad to do with it. Money allows you to do things that you couldn't do before. Provide a lifestyle for your family that they didn't think was possible to impact those in your community that are suffering and around the world who are suffering. We have it really good. Even on our worst days, we have better than most people around the world. One thing I want to share with you before I let you go. It's something I learned from a mentor of mine, Dan Sullivan with Strategic Coach. And I've never forgotten this, and I touched on it a little bit just a second ago. He calls it the four C's. When you think about achieving anything in your business or anything in your life, you have to go through this process. And by going through these four Cs, you get better at breaking through these self imposed limitations, these limiting beliefs that we put on ourselves. So the first C is commitment. You have to make a commitment to do something different in an area of your life or your business. That's the first one. That's the easy part, is easy just to commit to. Hey, I'm going to, you know, I want to go from 228, which is what I actually weighed at one point within in the last year, to 176. I weighed 182 this morning. So the commitment's easy, right? I'm going to make the commitment. I want to drop essentially 50 pounds and I want to do it in this amount of time. The commitment's done. Then you go into the courage phase. The courage phase. That's the second C. That's where you need to maybe tell your spouse that they're cooking is not leading you to the weight you desire and the physical fitness you desire. Maybe you need to have the courage to tell your, your golf buddies or people you watch football with that, hey, I can't come over because that's an environment where I drink a 12 pack and I consume 2000 calories of hot dogs and hamburgers and I just can't do it for a period of time because I've made this commitment that I'm going to show up differently in the area of physical health and vitality, right? So the courage to be able to stand in those situations and maybe have some uncomfortable conversations, that's the hardest part. That second C, courage really repels folks from moving into the third C, which is capabilities. You actually don't need to know how you're going to achieve a thing. When you make the commitment, the focus has to be on pushing through the courage Part that uncomfortable feeling of courage. And then you will figure out the capabilities. So for me, the capabilities around weight loss, where, okay, how do I form a habit of running or working out or cardio regularly? How do I adjust my diet where I'm not triggered to eat late or to eat crappy carbs or whatever it is? The capabilities in weight loss, it's not that complicated to find capabilities to lose weight. But how do I build them into my life so I can achieve, follow through on that commitment? And then the fourth circle is confidence. Building a business, being a business owner, it's all about protecting your confidence by making the commitment. I'm going to go from 228 to 176. That's a 50 pound. Yeah, I think 50 pound change. That's the commitment. I've gotten through some uncomfortable things with courage and some crucial and difficult conversation. I built out the capability. Now I'm £182. I am more confident about my ability to maintain my health than I'd ever been. So you think of it like a spiral. Like you start down here and you make a commitment. You know, you get the courage, you build the capability, you achieve the thing, you get confidence, you make the commitment. You know, you go through the courage phase, you build the capability and you get confidence. And it's this sort of virtuous upward spiral that gets bigger and bigger. And. And if you take business examples like, hey, I'm going to commit to doubling my transactions in the next year, that's scary. I did 20 sides last year and that took every waking hour. I'm going to go to 40 but cut my hours. That's my commitment. The courage is all right. What things do I need to say no to? What relationships might I need to end? What things am I doing in the evenings or weekends? You know, do I need that time back to give to my family? Because I'm going to be sort of doing things differently in my business capabilities. Business planning, right? Planning your day, setting up lead generation levers or systems in your business. What capabilities did you need? And then you hit the 40 sides and you come out with this new confidence. I'm going to go from another commitment from 40 to 80 transactions. Oh, that's scary. Let me get through the courage phase. You know, got to change some things and have some crucial conversations. What capabilities do you need to bring on an administrator to bring on a showing agent? Right. Different set of capabilities. Oh, crap, I hit 80 transactions. A new level of confidence. I'm going to 160 side, right? And it's this sort of virtuous cycle. So I hope that example is helpful. Hope you appreciate the fact that I am physically fit now and I'm feeling awesome about it. I don't say that egotistically. As much to say as it's been a lot of years that I've been in the 210 to 225 range and I've just been feeling like a slug. And I finally figured out that four Cs and where I was blocking myself was in the courage phase to change some things in my life. If you're at the point in your journey where you wish there was a roadmap, a blueprint, you know, so you could understand the stages of business growth, I built the document for you. Go to realestatebusinessgrowth.com or click on the link below. If you liked the video, give me the thumbs up and make sure you subscribe to the channel and turn on notifications so you're the first to know about new videos when they hit. I'm not going to claim that this journey is easy. I will tell you this. When you think about your limiting beliefs, those self imposed limitations, and the fact that you can power through them with commitments and courage and capabilities, and then a newfound confidence, the game gets a whole lot easier. We'll see you in the next video.
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