The word “restless” resonated deeply within me. I knew I needed a change, but I didn’t know what that change was. From the outside looking in, everything in my life appeared fine, but I wasn’t satisfied. I had a successful business, but I wasn’t excited about my role as it was. I had a strong relationship with my wife and my kids, but I worried whether I was around enough to be the husband and father they needed me to be. I lived in the mountains of Colorado, but I always dreamed of having more time for adventures.
It seemed all aspects of my life demanded more of me than I had to give. Something was stirring inside me and I couldn’t solve it. In a word, I was stuck…. but I wasn’t giving up.
On New Year’s Eve, I decided to make a resolution. It wasn’t as much a resolution as it was a decision to take action on something I could control. My goal was to begin an exercise program doing sit-ups and push-ups starting with doing one of each on January 1st and then add one more sit up and one more push-up each day for the entire year. To make things more interesting starting out, I also decided to run for 30 minutes each day and track my progress. I was excited about a program that was simple and didn’t require any special equipment besides my running shoes and my treadmill if necessary. The reps I needed to do each day correlated to the number of days that had passed on the calendar in a year, so it was easy to keep on track with that as well.
I did the math and I’m not going to lie…the result scared me quite a bit! If I accomplished my goal of adding one more each day, that means I would be committing to 66,795 push-ups, and 66,795 sit-ups in one year’s time, not to mention the 182 hours, 30 minutes of running that I would have to do. I wondered if I had the mental toughness to complete the task for all 365 days. The more I thought about the big goal, the more impossible it seemed to accomplish. However, by focusing on how easy it was to do just one push-up and one sit-up, it also seemed ridiculously easy to get started. By breaking the big goal down into small, simple tasks, the goal seemed much more achievable.
Having been involved in sports and being reasonably athletic most of my life, I didn’t find the push-ups or sit-ups difficult to start and didn’t take much time to finish. As I started out early in the year, I wondered when it would get difficult or when life would get in the way and force me to stop for some reason. As I passed 50 push-ups and then 75, I started breaking up the number of push-ups into equal sets to make up my total for the day. I also alternated from sit-ups to push-ups and back again until I reached my total I was shooting for each day. About the time I started hitting 3 sets of 50, I started to believe this whole thing was actually possible.
The monotony involved doing push-up after push-up was a mental roadblock as much as it was a physical one. There were days I didn’t feel like getting out of bed and dedicating the time necessary to accomplish that day’s goals. There were some days where I was running and exercising late into the night just to get back up in the early morning to do it all again. Eventually, the amount of time it took to accomplish each set of exercises and the rest needed in between sets took longer than it did to run for 30 minutes. I had no choice but to be intentional with my schedule to fit it all in with the rest of my schedule for the day.
My four kids and my wife were a huge support through the entire process sometimes joining in to see how many they could do along side of me. Everyone in my family knew my goal and that helped me stay accountable. They knew I had to make time to get it done and over time, I began to want to accomplish this goal to show my kids what was possible. I didn’t want to let them down. At times, they didn’t know how to encourage me to keep pushing until the concept of improving 1 more than yesterday came into our discussions. From then on, all I focused on was “one more than yesterday.”
After a while, the threat of breaking the streak seemed like a bigger disappointment than how easy it was to just add one more. The days turned into weeks which turned into months….and eventually, the end of the year and the end of the program came into focus. I’m proud to say I accomplished my goal without skipping a single day all year long! While each day was hard, the crazy thing was that over time, my body and my mindset got used to the hard work. Somewhere along the line, the hard work turned into “business as usual” through focusing on “one more than yesterday” and staying disciplined to the process.
If you thought that was the end to my story, I’m excited to share it was only the beginning!
Before I finished all 365 days, my mindset and my goals for everything else I wanted to accomplish in my life began to expand exponentially. When I started out, each day was difficult and took effort. As I added incrementally more exercise each day and ran faster on my treadmill, what seemed hard at the beginning became easy by the end of the year. It took me a while, but I learned that growth takes time!
At this point in our lives, our kids were growing like crazy and instead of leaning heavily into my career with my new-found direction, I chose to press pause to pursue time with my family. I set a goal to step out of my business for three months to travel the country in an RV with my family. At first, this goal seemed just as daunting as all those push-ups and sit-ups. But I also had the new confidence that I could figure out the steps necessary, make it a priority, and get it done.
Much like the exercise plan, I focused on the small steps it took to accomplish the goal and knocked them out one step at a time. Being complete novices in the recreational vehicle department, we did a bunch of research, purchased the RV, set up the company to operate while I was on the road, and took off on a trip of a lifetime! We saw all 48 states in 3 months as a family, made countless memories, and invested in our relationships. Living as a family of 6 in 350 square feet for 3 months will make any family closer, and we wouldn’t trade it for the world! While I could easily go down the rabbit hole of all the amazing things we saw, the route we took, and the people we visited, the point is WE DID IT! We had the time of our lives!
When I returned home, I was thrilled to see that my business not only survived but was just as healthy as when I left thanks to my amazing employees and colleagues. The idea that I could leave for 3 months and still have a thriving business opened a whole new world of possibilities in my mind and in my career. Much like the exercise program, and the RV trip after it, I was dreaming big dreams again with the confidence I could figure out the steps necessary and get it done!
The process of focusing on myself ended up benefiting everyone around me. Specifically, my family benefited not only from the big RV trip that brought us much closer as a family, but they also saw an example of how to set big goals, make a plan, have the discipline to stick to the plan, and come out successful on the other side. My co-workers and employees benefited from me having a bigger vision for my company and the opportunities that have come along with that vision. My clients benefited from my positive attitude and willingness to tackle big problems to find solutions.
In a world that always seemed to demand more of me than I had to give, I enjoyed making myself and my health a priority. Conquering the mental side of the exercise program allowed me to think bigger and gain self confidence that I didn’t know I had lost. Through the discipline of 365 days of exercise, I broke out of my restlessness and found my way from being stuck to being unstuck.
By this time, you may be wondering how my story of 66,795 push-ups and sit-ups will help you learn how to make your first $100,000 in real estate. Let’s look back again at a few of the key lessons from my story and consider how they can be applied to being a successful real estate agent.
Take Action
You never know what you can accomplish until you take action. By focusing on your own effort and what you can control, you’ll achieve success faster. In the world of real estate, it seems as if there are a lot of things outside of your control before you receive a paycheck. But what you can control is your own effort. You can’t control other people’s decisions, but you can control how many people you connect with in a day. Taking that first step is the hardest part, but it may also be the most important! Take action on things you can control, and let the results take care of themselves.
Small, Simple Tasks
Big goals are easier to accomplish when you break them down into small, simple tasks. Break your big goals down into tiny steps that build off the previous steps. Eventually, what you found hard to accomplish yesterday becomes easier if you stay disciplined to the process. Small progress adds up to massive gains over time.
Be intentional with your schedule
Being intentional with my schedule was essential to structure my day to include what I decided was important in my life. “Not having time” is just an excuse. If it is important enough, you’ll make time. Start first by planning time for yourself, your family, and other things that bring you joy. Likewise, identify what in your real estate business that you absolutely need to be doing each and every day. Make sure you plan your day and your week so that you are focused on accomplishing those goals with time for your health, your finances, and your relationships. Use your calendar and technology to your advantage with timers, alerts, and alarms to keep yourself on track. It seems counterintuitive, but the more disciplined you are with your time, the more free time you will have to do things you want to do!
Be Accountable to Someone
Having a group of people who supported my goals and held me accountable was necessary to get me through the tough times. Likewise, in real estate, the people you have around you are essential to your success. If the people around you don’t inspire you to be better, dream big, and live out your unique abilities, then do everything you need to do to find your people! Seek out people that are a little bit ahead of you, a little bit behind you, and that are walking right alongside of you to get the most out of your relationships.
Incremental Improvement
I found I could accomplish a lot more than I thought I could by simply adding “one more than yesterday.” Incremental progress in real estate doesn’t have to be a daily thing but could be a weekly, monthly or even yearly thing depending on your focus! It could easily look like adding one more person to your database, adding one more piece of marketing to your mix, contacting one more person, or one more closing. Be deliberate on what you can do that is just a little bit harder, a little bit faster, a little bit more than you did before. Your previous successes give you confidence to accomplish just a little bit more each time.
Growth Takes Time
There was no way I could have done 66,795 push-ups and sit-ups in a short period of time. I had a hard time thinking 365 push-ups were even possible in a single day when I started the program. Growth takes time! Likewise, don’t beat yourself up when you aren’t selling 100’s of houses each year as a rookie! Along these same lines, stop comparing your life to someone else’s and never compare your beginning to someone’s ending.
Your Success Benefits Others
My attitude and mindset ended up benefiting everyone around me. In my story, my family, my clients, and my coworkers all benefited from my positive outlook on life and accomplishing my big goals. Remind yourself of who else would benefit from a successful career in real estate. Dream a little bigger with me here…how would the people around you benefit if you focused on incremental improvement to accomplish your big goals? What if you found $100,000 income to be easy? Better yet, what’s stopping you from following all the great advice in this book and simply doubling the math? The simple mantra of “one more than yesterday” allowed me to accomplish big goals, but also had a ripple effect that changed my life, my health, my relationships, my business, and my career. This story continues to change me to this day! My hope and prayer is that you find inspiration in my story to go out and change your life for the better by focusing on incremental improvement.