My professional purpose is to help you, the broker, optimize your productivity and help you become the best version of yourself. Why? Because happy brokers sell more real estate. I do that by helping you handle challenges and opportunities that you face every day. If you can effectively manage certain situations that arise on a daily basis in your business, you'll be more productive and live a life that is the best version of you.
Today, as we dive further into this "Championships are Won in the 4th Quarter", I want to dive into the relationship between your Vision and its relationship with your Ego.
First, let me explain my thoughts on this topic. I look at #vision as the promises you've made to yourself while #ego is the positive and negative external drivers that motivate you. I want to make it clear that I will not try to define ego as something that is bad. In fact, I think if you are going to be a highly productive and evolved ELP (Elite Level Producer), you need to have some ego to give you that extra fuel needed to meet your vision. What I will try to do is help define ego and put it in it's proper place.
Ego without proper vision is what drives a business owner to build a massively successful company and sell the company for 10's or 100's of millions of dollars but without a long term vision, this business owner will be wildly miserable a month after the sale. Why? Because that person had never defined who they want to become or how they want to live. All of their self worth was wrapped up in their business. When the business is gone, so is the purpose.
On the other hand, a person with only vision and no ego, will get bored quickly and maybe even start feeling sorry for themselves. They will not not have the external drivers to get their butt out of bed in the morning to do the work.
So, as you can see, there is a symbiotic relationship between #vision and #ego. The challenge is finding the fine line between the 2. Here's several examples of the external driver (Ego) I've seen used in the world of brokerage and I'll explain the fine line you have to walk to stay centered. To properly stay centered, use the phrase, "Will I celebrate if..."
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"I want to be ____ on the Leaderboard to feel successful"
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"I want to be _____ in my market before I can work on all the other stuff."
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"I have to beat a particular broker in my market or I wont feel like I had a good year"
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"I have to make _________ proud or I won't feel successful."
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"I have to "keep up with Jones".
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"I've got to prove that I've still got it at my age."
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"I've got to show people that I can make a comeback after__________".
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"All of my friends from college__________. I need to stay one step ahead."
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"Because of how I grew up, I have to prove to people that I've got what it takes."
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"I'm just gonna grind because that's what I do. I don't need all this other stuff you're talking about."
Vision Beware: If this is all you have to motivate yourself, there will be a day of reckoning. At some point, you will wake up feeling empty and looking for an answer.
I'm going to let you in on a little secret: At one point in time, I have lived every single one of those thoughts I just laid out. 20% of people are motivated by inspiration (an Elon Musk) and 80% are motivated by desperation (fight or flight). I am personally part of the 80% that is motivated by desperation so yes, I have to use EGO as fuel. It's when I started using it as fuel to meet my vision that everything changed. I realized that if I stayed focused on my vision and had the patience to play the long game, all of the respect and recognition naturally followed. Kind of like the chicken and the egg, right? What comes first? What comes first always should be "YOU." Focus on you and define those other external motivations (EGO) and use them as fuel, as a scoreboards and mile markers.
We've talked a lot about boundaries and I need you to add what we've talked about today as a boundary. Use that phrase "Will I celebrate if....." . You need to become extremely aware of your relationship between your vision and your ego. If you are finding yourself focusing too much on external motivators, pull it back and get re-centered on how you want to live and who you want to become. If you are losing fuel for whatever reason, go out and get motivated, find your Goliath.
(Hint: I love measuring PPH profit per hour for this exact reason. Take your gross GCI on your 1099 and divide by the estimated hours you worked in a year. Use 2600 if you are struggling with an estimate.)
To be an ELP who is consistently growing both personally and professionally, you've got to be a little bit of a competitive #badass, but you've got to be strategic and thoughtful about everything. You've got to consistently manage that relationship between your vision and your ego or you'll find yourself off course quickly.
