The Power of Present Goals

10 goals to help you enjoy the journey as much as the destination.

“Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.” -Napoleon Hill

Did anyone put Covid-19 on their Dream Board at the beginning of 2020? Did anyone account for civil unrest and political discord on their 5 Year Business Plan? In 2020 years of programming into a hypnotic rhythm have been shattered. Believe it or not our world, personal lives, and businesses can be significantly better on the other end of all of it! We have a valuable opportunity we should not let go to waste. 

I made a conscious decision to stop living in fear. The natural byproduct of which were the gifts of greater self-awareness and accountability. We cannot build a foundation of success on excuses and if we cannot be true with ourselves we are lying to everyone. I decided to speak my truth because no stage is worth a muzzle and I was unfriended by over 60 Facebook friends in a three week period. As far as I’m concerned the trash took itself out. 

I have no interest in going back to the way things used to be pre-Covid19. This is not Dao, or “the way”. This is not embracing the flow of life.  There is no need to swim upstream to a place we have already been to. What’s next? I have witnessed many talking about 2020 being a “waste”. They are missing a valuable opportunity to shift into a new consciousness. This might just prove to be the most valuable year of your career. If 2020 hasn’t been amazing, you might need better goals that allow you to constantly shift to the living world around you.

1. Set goals where I will enjoy the journey, not just the destination.

While goal setting we should ask ourselves; am I going to enjoy this journey? There’s nothing wrong with working in real estate and doing 20-25 transactions a year! This would be considered a good living for anyone, period. 

If you have a hunter within you who loves to shoot for big goals; do it! Just don’t be pissed off the whole time on your journey to get there. I find more people meet or beat their goals when they are not in competition with the outside world. They are doing something they are passionate about and so the competition is internal. 

You will never be able to get someone who loves to make cold calls off the phone. However, if someone hates the phone, like I do, getting them to make cold calls is like pulling teeth. Do you. You don’t have to be anything other than you. There is no one pathway to success. Set goals you enjoy traveling to not just goals that check out with your Broker, Team Lead, or Coach.

2. Be present in all things.

Be present in every moment; with your clients, family, and in your alone time. If you know what you need to do and are doing it there should be no guilt associated with setting out to accomplish the task at hand. For example; if you are working an open house and are missing the day with your family it can be easy to think of it as a lost day. Especially if no one comes to the open house. “The day was wasted”, we think to ourselves. “I could have been at home with my kids, watched a movie,  I could have even cleaned the house!” 

If we are honest with ourselves we didn’t have a present open house. The whole time at the open house we were thinking about all the other things we could be doing with our time. The shame is; when we get home at the end of the day we will feel guilty because our open house was not productive and we will probably end up doing some work at home. We should have just worked at the open house! Even if people are not coming in, it does not prevent you from dialing out and setting that same-day appointment. 

Many of us live in a constant state of guilt for what we are not currently doing, instead of jumping 100% into the activity of the present moment. If you want to be the best; be the best at having dinner with your family, be the best at having a productive open house, be the best at answering all the questions which need to be answered by your curious kids, clients, and the newest agent in your office. You can have it all if you stop waiting to get somewhere to have it. 

3. Tune humanity. Do not cause unnecessary discord.

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” -Maya Angelou

People speak of the silent harmony of the world in vibrations, frequencies, or Quantum Mechanics. Bringing it back to the five-sensory realm you have probably heard it said “hurt people, hurt people.” Well, people who are out of tune with themselves will only put others out of tune and off-balance. You can’t be a Team Lead living your life out of balance and not expect your team to follow suit.

There are times when people, or issues, must be addressed. When and if that time comes; “say what you mean, mean what you say, but don’t say it mean.” Be harmonious. Do not cause unnecessary discord. More might depend on it than feelings. This being said, if there was nothing else other than a person’s feelings at stake, wouldn’t that be enough?

4. Give without expectations.

We go into many professional and personal relationships with the thought love, time, and money are resources to be invested with an expectation of a return on investment.  When you give love from a place of abundance there is less of a necessity to track your ROI. Love is not a depreciating asset nor does not have a limited supply of it. When I am kind to a person in passing in the morning, do I, therefore, have less kindness to give to the next person in the afternoon? The notion is ridiculous. Yet we hoard our love and kindness like we only have so much of it to give. 

“What you appreciate appreciates.” -Lynn Twist

This is another way of saying; “when you love something, you will find more of it to love”. When you hate something, you will find an abundance of it to hate. Spend more time on thoughts of love and abundance. Start your day with this meditation; I have everything I need right now. I am everything I need right now. Stop listening to anyone telling you otherwise. Everything in this moment is abundant even if you have bills due and lack food in the refrigerator. Take away the immediacy and the fear. Whether you move through your day angrily with an inability to cope or decided to fill yourself with love and acceptance for what is in front of you, the day will pass with the same amount of time on the clock. Your enjoyment of it, however, might increase exponentially.  

5. Live life as if.

If you want to be a guitarist you play guitar until your fingers bleed. If you want to be a car salesman you walk down to a car lot and start selling cars. However, for reasons I cannot understand, people believe if you want to be a Realtor you should constantly be attending classes and mandatory office meetings with other real estate agents and going to networking mixers and events with other real estate agents. Live your life as if you are working in the profession of your dreams. Work the way you would if you had already accomplished all of these wonderful goals! If you think you will stop working once you have made it, you may want to consider working in a different career.  

“Decide what to be and go be it.” -The Avett Brothers

Live your life as if you are a millionaire Realtor and make sure you work like one to get there! Live your life as if you are a millionaire investor, and make sure you work like one to get there! If you want to be a writer but aren’t writing books, why would someone suddenly pay you to write books? If you aren’t out practicing real estate, why would someone suddenly call you and pay you to practice real estate? 

6. Live freely.

“Can you do what you want to do with your time tomorrow? If you can’t, then I’m sorry to break it to you; you’re not free. Freedom is financial freedom.” – Daron Campbell

You can either do better to live within your means or increase your means. How do you increase your means? By making your time more valuable and becoming more efficient. We participate in far too many of the activities which are not making us money. We occupy ourselves with busy work and wonder why we are not getting paid. 

In The One Thing, by Gary Kelley and Jay Papasan, urges us to focus on the one thing which, by focusing on it, will make everything else less necessary or unnecessary. Why plan five years out? Simply prioritize your one thing now. The people who plan 5 to 7 years out, are the people consistently thinking about chess in terms of 5 to 7 moves out and they rarely get there. They are looking at the future and trying to make it fit into a pre-existing game plan they have orchestrated in their head. 

I read about a chess master in the book The Autistic Brain by Temple Grandin. He once beat over 30 other chess masters, simultaneously. At the end of the tournament, after beating all the other players, he was asked how he was able to keep track of all of the moves in his head. He responded he didn’t plan several moves ahead, he looked only for “the next best move”.

7. Take Time to Respond, Limit Reactions.

Take a moment, then return that call. Take a moment, then respond to your kids. Take a moment when you feel the emotions swelling up in you and consult with your anger, sadness, or anxieties as they pop up. Don’t allow these emotions access to the driver’s seat but don’t shove them aside either. Take a deep breath and think about your response. It’s highly meditative to allow yourself a moment to be present when everyone around you seems to be stuck in reaction mode. 

Professor Tony Atwood touches on the practical powers of meditation in a phenomenal TED Talk. He goes on to explain the most basic intellectual benefits behind meditation, which often go overlooked in the intellectual community. 

“(For those that) value intelligence, highly, it’s not that you’ll feel good. It makes you smarter. Cause if you are calm and relaxed, you make good decisions. If you get upset your IQ drops 30 points.” -Professor Tony Attwood

Whether you are meditating to feel better or are meditating to increase your intelligence during times of stress, it is a valuable tool to help recognize emotion when it comes in and rise above it with a thoughtful response. We remember loving people for their abilities to respond with grace and tact. We remember them for their ability to remain calm during the storm. We remember fearful people for their abilities to react and spread more fear. The moments between reacting and responding will determine the colors used to paint the portrait of how we are remembered in the minds of those who loved us.

8. Consciously choose love over fear.

They say fear of loss is one of our biggest motivators. What would we accomplish, and how would we accomplish it, if we stopped being so fearful? Every successful person knows failure is a natural component in growth. I interviewed J. Massey a few years ago and asked him what his biggest piece of advice is for new real estate agents and he responded; “Fail early, fail fast, fail often.”

When Steve Jobs was asked about the failure he said “there is virtually no consequence to failure”. It is all perceived failure. It is ego. We lose so much opportunity when fear entangled with our egos.  I could never begin to explain all of the successes my failures have brought me. I hope I am just beginning to tell this story. I have always been willing to fail. My first wife had a beautiful quote framed on the wall of my daughter’s room next to a picture of Winnie the Pooh. The bear has his paw tied to a balloon which has brought him up off the ground. Winnie the Pooh is looking up at the bugs flying around him, not down at the distance he may fall. In the sky the words are written;  

“’What if I fall?’ ‘Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?’” -Erin Hansen

Take your bumps! Get knocked down. Don’t decide you will not climb because you have fallen. Worse: don’t decide you will not climb because you know of someone who has fallen. This is real estate! You will know more people who have failed than you will know people who have succeeded. The difference is what they do after the failure. Champions are made in the getting up! Careers are made in the rebound! Do not be so afraid to fail that you don’t try.

9. Hear the words behind the words by taking the time to listen.

Though I have had many six-figure earners on my teams I have never made an agent $100,000. I have provided the platform for them to be heard, understood, and realize they already had it in them to make that kind of money. They were already good enough. Sometimes we just need someone to sit and listen. Far too often the person listening gets caught up in providing an answer, instead of letting the person talking come to their own conclusion. When we provide answers for another person not only will they be less likely to receive them, but they will be less likely to draw the conclusions for themselves in the future. 

As a team lead, a broker, or a friend you are providing a platform for another person to be heard, understood, and be seen far past all the internal shame they have been carrying for much of their lives. Receiving a person’s story, or listening to a person’s reasoning, without judgement, will bring you to a place of such great intimacy with the person you will actually start to have a greater understanding of yourself.

10. Go Home and Love Your Family.

“If you want to change the world, go home and love your family”.  -Mother Teresa

Feel free to have business goals and crush them but go home and love your family. When you have checked out of work, check out completely. Whether it is for a 15-minute minibreak, an hour, or for the rest of the evening. We get ourselves into trouble with all of the things we are kind of doing. We kind of work, we kind of meditate or pray, we kind of spend time with the family, but not really. 

The I am always reachable world is really never reachable. The moment is as fleeting as their attention span, which is often more tied to the device in their hand than the company before them. Time and time again, in my first marriage, I rushed up from the dinner table for a showing. I cancelled family plans to accommodate clients who could have waited an hour or two. I lost touch with moments I will never get back because of my willingness to abandon the moment, even if for just a moment, for the ding of my cell phone. There is no reason to check the phone out of the corner of your eye. You are not fooling anyone, least of all yourself. 

It is easy to get caught up in our disappointments in society and forget that we are society. I have learned so much from friends, co-workers, and mentors over the years but the lessons pale in comparison to what I have learned from my family. At the end of the day my family still around. I know how fortunate I am to realize how important they are to me before reaching my deathbed. They will likely be the ones to see this life through with me, and one day scatter my ashes to the wind. As much as I love everyone, it will not be my clients, my friends, my fellow veterans, or my readers. It will be my family. The burden will be there’s to carry. The ones who will take care of and uphold me in death deserve me most in life. 

In Conclusion

“I now pray, not for more of this world’s goods and greater blessings, but to be worthy of that which I already have. I find that this plan is better than the old one.” -Napoleon Hill

Do you think the people at the top of their own personal mountains don’t have anything to prove because they have already made it? Or do you think they made it because they already felt like they had nothing to prove? Many successful people knew who they were to the world and where they belonged long before everyone else did and then they set out to rectify the situation with the universe. Most importantly; when we become the person we are striving to become, we may find more gratitude for that which we already have and might realize things may not been the goal after all, but a life well-lived.  

So, aren’t you worthy now? If you were to treat yourself like you were worthy, how would the world treat you? Where are we trying to get? Haven’t we already arrived? Then put on your crown, Kings, and Queens, and act the part. 

The great experiment continues…