Top Producing Mindset: Part 1 of 5 in a Series

Desire is the birthplace of motivation

Desire is the reason that you got into real estate. Desire for success, right? I’ll never forget, when I was 16 years old and in my mentor’s kitchen. My mentor was Jimbo. He was a millionaire, his family had invented the hay bailer, the pop-up bailer, and he poured into me. The guy was incredibly smart and he taught me how to think different. I actually already thought different when I met him and it was a kind of a “you’re one of me” type of relationship. You know when you meet one of us, there’s not a lot of people like us as entrepreneurs in the world.

I said Jimbo, I’m different, I feel like I’m different from all my friends. What they’re interested in versus what I’m interested in are two very different things. I want to live a legendary life, I want to live my life to the fullest, I don’t want to let fear stop me, I want to be able to go out there and do anything I want to do. I remember having that conversation and my conviction of truly believing that. Jimbo said welcome to the club; that’s the desire. It starts with desire; that’s where success starts. Not everybody has that desire, and I’m so grateful for mine because it drove me. My desire pushed me to get outside of my comfort zone, out of my nest, out on my own.

It’s important to know that most people who are in coaching or attending a conference or buying a product are doing so because they have the desire for a different result. Not everybody has the desire. Not everybody is willing to do what it takes. You want to do more, become more. You want to have different results. I call desire the birthplace of motivation. But here’s the problem, desire alone is not going to make you successful. Desire is the start. It takes your action to make that desire come to fruition.

From Potential to Skill

Everybody has potential. Everybody has God-given talents and strengths. Everybody! I do, you do, your customers do, your prospects, your team, etc.; and, it’s our job to find it. It’s also our job to water this potential that was given to us. It’s something that every one of you have, you have the potential but you have to develop and cultivate the potential to the point where your potential becomes skills.

That’s my purpose in life is to help people develop their potential to where it becomes a skill and give them the skills to go out there and make big things happen. In real estate, the stats are startling.

Take 100 agents from all over the country and here’s what will happen: In a year 1% of those 100 (one agent) will have exponential increases— they killed it, crushed it, did big things, and it was awesome. 4% had incremental increases; much better, it’s incremental. 95%, however, did the same amount of business or less. 95%!

I want you to be in that top 5% that are always growing, your income is always growing, your business is always growing, it never stays the same. Why? Because you’re growing. You’re doing the things that it takes today to get a different result tomorrow. My goal for you is to get you to that 5%; to equip you with the tools that you need to change the way to think.

It’s important to you because that’s where you get the freedom that you desire; that’s where you get the results that you want; that’s where you’re able to afford to be able to hire the person, to invest in this and that, that’s where you want to be; always growing to be a top 5%. I’ll tell you why most people fail and keep turning this industry’s revolving door. Agents fail because they have no plan, they don’t have any systems, no lead generation is planning. If they do they don’t have any follow-up, there’s no action being taken, no strategy and no execution. This is the reason that the 95% stay the 95%. What do you do about that? What must be done different to get a different result? I’m sure you’re hungry to be in the top 5%, you don’t want to be a 95%er; I get it; that’s not fun. We’ve got to know what we’ve got to do differently.

I’ll tell you this, you’ve got to change right now. Decide to embrace the change that you’re about to go through because change is the only way you’re going to be able to get the results; change the way you think; change what you’re doing. If you’re not happy today in your business; if you look at your business are you content, are you happy, are you where you want to be? My question is, are you? If you’re not, what do you have to do today to change the results? Your actions for the last six months are today’s result. So, whatever you’ve been doing the last 6 months today is the result of that. If you’re not happy with your results you’ve got to change what you’re doing.

Two Mindsets: Fixed vs. Growth Mindset

The problem with that is a lot of people don’t like change, but change is important. You’ve got to make the decision to be willing to change what you’re doing, always. A good book on this is Mindset by Dr. Carol Dweck. If you haven’t read it, I would pick it up immediately. It’s one of the best books on how to think different; how to have an incredibly powerful mindset; how to coach yourself on how to think.

The fixed mindset is this person believes that their intelligence, personality and character is inherent and static, locked down and fixed. They believe that potential is determined at birth; it doesn’t change. They’ll say to themselves: “I was born this way, it’s my destiny, it’s the way it’s supposed to be, there’s nothing I can do about it.” Some of you may have a fixed mindset, most people do. 98% of the population has a fixed mindset so the chances are that some of you listening have a fixed mindset.

I want you to determine right now what type of mindset you have. Is this you: are you the person who avoids failure, or do you have a desire to look smart, maybe you avoid challenges, you stick to what you know, feedback and criticism is personal, they don’t change, they don’t improve? They’re fixed; you can’t. On the other hand, we have the growth mindset. This is the mindset that is the most successful, the best of the best have a growth mindset. This is the mindset of the person who’s in the top 5%; this is what it takes; it takes the growth mindset to succeed. You have to have this mindset otherwise you’re toast.

The growth mindset is the belief that your intelligence, personality and character can be continuously developed and that your true potential is unknown and unknowable because you realize you can make anything happen and you can become anything.  When you do that, you realize you don’t know a whole lot and that’s what the growth mindset is about. This person has the desire for continuous learning, to confront uncertainties, embrace challenges, they’re not afraid to fail. They put a lot of effort into learning and feedback about current possibilities.

Which mindset do you have, do you have a fixed mindset or do you have a growth mindset? I have the growth mindset, I always have. At times, I may find myself doing a little fixed thinking, but I coach myself in that moment, don’t forget you’re a growth thinker, you can make anything happen. This philosophy and this understanding is important. It’s also important when you deal with people, whether it’s customers or even your family. A lot of your family members have a fixed mindset; you’re not going to change your family; you’re not going to change that person. As much as I want to change some people, I can’t because they have the fixed mindset; I can’t change them. As my mentor used to say, “You can’t teach a pig to sing because it’s really annoying to the pig and it’s a waste of your time.” It’s true. We want to become more of the growth thinker and know which type of mindset we have and what we need to become more of.

I’ll say it again, you can become and achieve anything you want. The reason is because of growth; because of what you can achieve. I went from working on a dairy farm, barely making it through high school, from a rural area in Missouri, to be able to live the life I have today, I look at that and say “Wow, you can do it.” The reason was because of a quote by Mr. Jim Rohn, “Success is something you become, it’s not something that you chase.” That’s a great way to think.

How do we think different; how do we have that top producing mindset and how do we create the lasting change? I don’t want to just change you for the week, I want to change you forever. And, I know that in order to change you forever we’ve got to dig deep; we’ve got to get right down to the core and we’ve got to be able to identify what we need to change. This quote is a great one by Mr. Jim Rohn, “If you want to have more, you have to become, more for things to change, you have to change. For things to get better, you have to get better. For things to improve, you have to improve. If you grow, everything grows for you.”

Here’s my challenge to you: Eliminate any fixed thinking in your life and business and realize that you can do anything, achieve anything. You do this by not only having the desire, but by building and cultivating your potential, and managing your fear in a way that allows you to take more action than everybody, empowering you to have a better understanding of what stops and sabotages you.