What does it take to succeed? To meet your goals? To build a thriving investment business? To have significance and contribute to your community?
If you observe successful real estate investors, you’ll see that they have a few things in common. They share some mindsets and habits that you can adapt. And if you do, you’ll be successful.
These aren’t easy things to do. But then most things worth doing aren’t easy. So if you’re ready for a challenge, read on.
1. OWN IT
Successful investors take 100% responsibility for where they’re at in their lives today. They don’t shift the blame, complain, or make excuses. And they say they’re 100% responsible—not 95% or 80% responsible.
If you have that kind of mindset, it’s actually really empowering. It means that you’re the one who got yourself to where you are today. And that you have the power to shape what happens tomorrow.
It works like this: event -> response -> outcome
You’re going to make mistakes as a real estate investor. That mistake is an event. And you control your response to that event. If you own that mistake and look at it as an opportunity, then you can respond in a way that will generate a positive outcome.
Life is an experiment; don’t be afraid to test different approaches until you get the results you’re looking for.
2. LEARN MORE TO EARN MORE
Successful entrepreneurs are always learning. Going for a jog? Pop on a podcast or audiobook and do a little learning. Getting ready for bed? Read a chapter or two of a book before you doze off.
The goal here is to do learning that is going to make you more valuable to more people. Choose material that’s relevant and helpful, and then share what you learn.
3. BE CLEAR WHY YOU’RE HERE
Do you have a clear vision, values, and goals?
If you want to succeed, you can’t just dream vaguely about the future. You need a dialed-in focus on what you truly want. You need measurable financial, business, and relational goals. And you need stretch goals that are going to force you to grow.
You shouldn’t just say “I want to live by the ocean.” That sounds nice. But which ocean? When do you want to be living there? What kind of house do you want to be living in? What city or town?
If it can’t be measured, it’s not a goal.
And once you have those goals, you need to commit to them—publicly.
If you tell someone else, make a public declaration of your goal (maybe a social media post), and especially have someone check in on you regularly about your progress, you are much more likely to meet your goals.
Post lists of your goals where you see them every day. Make them your screensaver. Put them on your bathroom mirror. Save them on your phone.
Then every day, follow the Rule of 5: do five specific things every day that help you achieve your major goal.
4. BE ACTION-ORIENTED
Entrepreneurs who succeed don’t just think and plan; they take action and respond to feedback.
Thinking and planning are absolutely necessary. But if you don’t take action, if you want to plan out every possible scenario, you’re still going to be planning while your competitor is well on their way to building their business.
Take the ready-fire-aim approach. Do what you can to prepare. Then take action. Then learn from the results and make adjustments—and quickly take action again.
5. RELY ON OTHERS
Successful entrepreneurs rely on other people who have more experience. This could be a coach, mentor, accountability partner, or members of a mastermind group.
You will accelerate your growth if you are regularly receiving feedback from someone who knows what to look for. One successful real estate investor I know is still meeting with his accountability partner 7 days a week after 10 years. He has seen growth in every area of his life because of this relationship.
And you shouldn’t just be taking. You should also be giving back to others.
Grow your visibility, credibility, and profitability by finding ways to build back into your community. Ask others how you can help them achieve their #1 goal. And then follow through. You will build credibility when you build to the success of others, and those people you help will be more than willing to recommend you or do you a favor in the future, which builds your profitability in the long-run.
6. BUILD A ROCKSTAR TEAM
If you’re a solo entrepreneur, it’s time to hire an executive assistant. Focus on doing the research, networking, and marketing that’s going to grow your business, and let your assistant do everything else.
Hire for character, passion, and vision. Your team members should understand your why and enthusiastically support it. Ask people how they feel when they look at a task they completed. Look for those people who feel stimulated and inspired by the work they do.
After you hire them, provide plenty of training. Take the time when they join your team to make sure they know what they’re doing. Give them feedback. Work alongside them. Allow them to shadow you and discuss what they see. Encourage them to propose new training opportunities.
And make sure you’re doing everything you can to keep them. Make sure they know they matter. Find out what makes them feel appreciated—encouragement, time, gifts, service—and intentionally do those things. Support their personal goals. These are the kinds of things employees say they value most—even more than the right salary.
7. STICK TO THE SCHEDULE
Successful entrepreneurs don’t work all the time. But when they work they are laser-focused.
For me, the most effective way to schedule my time is to plan focus, buffer, and free days.
Focus days are the days you get the work that makes you money done. Don’t try to multi-task. Cut out the interruptions from your phone, your staff, your email notifications. Just do the money-making things—and these should be things you enjoy, since you’re building a team to handle the rest of the tasks.
Your focus days should be like those days right before you go on vacation, when you get three times as much work done as usual. When you have that kind of focus your life is transformed.
On your buffer days, do all those chores and errands that need to get done. Any work you don’t do on your focus days—those tasks you’re responsible for but don’t love—should be done on your buffer days.
Then on your free days, do nothing work-related. Treat these days as sacred. Spend time with your family. Do things you love.
The only way this is really going to work is if you’ve trained your team to do what needs to be done. Empower them to make important decisions. Some jobs don’t need to be done the way you would do them. And other jobs you can train other people to do.
Make sure your team knows which days are your focus, buffer, and free days. That way you won’t have interruptions on your free days and you’ll have accountability to be working on your own tasks on focus days.
CONCLUSION
There you have it—the seven keys to success. They’re not easy. But they’re all completely doable. So get out there and do them!
Be Daring,
Josh
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