Personal Growth
The key to getting from where you are right now to where you want to be is personal growth. We get paid by bringing what to the marketplace? Value. How do you double your business? Bring double the value to the market. Want to triple your business? Bring triple the value to the marketplace. If you can focus on this one thing you can always get to the next level. Getting to where you want to be is not about your next big lead source or tapping into a new market or niche. Personal growth is what increases your value and to grow, you need to develop your skills.
The question is, what skills do you need to develop? Recently, I spoke with a gentleman on a coaching call and he asked, “Should I focus on one thing at a time, developing one skill at a time, or do I focus on trying to read all these different books and become better in all these areas?” This is a great question! I remember when I was struggling with that question. I was a great salesperson, I could sell! At the time, I’d already knocked on hundreds of thousands of doors, made hundreds of thousands of calls. I could sell. You couldn’t penetrate my mindset.
I could hear, “No!” a thousand times in a day, and at the end of that day, I still had as much enthusiasm working up to that thousandth “No,” as I did on the first “No.” I developed and mastered that skill through repetition. I did good up until about $300,000. That skill made me about $300,000. I remember thinking, if I can become as good of a marketer as I am a salesperson, if I knew how to get my phone to ring, and I know how to create an ad that got the prospects to respond, how to create a headline that hypnotized them into picking up the phone and calling me, if I could do that coupled with my experience in sales, I could double my business, my revenue. So, that’s what I did.
I mastered marketing. Every book that I read that year was all about marketing, direct response advertising, and branding. A year later, I won a “Marketer of the Year” award because I worked so hard on developing that skill in that year. Today, I’m using what I learned during that year of my life. Why? Because once it’s in you, you always have it in you. Marketing, selling, leadership, communication, there’s all these different skills that are important for you to develop. That’s how you want to look at it. So, my question is, what skill do you need to develop? What skill, if you developed, would allow you to double your business?
Is it having a better mindset set or maybe a system where now you think more in terms of passing batons instead of tossing bowling balls? It could be in marketing where you make the shift from thinking that you’re in the real estate business to realizing you’re in the marketing business- you’re in the getting the phone to ring business. Is it conversion, is it getting people to say yes? What skill, if you focused on for the next 12 months, would allow you to have exponential increases in your business?
We want to not only succeed now, but we want to always be succeeding at every level. My income, personally, goes up every year and it always has my whole life. That’s what happens when you have this mindset; your income always grows. I’m going to grow every year, I’m like a bamboo tree. Every year I’m growing, every year I’m at a different level because of the people in my life, things that I became aware of, things that I’ve learned from. A big reason that this has happened in my life is because I’ve always invested in myself. If you look at my library, I’m 35 years old today, but I have a library that most people wouldn’t accumulate in a lifetime. Over 1,000 books. I invest in everything. When I go to seminars, I’m the biggest buyer in the room. I invest in coaching, books, and products. I always invest in those things because I don’t know what I need to know today to get to where I’m going to be and the bridge between those two are those books, those products, or the knowledge I don’t yet have. I’m going to take that knowledge that I don’t have and I’m going to apply it to action which is experience where it becomes a skill. I’m going to apply it, learn from it, invest in it.
This is something that every winner has; they invest in themselves. They don’t consider hiring a coach as an expense. I pay a fortune for coaching but that’s the only way my income goes up every year because I make those investments. I believe that investing in yourself is a lot like tithing. For those of you that tithe, there’s a spiritual component to tithing that you can’t explain. When you start tithing how your bills start getting paid, money starts coming in from different places. Why? It’s spiritual. I believe that investing in yourself is spiritual. I believe that when you make the investment and take the action that there is something that just happens that is hard to explain. Let’s face it, there’s a lot of people who don’t invest in themselves, but in personal growth you’ve got to start by making the investment in yourself. That right there my friend, is the best investment you could ever possibly make, the investment in yourself. The investment in yourself to develop the next skill. Nobody can ever take that away from you, rob you of that.
Models
What is the next step? What do you do? Great, I know what I want but what is the next step for you? The next step in always getting what you want… Who is your model? You want to double your business next year, lose 20 lbs. in the next 20 days, save $100K in the next 100 days, who’s your model? Always ask yourself the question of who is my model, who am I following? Am I reinventing the wheel or am I finding somebody who is already successful and what it is that I’m trying to become successful at, and duplicating their results.
Tony Robbins has a great quote to bring this home, “I you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you’ll achieve the same results.” It’s that simple: buy speed. Learn from other people’s experience. Don’t waste time, make an investment to buy speed.
Just a few months ago, I wanted to learn Evernote and I wanted to bring Evernote into our team for systems and organization. I knew it was kind of a complex beast in a lot of ways, so the first thing I did was find my model. Who’s my model? I Googled the best Evernote coaches and consultants, and I found a list I narrowed down from 10 to 3. I interviewed the top 3 and I found the best Evernote expert in the entire world. This lady is amazing! I called her office and said, “Can I hire you to give me one month of coaching to show me and my team everything that you know in Evernote?” She accepted and that’s what we did. It wasn’t even that much. I was actually kind of surprised. Trust me the learning curve would have been much more than the investment I made in coaching. I hired the expert to teach me what she knows so I buy speed. That’s always the answer.
This morning I went to the country club to work out with my trainer James. The guy’s 70 years old, has a 6-pack, and is one of the most ripped people I know and he’s 70. He’s my model for fitness. I want to be like that guy when I’m 70. I want him to teach me what he knows to bring the knowledge into me, to learn from his experience so I can get to that next level physically. Always have a model, always know what you want.
Models can come in the form of mentors or coaches. There’s a difference. For those of you in our coaching, you pay for that just like I pay for a lot of my coaches. But there’s always mentors. I’ve had amazing mentors in my life, starting with Jimbo, who was my first mentor and whose parents invented the hay bailer. He’s the one who poured into me at a young age. I believe he was put in my life for a specific reason otherwise I wouldn’t have done the things I needed to do early on in my life. Those relationships with your mentors are special. Look around, do you have mentors and coaches that are helping you, pouring into you, helping you buy speed, helping you not make the same mistakes that maybe they made? Look around and if those people aren’t in your life ask yourself why. Somebody said, “Hoss, I’ve never had a mentor.” I said, “Stop acting like you know it all.” If you keep an open mind and you stay learning-based, always taking action, and have definiteness of purpose, the right people come into your life. Take more action, have more faith, stop acting like you know it all, and you’ll have more mentors come into your life. Coaches and mentors are an incredible way to help you model. It’s the same thing with products and training. We have Hoss Pratt Success Systems to help people with models, we give them the models for success. We have products and training that include everything from exclusive live events and workshops to products like Listing Boss. These are things that will help you close this gap.
What about audio books? How many books do you have? Do you have a library? It’s important because rich people have libraries and poor people have TVs. You want to have a library. Make those investments in yourself. What about a mastermind group? Do you have a group of peers that you’re always learning from, learning from each other, holding each other accountable? Who are those peers? Who is on your life team? These are important because these people provide models. My question to you is who is your model; who are you modelling? I want to talk more about models and why this is important but I want to take a step back. In order for us to know what model we need we’ve got to remove some limitations in our thinking.
4 Phases of Success
Let’s break this down and I want to help you by helping you change your story. What is your story? Here’s what I mean by what’s your story.
There are four phases of success:
. Adrenaline Phase
. Choice Phase
. Story Phase
. Results Phase
When I first moved to Dallas, Texas, I was in my early 20’s and I didn’t know a single person. It was in November and I needed to get a job selling something to help me get my bearings as I decided what the next step was going to be. So, I did what every person does that doesn’t have a college degree and knows how to sell, I go look for a job selling cars. This was after 9/11.
I talked to a gentleman at GM at Sam Pack’s 5-Star Ford in Dallas. I went in there and said, “Sir, I want a job.” He says, “We’re not hiring anybody (it’s after 9/11, nobody is buying cars).” I said, “I can sell just give me the job, give me the opportunity.” Long story short, he gives me the job.
Two weeks later, I’m sitting there thinking, “What did I do?!” I left a successful business to move to a market where I don’t know anybody, waiting for people to come to me. Nobody’s coming to me because nobody’s buying cars. This is brutal. Such a dumb idea. What if I have to move back? What was I thinking? Why did I leave everything that I had back home to come here and do this? Why?!”
This is the important part. Adrenaline is easy. Adrenaline is what got me there. It’s like when you first get into real estate and you’re excited “Yeah, I’m going to real estate school. I’m getting my license.” Wait for it, right?
You will always be smacked straight up in the face with the choice phase after you take action. The choice phase says, “Oh my gosh, did I do that? Was that the right choice? Should I have left my full-time job to go into real estate? Should I have sold my successful lawn business to move to a market where I don’t know anybody to start all over? Was that the right choice?” We are all hit that choice phase.
This is important, whatever you do with the choice phase becomes the story phase. The story phase is where you go to work beginning the story around your choice. For example, when nobody was buying cars and I was frustrated, I picked up the phone and called my dad. I said, “Dad, look, I’ve been selling cars for two weeks and nobody’s coming to buy. I don’t think I made the right choice, I think I made a mistake.” My dad replied, “It’s okay Hoss, come back. Don’t worry about it. We’ll act like this thing never happened. I love you buddy, you’re good! Come back home.” My dad was encouraging me to come home. Why? Because he loves me, he’ll take me back, like he would any of his kids- like we do with our kids. We love them and if they’re ever in trouble, they’ve made the wrong choice, the door’s always open.
Then I called my mentor, Jimbo, and told him I thought I made a mistake, left my lawn service, don’t know anybody, I think I’m going to move back. He says “Hoss, are you done? If you move back, you’re the biggest loser on the entire planet! If you move back, you’re going to be the laughing stock of the entire town. If you move back, it’s going to be the single biggest mistake you’ll ever make in your life and you’ll never get a chance to do it over so, choose wisely.
I hung up the phone and said, “I’m never moving back.” That’s the story I told myself: I’m never moving back. If I move back it means I failed. It’s just as easy to choose the other side of the story, so you have to choose wisely and you have to have models that will push you to push yourself to not give up. At every level, you’re going to have to choose what story you’re going to tell yourself. Determine your story before you even start looking for answers because you’re always going to believe what supports your story. That’s the reason I called my dad first, I knew what he would tell me. I didn’t even want to call my mentor because I knew what he would tell me. Your story is something you’ve got to keep building; you’ve always got to be building your success story because on the other side of your story are results.
So, what is your story? What story are you telling yourself? My story was that I didn’t want to work weekends, I’m never moving back, I’m going to list to last, I’m taking 30 listings a month every month. My story is I can achieve anything, become anything, do anything that I set my mind to. I can accomplish anything! What is your story about yourself? In order to change your story, you have to change your beliefs. And, beliefs run deep, from your history, your childhood, your role models, everything that you were ever told or experienced.
I’m going to help you break free from some of these beliefs that maybe hold you back. Things that you believe or don’t believe about yourself can prevent you from getting to that next level in your business, in your life. We’ve got to be able to take control of these beliefs. One thing I’ve learned, again, at every level, is I’ve got to change my beliefs time and again. I’ve got to change what I think I know.
Beliefs
Where do they come from? Your beliefs are something believed, an opinion or conviction. If you believe it, it’s a conviction; in your mind, it’s a fact. You won’t think about it twice. Your story is built from your beliefs and you’re 100% responsible for these. Some of you have winning beliefs, some of you have losing beliefs. Some of you have scarcity beliefs, some of you have abundance beliefs. You always become what you think about.
Four factors determine the beliefs that build your story:
. Environment
. Events
. Knowledge (what you know or don’t know)
. Results (what you achieve or don’t achieve)
Environment
You become a product of your environment. Make sure your environment is one you want to become a product of. If I didn’t call my mentor Jimbo who spoke some sense into me, who was in my environment, I wouldn’t be here today. It’s important to have people like Jimbo in your environment to tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it; to hit you between the eyes, if you need to be hit between the eyes; and, slap you upside the head, if you need to be slapped upside the head. It’s important to have truth tellers, the people who will tell you what you don’t want to hear in your life because you become a product of your environment and you want to make sure that your environment is one you want to become a product of. I challenge you to look around who’s in your life, who’s in your business, who are you spending your time with, who are you talking to, are they positive or negative, are they encouraging or discouraging, do the empower you or disempower you, do they lift you up or tear you down, are they someone who believes in you or doesn’t believe in you.
You want to surround yourself with the people who are the doers, the action takers, the people who lift you up and encourage you. Here’s the challenge with that: not everybody is like that. 98% of the population is not like that. They don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t invest in coaching. They wouldn’t even read what you’re reading right now because they would never make the investment. We want to always keep our environment in check. A lot of times your environment is small. My environment, who I let in and who I chose to spend my time around, is pretty small. Why? Because I have high standards. I don’t hang out with just everybody because I’ve got to be around the best, people who stretch me, who encourage me, who shatter my beliefs. Being that there’s not a lot of people around to do that, a lot of times, it’s lonely at the top. Ever heard that? That’s why. Be okay with being lonely in your pursuit of getting to the next level. Not everyone is going to that next level with you.
Events
Events form your beliefs. What’s happened to you to shape your beliefs? When that person hung up on you and called you the biggest worthless piece of you-know-what in the world, did you tell yourself you’ll never make another call again?
I remember when I first got into real estate, I didn’t sell anything my first six months. It was brutal. These events, these things that were happening to me helped fuel my beliefs of why I wasn’t made for this. What a lie, what a joke. Think about it: nothing in life has any meaning except the meaning you give it. Life happens for you, not to you. Know that events and things that happen in your life don’t matter, what matters is how you react to those events. Choose to be empowered by the events that happen in your life.
Knowledge
The other thing that forms your beliefs is knowledge, what you know or what you don’t know. Understand this: you are the same person today that you’re going to be in five years except for the people you meet and the books that you read. How much are you going to grow in the next five years? It comes down to the books and the people that you choose to learn from. Your goal is to gain knowledge because gaining knowledge creates awareness. One of the best books you can read about this is Mindset by Carol Dweck. In it, you see the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset; knowing that you can grow because gaining more knowledge creates more awareness which creates more action that you can take.
Results
If I took 30 listings in 30 days once, then I can do it again. If I converted that hard-to-sell prospect on the phone, then I can totally sell the next tough one. If I did that, then I can absolutely do this. This type of thinking is a result of your results. The opposite can hold true. Based on your previous results, you could say, “This isn’t for me because I’ve been selling real estate for three years and 15 is the most homes I ever sold in a year. I’m never going to get to that 30-unit mark, that 50-unit mark, or that 100-unit mark because I’ve never even gotten past the 15-unit mark.”
You’ve got to self-assess: what have you got to change and what’s holding you back? Changing your beliefs will help you change your story and when you change your story you can truly change your results. So, what’s the story that you’re telling yourself on a daily basis? What’s the story that you believe in, the story you’re fighting for, the story you’re running from, what’s the story that encourages you, that drives you every single day? My story is success, Hoss 2.0, the best me that I can be, on the other side of fear and action. Those are things right there that impact how you think and the mindset that you have every day. I want to help you realize your best mindset possible so that you can live legendary. Isn’t that the goal for most of us? You ran from the 9-5, the salary position to what? You want to live legendary, you want one life fully lived. You want to be able to live the life that you want in a big way, or let’s face it, it’s not worth it.
Living Legendary
You can live legendary if you think legendary. I’ll never forget my first year of real estate, I was listing anywhere from 20 to 30 homes a month and I set my goals. I had this gentleman who was one of my coaches and mentors, and I sent him my business goals and he said, “Hoss, always remember the Brinks truck doesn’t follow the hearse. I remember getting that email and saying what’s he talking about?” I was in my early 20’s so the Brinks truck was all I ever thought about at the time. Like any ambitious young kid, I didn’t care about anything other than making money, taking action, and achieving. So many of us don’t realize there’s a lot more to life than making money. There’s health, business, relationships, finance, spiritual, mindset, growth and lifestyle. All these things come into fruition in living legendary. What he meant by a Brinks truck doesn’t follow a hearse is that when you set goals, don’t just set business goals. Set all goals in all those other areas of life.
Question: Looking at the eight areas of living a legendary life, who is your model in each area? Who is your model for health, for business, for relationship, for finances, for spiritual, for having the right mindset, personal growth, for having the right lifestyle? For health, I have Tony and James; for business, I have Tony and Jim; relationships, I have Trae and Jim; spiritual, I have David and Dan. You want to have a model in each area that matters. I want to help you break this down because I want to help you achieve some of this. I know there’s a lot on mindset to take in but know that this is a journey, it’s not a sprint; it’s a marathon. This is stuff that you’ll always be working on. I’m always self-assessing at every level. Every day, I’m thinking through what needs to change; what needs to improve. The more you can coach and train yourself, the faster results will come and the more often they will come.
Part of your homework is I want you to break down each area in the eight areas of your life to live legendary. I want you to set one goal in each area. What’s one goal in your spiritual life that you can set right now that will help you? I love reading books that help me think different in regard to spirituality because it helps me with mindset; to me, they go hand-in-hand. What’s one goal in the spiritual area, for example, and one action that you can take to help you achieve that goal? One goal may be to meditate every day. One action may be to read a book on meditation. What’s the book? Research, write it down. You don’t need to read all the books; it comes down to just one action. What’s one goal in mindset? Maybe it’s to be more positive; one action – don’t entertain negative thoughts. Every time you catch yourself thinking a negative thought, snap yourself out of it. Literally, use a rubber band if you have to! Wear one around your wrist and the minute you catch yourself, snap it. You want to break it down to one goal and one action for each of those areas of our life.
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